10. The Distant Land of My Father: A Novel of Shanghai

By:  Bo Caldwell
Rated: 5 Stars
Kindle

I rated this book 5 stars for the fact that it made me think so much about the characters and what motivated them.  This would be an excellent book for a group as there is a lot to talk about and it would be interesting to what others thought about the book.

My reaction is that Anna's father Joe is one of the most conflicted, yet charasmatic characters I have read about in a . . . .  well I can't remember when a character made me like him, deeply dislike him and at times felt very sorry for him.   In fact in spite of flashes of intelligence I though he was really rather dumb, self absorbed and certainly clueless and insensitive about how his actions effected the people who loved him.  Still, I had to like him. sigh

Where this book really shone for me was in time and place.  Bo Caldwell did a marvelous job of putting the reader in Shanghi during WW2 and the years leading up to it.  I think she accurately  described the mind set of the international community during those days.

This was not an easy read for me in that my emotions were engaged on  almost every page.  Even when the action was slow I could feel the tension and undercurrents swirling around the characters and the feeling of waiting for the shoe to drop.  I highly recommend this book.

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2001

For Anna, the narrator of Bo Caldwell's richly lyrical and vivid first novel, growing up in the magical world of Shanghai in the 1930s and 1940s creates a special bond between her and her father. He is the son of missionaries, a smuggler, and a millionaire who leads a charmed but secretive life. When the family flees to Los Angeles in the face of the Japanese occupation, he chooses to remain, believing his connections and luck will keep him safe. He's wrong. He survives, only to again choose Shanghai over his family during the Second World War. Anna and her father reconnect late in his life, when she finally has a family of her own, but it is only when she discovers his extensive journals that she is able to fully understand him and the reasons for his absences. With the intensity and appeal of When We Were Orphans, also set in Shanghai at the same time, The Distant Land of My Father tells a moving and unforgettable story about a most unusual father-daughter relationship. 

9. Voice of the Violin

By:  Andrea Camilleri
Rated 3.5 Stars
Paperback Loan from Connie

I liked this book slightly less than I did The Terra Cotta Dog and The Snack Thief.  I thought it was kind of slow.  Also I had a feeling that Montalbano was going to mess up with Livia.  I am hoping that in future books he can bail himself out.


Book Description:

 As the fourth mystery in the internationally bestselling series opens, Montalbano’s gruesome discovery of a lovely, naked young woman suffocated in her bed immediately sets him on a search for her killer. Among the suspects are her aging husband, a famous doctor; a shy admirer, now disappeared; an antiques-dealing lover from Bologna; and the victim’s friend Anna, whose charms Montalbano cannot help but appreciate. But it is a mysterious, reclusive violinist who holds the key to the murder.

9. Horses Don't Fly

By:  Frederick Libby
Rated: 4 Stars
Kindle

While Fred's experiences as a member of the RAF were interesting they were fairly typical of what most flyers of that time went through.  What I found particularly interesting about this book was his experiences as a child growing up in a motherless household with a loving Father and brother.  His upbringing was without much feminine influence in his life and I think it gave him a rootlessness and recklessness that affected most of the decisions he made as a young man.  After he was in the war for a while he grew up pretty quick.

I didn't realize how easy it was at the time for men to cross the border from the US to Canada and to enlist in the Canadian army.  I knew it had been done but before I read this book I had not idea it had been so easy.  I enjoyed this book.

Publisher's Description:

Growing up on a ranch in Sterling, Colorado, Frederick Libby tamed countless horses, drove cattle, and even roped an antelope. When World War I broke out, he enlisted in the Canadian army with the same happy-go-lucky daring and grit with which he approached all things. In France, he became an aviator with the Royal Flying Corp, downing an enemy plane on his first day of battle over the Somme. He went on to become an ace, with 24 victories to his credit, just two less than Captain Eddie Rickenbacher. This is a rare piece of Americana, told in as pure and compelling a voice from the vernacular heart of this country as you will ever hear.

8. Where have You Gone Bernadette

By: Maria Semple

Rated 1 Star

Kindle Book

In spite of all the good reviews his book got on amazon I found it boring in the extreme.   I finally gave up on it.  Generally I like books that are over-the-top" but this book was over-the-top in that all the characters came across to me as extremely shallow.  The kind of people with way too much income and who think that all of life comes down to just being able to write a check which will entitle you to having your smallest desire granted regardless of how it will effect anyone else.

I guess the whole book is just not my kind of thing.I didn't like any of those people.

Book Description:

Bernadette Fox is notorious. To her Microsoft-guru husband, she's a fearlessly opinionated partner; to fellow private-school mothers in Seattle, she's a disgrace; to design mavens, she's a revolutionary architect, and to 15-year-old Bee, she is a best friend and, simply, Mom.

Then Bernadette disappears. It began when Bee aced her report card and claimed her promised reward: a family trip to Antarctica. But Bernadette's intensifying allergy to Seattle--and people in general--has made her so agoraphobic that a virtual assistant in India now runs her most basic errands. A trip to the end of the earth is problematic.

To find her mother, Bee compiles email messages, official documents, secret correspondence--creating a compulsively readable and touching novel about misplaced genius and a mother and daughter's role in an absurd world.

7. The Snack Thief

By: Andrea Camilleri
 Rated: 4 Stars
 Paperback Loan from Connie

Montalbano is such a great and quirky character. He's wonderful in so many ways --excepting his foul mouth which I find out of place for some reason,
 his love of fine food to his ability to see smells in color.  It's better in some ways than The Terra Cota Dog. I found Montalbano's refusal to visit his dying Father because he loved him too much to see him at death's door a little odd.  Surely the comfort he could have provided his father would have off set his "discomfort" but I am chalking this up to the possibility that his reaction is a cultural thing.  I did like his reaction to "The Snack Thief: but I am not altogether sure he is not really going to marry Livia when it comes to the sticking point.  But I did like the mystery very much and loved some of the secondary characters especially Signora Cozzo.

Book Description:

In the third book in Andrea Camilleri's Inspector Montalbano series, the urbane and perceptive Sicilian detective exposes a viper's nest of government corruption and international intrigue in a compelling new case. When an elderly man is stabbed to death in an elevator and a crewman on an Italian fishing trawler is machine-gunned by a Tunisian patrol boat off Sicily's coast, only Montalbano suspects the link between the two incidents. His investigation leads to the beautiful Karima, an impoverished housecleaner and sometime prostitute, whose young son steals other schoolchildren's midmorning snacks. But Karima disappears, and the young snack thief's life—as well as Montalbano's—is on the line..

6. The Case of the Missing Marquise

By: Nancy Springer
Rated 4 Stars

 I read this book in one night.  It was a fast but fun read.  I didn't think I was going to like it at first because it started off slow and I wasn't sure where the author was trying to go with Sherlock and Mycroft.  I hate it when  pastiche authors expect the established characters to carry all the water so to speak.  But Enola elbowed them both out of the way pretty quickly (she too is a Holmes after all) and the story zipped right along for me.  Thank you Sabrina for the recommendation.  I will be reading the sequels and I hope there will be many.

 Publisher's Summary

Two-time Edgar Award-winning author Nancy Springer introduces the sleuthing powers of Sherlock Holmes' sister in the captivating mystery Booklist and School Library Journal praise with starred reviews. Prompted by clues her missing mother cleverly left her, 14-year-old Enola races from the clutches of her captors. But how can Enola escape these slimy ruffians and find her mother?

5. The Terra-Cotta Dog

By:  Andrea Camilleri
Rated 3 1/2

Copy of an e-mail I sent to friend regarding this book:

Your right, I do need to re-read the book because I was very confused for a great deal of it.  To start with, it had nothing to do with the blurb which highlighted the bodies in the cave and that part didn't come into the story until about half way through so I was wondering if I had gotten the wrong recording.  I had that happen to me once so I knew it was possible.

Also the crude language kept jolting me out of the story.  Not because I am a prude but because it felt like the author just threw it in for effect.  But then I remembered that you had mentioned that this was the second book in the series and I decided that the author was still trying to find the right 'feel" for the character.  Then after a while the crude language stopped and I decided I was right.  THEN I realized that this series is being written by two authors instead of one and then I decided that one of them was a much better writer than the other and that was the reason for how uneven the language was and for the fact that the second half of the book was much better than the first half.

Well, by that time my head was starting to spin! <LOL>  I was very happy to get your comments because they were a great help.   I am going to save your spoilers and then relisten with all of them in mind.  And yes, I would like to continue to read the series because the venue is very interesting.  It is a little serendipitous that we just finished reading about Operation Mincemeat because it added some background for this story. I caught myself watching for the submarine lurking silently off shore. :) 

Publisher's Summary

Montalbano's latest case begins with a mysterious tête à tête with a Mafioso, some inexplicably abandoned loot from a supermarket heist, and some dying words that lead him to an illegal arms cache in a mountain cave. There the inspector finds two young lovers, dead for 50 years and still embracing, watched over by a life-sized terra-cotta dog. Montalbano's passion to solve this old crime takes him on a journey through Sicily's past and into a family's dark heart amidst the horrors of World War II bombardment.

Andrea Camilleri's Inspector Montalbano has garnered millions of fans worldwide with his sardonic take on Sicilian life. With sly wit and a keen understanding of human nature, Montalbano is a detective whose earthiness, compassion, and imagination make him totally irresistible.

4. The Walnut Tree

By:  Charles Todd
Rated: 4 Stars
Audiobook

For what it is, this is a very nice little book.  What it ISN'T is a Charles Todd mystery like the Ian Rutledge/Beth Crawford series.

It is a nice little romance/adventure story written in a style which ought to appeal to someone looking for a light and easy read with a good story and not to much tedious attention to details.  It should especially appeal  readers who are dipping a tentative toe into historical fiction from that era.

For those of you old enough to remember the Cherry Ames books Lady Elspeth is Cherry Ames reincarnated.  Back in the day when I was a young and enthusiastic reader (still enthusiastic BTW) developing my reading tastes and cutting my literary teeth on historical fiction I went through the Cherry Ames books like a hot knife through butter.

For those of you who don't remember them google Cherry Ames and you will see what I mean.  If my Granddaughter was still in her teens I would definitely buy this book as a birthday gift as I know she would have loved it.

For folks who are looking for a book written about this era but who want realism I recommend Vera Brittain's excellent book Testament to Youth.  That ought to be enough realism for anyone.

3. A Higher Call

An Incredible True Story of Combat and Chivalry in the War-Torn Skies of World War II

By:  Adam Makos & Adam Alexander

Rated: 5 Stars

Who knew that the first book I read in 2013 was going to be my top book for the year.  I say that because it's hard to imagine how I could like any book more than I liked this one.

I have read many books about WW2 but this is the first one that tells what the war in the air was like from a German point of view. Beautifully written, it simply tells the reader exactly how it was.  This is an important book for anyone interested in the history of this era.

Book Description:

Publication Date: December 12, 2012

Four days before Christmas 1943, a badly damaged American bomber struggled to fly over wartime Germany. At its controls was a 21-year-old pilot. Half his crew lay wounded or dead. It was their first mission. Suddenly, a sleek, dark shape pulled up on the bomber’s tail—a German Messerschmitt fighter. Worse, the German pilot was an ace, a man able to destroy the American bomber in the squeeze of a trigger. What happened next would defy imagination and later be called the most incredible encounter between enemies in World War II.

This is the true story of the two pilots whose lives collided in the skies that day—the American—2nd Lieutenant Charlie Brown, a former farm boy from West Virginia who came to captain a B-17—and the German—2nd Lieutenant Franz Stigler, a former airline pilot from Bavaria who sought to avoid fighting in World War II.

A Higher Call follows both Charlie and Franz’s harrowing missions. Charlie would face takeoffs in English fog over the flaming wreckage of his buddies’ planes, flak bursts so close they would light his cockpit, and packs of enemy fighters that would circle his plane like sharks. Franz would face sandstorms in the desert, a crash alone at sea, and the spectacle of 1,000 bombers each with eleven guns, waiting for his attack.

Ultimately, Charlie and Franz would stare across the frozen skies at one another. What happened between them, the American 8th Air Force would later classify as “top secret.” It was an act that Franz could never mention or else face a firing squad. It was the encounter that would haunt both Charlie and Franz for forty years until, as old men, they would search for one another, a last mission that could change their lives forever.

2. The Secret Listeners: How the Y Service Intercepted the Secret German Codes for Bletchley Park

By:  Sinclair McKay
Rated 5 stars
Audio Book

Copy of e-mail that I sent to a friend:

I just finished a book that is so much better than "The Enemy is Listening" that I just had to share with you about it.  It's on the same subject but is so much more comprehensive and therefore even more interesting as it covers the entire program from start to finish not just one person's perspective.  I would surely be wrapping it and getting ready to mail it off to you as soon as our roads melt a little but I bought it with my audible.com membership and I don't think you do audio books.

I found these books to be so interesting because they cover so much that I never had an inkling about before.  I should have, but it just never occurred to me.   And besides, the feminist in me loves the fact that  in the 1940's women in this program managed by sheer ability to overcome the "don't worry your pretty little head" or the "just hand me the bullets honey while I fire the gun" myth.  I think a lot of my fascination with WW2  comes from having so many childhood memories of those years.  Of course my perspective is as a child between 6 and 10 and are all from a perfectly safe and uneventful midwestern childhood.  Still I remember enough to make that era fascinating to me.  But this book took me by surprise because common sense should have told me that the program had to have had existed.  I read about Enigma and the Benchley code breakers practically ad nauseam and never once wondered how they came by all those codes they were breaking in the first place.  <Duh, Jeanette>

Anyway my recommendation is to consign The Enemy is Listening" to the PNBR (probably never to be read) pile and hunt up a copy of "The Secret Listeners."  It's a much better read. :)  And heaven knows any book must be a much easier read.  I really found that paperback a challenge to read.  That's why I was so quick to get the audiobook when I saw it.

Publisher's Summary

Before Bletchley Park could break the German war machine’s code, its daily military communications had to be monitored and recording by "the Listening Service" - the wartime department whose bases moved with every theatre of war: Cairo, Malta, Gibraltar, Iraq, Cyprus, as well as having listening stations along the eastern coast of Britain to intercept radio traffic in the European theatre. This is the story of the - usually very young - men and women sent out to far-flung outposts to listen in for Bletchley Park, an oral history of exotic locations and ordinary lives turned upside down by a sudden remote posting - the heady nightlife in Cairo, filing cabinets full of snakes in North Africa, and flights out to Delhi by luxurious flying boat.

1. Code Talker: The First and Only Memoir by One of the Original Navajo Code Talkers of WW II

Chester Nez one of the original 29 Navajo code talkers, shares the fascinating inside story of his life and service during World War II.

During World War II, the Japanese had managed to crack every code the United States used. But when the Marines turned to its Navajo recruits to develop and implement a secret military language, they created the only unbroken code in modern warfare—and helped assure victory for the United States over Japan in the South Pacific.

I found this book very interesting but also very upsetting.  The way the US has treated our Native American's is truly a disgrace.  But regardless of how much white people abused them and criticized their culture because they are not like "us" the Navaho's who volunteered to serve during WW2 deserve to be called noble.  They developed an unbreakable code  and then went into battle on the front lines to implement it and saved many, many livesAnd let me go on to say they got precious little thanks and no recognition for their service until many years the war and by then many of them had passed away.

Death Cloud (Sherlock Holmes: the Legend Begins)

By Andrew Lane
Rated 3 stars
Audiobook

This was simply an OK book.  Fortunately I didn't have enough invested in it to tick me off so I can simply shrug it off.

The problem for me with this one is that it was supposed to be about a young Sherlock Holmes and the author obviously had no feel what so ever as to the character of Sherlock Holmes.  This book could have been about any kid.  Any kid that is except Sherlock Holmes.

But to readers who are not long time Sherlock Holmes readers it probably worked for them.  But for long time Holmes fans and like I am that that are convinced that even as an infant he had a distinctive personality and his first words were probably uttered in a sarcastic tone the book fell utterly flat.  It's my opinion that the author should have used someone whose personality was not so distinctive  if they felt the need to use an established character to draw in readers.

Book Description

Release Date: October 25, 2011 | Series: Sherlock Holmes: the Legend Begins (Book 1)

It is the summer of 1868, and Sherlock Holmes is fourteen. On break from boarding school, he is staying with eccentric strangers—his uncle and aunt—in their vast house in Hampshire. When two local people die from symptoms that resemble the plague, Holmes begins to investigate what really killed them, helped by his new tutor, an American named Amyus Crowe. So begins Sherlock’s true education in detection, as he discovers the dastardly crimes of a brilliantly sinister villain of exquisitely malign intent.