Currently Browsing: War
Nov 6, 2009
The Night Watch follows the intertwined lives of 6 young people living in London during the war. All of them are experiencing their own struggles and none of them quite ‘fit in’ to the norm. Kay, who dresses in men’s clothing and longs for a wife, is a night time ambulance driver during the Blitz. Helen, constantly searching, fights her own demons. Duncan spends the war in prison, and...
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The Night Watch – Sarah Waters
Jan 9, 2009
1942: Australia’s Greatest Peril – Bob Wurth
I love history. I love finding out about periods of history I know little about, and I really enjoy reading a well written, informative history book that keeps you reading and never goes dry. The problem with so many history books is that they are often so full of names and dates that it is easy to lose track. As a visual reader, I need to be able to picture places, people and events in my head and I can... read more
Jan 5, 2009
The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society – Mary Ann Shaffer
After finishing the previous book, I was really looking forward to a well written story and picking up The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society was an excellent decision. This book was absolutely delightful. The characters were charming, the story was simply lovely and the format made it both easy to read and acutely personal. My Mum told me she had bought it simply because of the fabulous title,... read more
Dec 24, 2008
The Kommandant’s Girl – Pam Jenoff
The story is set in Poland near the beginning of the war. Emma, a young Jewish girl, newly married, finds her life thrown into turmoil when her husband, Jacob, disappears to join the Resistance soon after the Nazis invade. Returning to her parent’s, she discovers that they and her entire community have been rounded up and put into the Ghetto. In despair, she goes to join them, wondering whether she... read more
Nov 4, 2008
A Thousand Splendid Suns – Khaled Hosseini
This is the second book I have read about the plight of women in Afghanistan. This is the second time I have had to read a book in installments, putting it down when my anger and fury grew too great to continue reading. And this is the second time I have come away from a book wondering how, in our supposedly modern world, human beings can still be treated worse than animals for the sake of a tradition, or... read more
Oct 16, 2008
The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front – Mark Thompson
I received The White War as an Early Reviewer on LibraryThing, and it wasn’t a disappointment. I love reading history, particularly when the period is relatively unknown and undocumented as this. As readers of this blog will know, I read Hemingway’s Farewell to Arms and wasn’t particularly enamoured with it, although that was more for the writing style than than the period of history... read more
Aug 13, 2008
Copper Fire – Suzanne Woods Fisher
I was asked to read and review Copper Fire by Suzanne Woods Fisher as part of her virtual book tour. This book, as I understood, was a sequel to Suzanne’s earlier novel, Copper Star where we were first introduced to Louisa – one time resistance fighter in Germany during the Second World War – now settled with her new husband and his son in Copper Springs, Arizona. Copper Fire finds... read more
May 6, 2008
Letters From a Lost Generation – First World War Letters of Vera Brittain and Four Friends
A century ago, the art of letter writing was dominant. Correspondence formed the most effective way to communicate, and people wrote letters with the frequency that people write emails today – but perhaps with more thought, more feeling and more emotion than the technological form into which letter writing has evolved. Letters From a Lost Generation provides a heart-wrenching example of how letters... read more
