I read Forget the Alamo. Interesting book! Also, I'm an idiot and made this thread when there was already one that's much longer and should be "BBS canon" You might want to find that other thread by the same title.
I just read the book The Happiest Man on Earth, the story of Auschwitz survivor Eddie Jaku. I'd definitely give this book 5 stars. It's such a a heroic story, that's filled with so many emotions, from horror, sadness, heartbreaking, courageous, fear, desperation, inspiration, friendship, strength, hope, and love. An except from the book about the infamous Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass.... It wasn't just Nazi soldiers and fascist thugs who turned against us. Ordinary citizens, our friends and neighbours since before I was born, Joined in the violence and the looting. When the mob was done destroying property, they rounded up Jewish people - many of them young children - and threw them into the river that I used to skate on as a child. The ice was thin and the water freezing. Men and women I'd grown up with stood on the riverbanks, spitting and jeering as people struggled. 'Shoot them!' they cried. 'Shoot the Jewish dogs!' What had happened to my German friends that they became murderers? How is it possible to create enemies from friends, to create such hate? Where was the Germany I had been so proud to be a part of, the country where I was born, the country of my ancestors? One day we were friends, neighbours, colleagues, and the next we were told we were sworn enemies. When I think of those Germans relishing our pain, I want to ask them, 'Have you got a soul? Have you got a heart?' It was madness, in the true sense of the word - otherwise civilised people lost.
Only reason I'm curious is because I dated an Irish girl (1st generation Irish-American) a while ago...and after meeting her family, her large Irish family, I said to her later: "yall don't look too stereotypically Irish" and she said that they were "Black Irish"
I just finished reading Beneath a Scarlet Sky. It's a great book, with non-stop action and drama. It's the gripping story of a heroic teenager, and unsung hero in Italy during WW2. I couldn't put this book down. It got better and better the more I read.
I just finished the book The Redhead of Auschwitz by Nechama Birnbaum, who wrote the biography in honor of her grandmother, a Holocaust survivor. You are transported back and forth between times before and during the war. You see life through the eyes of a child, a teen, and an adult. You go from a times full of love, family, faith, friendship, and happiness, to living through the worst obscenity ever tolerated by human civilization. Wow! It's amazing what the human body can endure, and Rosie was determined to live, even through unimaginable suffering. It's hard to read at times, with such graphic detail of the suffering she endured, but it's a story also full of love, kindness, courage and bravery. It's a testimony of the human spirit to be able to survive such pain, starvation, and cruelty for so long. It was a very dark time in humanity, and I believe survivor stories should be shared, and not forgotten. If there is anything to learn from the horrors of the past is that hate festers evil, which spreads more hate, which poisons the minds of good people into commiting evil acts upon other good people.
just finished Chris Schwartz's Workbenches . . . was impressed he quoted Thoreau's artist of Kouroo parable
picked up Masters of the Air by Donald Miller after watching the first three episode of the Hanks/Spielberg series on Apple TV. The book is terrific, really very good on the deep background of war strategy, production, and politics of the WWII bombing effort. Where the series really is just focusing on the bomb crews, the book covers the entire story from the mid-1930s into the war. I think this is an excellent complement to the series and I'm really enjoying reading it while waiting for the next episode to land. It has also led me to watch several documentaries done by Clark Gable and William Wyler, as well as The Best Years of Our Lives, Wyler's 1946 film about returning servicemen. If anyone's looking for a good read, this is excellent.
I couldn't put this book down. Historical fiction written in a way that your emotions are all over the place. It's a gripping story of the hardships, hope, love and hate, generosity and contempt towards the people of our country during the dust bowl. Wow! The story really moved me. People's will to survive is amazing.
Just finished Kristin Hannah's latest book. 5 stars “The Women is historical fiction at its very best. So moving, so wrenching, and yet, in the end, uplifting. Brava! I loved The Nightingale and The Four Winds, but The Women is my favorite.” ―Nicholas D. Kristof, Pulitzer Prize–winning coauthor of Half the Sky “Stuns with sacrifice; uplifts with heroism . . . an important, long overdue tribute to the brave women nurses who served in Vietnam.” ―Bonnie Garmus, author of Lessons in Chemistry
