31. The Boy's in the Boat

By: Daniel James Brown
Rated 5 Stars
Audible

This is one of the two really outstanding non fiction books I read recently.  I come from generations of farmers and I grew up listening to "how bad things were during the Depression"  But this is a book about more than just a story about overcoming hard times but about what we are made of and what we can accomplish if we really make up our minds to do it.

Publisher's Summary

For readers of Laura Hillenbrand's Seabiscuit and Unbroken, the dramatic story of the American rowing team that stunned the world at Hitler's 1936 Berlin Olympics.

Daniel James Brown's robust book tells the story of the University of Washington's 1936 eight-oar crew and their epic quest for an Olympic gold medal, a team that transformed the sport and grabbed the attention of millions of Americans. The sons of loggers, shipyard workers, and farmers, the boys defeated elite rivals first from eastern and British universities and finally the German crew rowing for Adolf Hitler in the Olympic games in Berlin, 1936.

The emotional heart of the story lies with one rower, Joe Rantz, a teenager without family or prospects, who rows not for glory, but to regain his shattered self-regard and to find a place he can call home. The crew is assembled by an enigmatic coach and mentored by a visionary, eccentric British boat builder, but it is their trust in each other that makes them a victorious team. They remind the country of what can be done when everyone quite literally pulls together - a perfect melding of commitment, determination, and optimism.

Drawing on the boys' own diaries and journals, their photos and memories of a once-in-a-lifetime shared dream, The Boys in the Boat is an irresistible story about beating the odds and finding hope in the most desperate of times - the improbable, intimate story of nine working-class boys from the American west who, in the depths of the Great Depression, showed the world what true grit really meant. It will appeal to readers of Erik Larson, Timothy Egan, James Bradley, and David Halberstam's The Amateurs.

America and Americans and Selected Nonfiction

By:  John Steinbeck
Rated 5 Stars
Audible

I haven't read many books lately but the few I had have been very enjoyable.  I have been diligently working on my quilt and listening while I read.

I bought America and Americans because 1) I like John Steinbeck's writing, 2) I wasn't aware he had written any  non-fiction, 3) it was written in an era that particularly interests me and 4) there are a bunch of snobby reviews on amazon about it that infer it would be over the head of any but the most  discerning readers.  

I am probably one of the most non discerning of readers but could never resist a challenge.  Beside Steinbeck was writing about my "times."  I miss the America I grew up in. 

The country and our society have changed dramatically in the years since the date it was published that it probably really does feel dated some young readers but for me it provides a picture of the times when I was young, and tells of the values of the time that I grew up in. Not all of them were laudable but at least I did not feel like an alien which I often do now days.  Every once in a while I look at my little black dog and remind him "Hobbs, we're definitely not in America any more."

Publisher's Summary

More than three decades after his death, John Steinbeck remains one of the nation's most beloved authors. Yet few know of his career as a journalist who covered world events from the Great Depression to Vietnam. Now, this original collection offers a portrait of the artist as citizen, deeply engaged in the world around him. In addition to the complete text of Steinbeck's last published book, America and Americans, this volume brings together for the first time more than 50 of Steinbeck's finest essays and jouralistic pieces.

32. Shadows of the Titanic

The Extraordinary Stories of those Who Survived

By"  Andrew Wilson

Rated 2 Stars

Audio Book

The book is a non-fictional account of the lives of a selected group of the survivors.  All of them very deeply effected by the experience, some of them so much that it changed the entire course of their lives.  A few were unable to cope and committed suicide. Some of them did not leave notes.  The author described the dying thoughts and actions of several people as if he had been there and was privy to their last thoughts.  This really bothered me.  It bothered me a lot.  I felt like the author was being disrespectful  to the people he was writing about.  These were real people!  He didn't even write any kind of disclaimer that explained why he decided he had the right to co-opt their last minutes. And then as a result of that I had another issue.   How much credence can you give to anything in the book once you feel the author did at least part of his research in thin air.

I did finish this book and had it not been for that I would have rated it at least four stars. It was well written and the subject of the book was interesting to me.  I just couldn't get past that author presumed to write about dying peoples last thoughts and actions in a way that he could not possibly have known about.

28. George VI

By Denis Judd
Rated: 4.5
Kindle

I hated to pay the kindle price for this book but finally broke down and bought it anyway.  It was very well written and it completes my close look at Britain during WW2 and the post war years I've had going for a while.

Publishers Description:

George VI was the man not born to be king. He nonetheless rescued the British monarchy in the aftermath of the abdication crisis and cemented its prestige with his well-judged performance during World War II and the Blitz. In this acclaimed biography, Denis Judd tells the story of Prince Bertie’s transformation into King George VI including his struggle with a crippling shyness and sense of inadequacy, exacerbated by the stammer which was the focus of the Oscar-winning film The King’s Speech. His marriage to the self-assured and supportiveElizabeth Bowes-Lyons and his unexpected accession to the throne in 1936 changed the direction of the young prince’s life for good. Once on the throne, it was he who bore the weighty responsibility for restoring the nation’s confidence in their monarchy following his elder brother’s abdication, and for maintaining morale during the darkest days of World War II, when, together with Winston Churchill, his dignified presence functioned as a beacon of reassurance to civilians and military alike. Denis Judd provides a fascinating, if sometimescontroversial, reassessment of the man who, quite unexpectedly, came to occupy an extraordinary position in a time of unprecedented change.

26. Dali Lama - Man, Monk, Myth.Mayank

By:  Mayank Chhaya
Rated 4 Stars
Audio Book

I really admire the Dalai Lama.  He is a true man of peace.  This is a well written biography that tells of his early life and the events that caused him to flee from Tibet and his impact on Eastern Thought.  I am being drawn more and more towards the Eastern POV the older I get and the more disillusioned I get with Christianity.  It seems to me that most Christians don't follow the teachings of Christ.

Publisher's Summary

An authorized biography of one of the world's greatest spiritual leaders.

Written with the full co-operation of the Dalai Lama, this fascinating, up-to-date biography captures the public persona and enduring mystery behind one of the world's most important spiritual leaders.

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.

25. Operation Mincemeat

By:  Ben MacIntyre
Rated:  5 Stars 
Audio Book

I stayed up all night listening to this book.! It's been many, many years since I've done that. I'm going to be as grouchy as an old bear by this afternoon.  I haven't seen this much daring-do and skull duggery since I worked for a lobbyist with machiavellian tendencies.  Well maybe not the daring-do but certainly the skull duggery. :)  The reader is John Lee and he has become my favorite reader of audio books.

The action in this book is primarily set in Spain.  Because Spain remained officially neutral in WW2 it is often not written about and I knew nothing about what went on there at that time  until read this book.  It was a virtual hot-bed of activity with spies so numerous they must have been tripping over each other.

The overall message that this book repeated over and over is that people can make themselves believe any thing,  no matter how improbable or insane if they really want to believe it. That's what the intelligence communities and propagandists count on and something those of us who follow politics see proof of every day.   

Publisher's Description:


As plans got under way for the Allied invasion of Sicily in June 1943, British counter-intelligence agent Ewen Montagu masterminded a scheme to mislead the Germans into thinking the next landing would occur in Greece. The innovative plot was so successful that the Germans moved some of their forces away from Sicily, and two weeks into the real invasion still expected an attack in Greece.

This extraordinary operation called for a dead body, dressed as a Royal Marine officer and carrying false information about a pending Allied invasion of Greece, to wash up on a Spanish shore near the town of a known Nazi agent.

Agent Montagu tells the story as only an insider could, offering fascinating details of the difficulties involved - especially in creating a persona for a man who never was - and of his profession as a spy and the risks involved in mounting such a complex operation. Failure could have had devastating results. Success, however, brought a decided change in the course of the war.