15. My Stroke of Insight

By:  Jill Bolte Taylor, Ph.D.

Rated 4.5 Stars

Paperback

I so wish I could have had this book while my Mother was still alive.  Her brain disease affected the left hemisphere where the author had her stroke and I am seeing my Mother on every page.  I talked to my son about this book this morning about Mother and I know in my heart there is nothing I or anyone could have done to improve her condition but I sure could have understood what she was going through a lot better. I am finding a lot of comfort when the author talks about feeling peaceful detached from the world.  I'm hoping it was that way for my Mother.

Book Description:

On December 10, 1996, Jill Bolte Taylor, a thirty-seven- year-old Harvard-trained brain scientist experienced a massive stroke in the left hemisphere of her brain. As she observed her mind deteriorate to the point that she could not walk, talk, read, write, or recall any of her life-all within four hours-Taylor alternated between the euphoria of the intuitive and kinesthetic right brain, in which she felt a sense of complete well-being and peace, and the logical, sequential left brain, which recognized she was having a stroke and enabled her to seek help before she was completely lost. It would take her eight years to fully recover.

For Taylor, her stroke was a blessing and a revelation. It taught her that by "stepping to the right" of our left brains, we can uncover feelings of well-being that are often sidelined by "brain chatter." Reaching wide audiences through her talk at the Technology, Entertainment, Design (TED) conference and her appearance on Oprah's online Soul Series, Taylor provides a valuable recovery guide for those touched by brain injury and an inspiring testimony that inner peace is accessible to anyone

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.

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.

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.