Bookshelf Traveling for Insane Times: from my husband's shelves

Judith at Reader in the Wilderness hosts this meme: Bookshelf Traveling For Insane Times. The idea is to look through a bookshelf or a bookcase or stacks of books and share some thoughts on the books. And of course you can be inventive and talk about books in any context.

Two weeks ago I featured books from my son's shelves, this week it is my husband's turn. My husband reads a mix of nonfiction and fiction books. He has many books I want to read but haven't gotten to yet.

The first two books are fairly recent purchases. The other two have been on his shelves for a while.

The Big Goodbye: Chinatown and the Last Years of Hollywood by Sam Wasson

Chinatown is one of my husband's favorite movies. Thus he was interested in this book about the making of the movie Chinatown. It focuses on the four men primarily involved: Robert Towne, Robert Evans, Jack Nicholson, and Roman Polanski. From what I understand, the story is much more than a blow by blow look at the making of the movie, but delves deep into these men's lives. It also depicts Hollywood filmmaking at a time when many changes were coming to the production of movies.

And it has a great cover.

The Awkward Squad by Sophie Hénaff
Translated from the French by Sam Gordon

A police detective, Anne Capestan, has been suspended for six months and expects her superior, Buron, to end her employment. Instead he gives her a new department and the mission is to follow up on unsolved cases. She is given a crew of misfits to work with. This premise sounds similar to that of The Keeper of Lost Causes by Jussi Adler-Olsen (set in Denmark). This one is set in France, and from what I understand it is more humorous in tone. 

My husband must have liked this first book in the series because he just purchased the next book in our second curbside pickup order from our local independent bookseller, Chaucer's Books. I plan to read this one soon.

The Black Camel by Earl Derr Biggers

This is the fourth of six books by Biggers that featured Charlie Chan. I am sure that I will like this book, because I have read four others in the series and enjoyed all of them. Charlie Chan is an awesome character. He always entertains.

Although we are also fans of the Charlie Chan movies and have watched most of them, Charlie Chan in the books is different from the movie character. 

The Charlie Chan novels were published between 1925 and 1932. The only disappointment I have had with them is that they are not always set in Hawaii. This one takes place in Honolulu of the 1920s and I am looking forward to that.

Another great cover. Actually all of these books have nice covers.

And this is one of my husband's books that I just finished reading...

The Provincial Lady Goes to London by E.M. Delafield

Diary of a Provincial Lady is a fictional account of a middle-class wife and mother, living in an English village, and dealing with money problems, servant problems, etc. This book, published in 1931, follows up with her life after her book has been published to much success. She takes a flat in London to have time and quiet to work on the next book she is writing. Both books were a lot of fun to read, but I enjoyed this one more because I had adjusted to the style and tone of the first one.

 This book ends with the provincial lady planning a trip to America and I will be reading The Provincial Lady in America soon.

Life below Stairs: In the Victorian and Edwardian Country House by Siân Evans

This is an interesting and informative non-fiction book on the life of servants in Victorian and Edwardian times.

From the description at Goodreads:

From the cook, butler, and housekeeper to the footman, lady's maid and nanny, this is a fascinating glimpse behind the scenes of some of Britain's grandest houses. An entertaining social history, steering the reader through the minefield of etiquette and hierarchy that kept Britain's great houses running like clockwork. A bygone era is brought vividly to live through letters, journals, interviews, lively descriptions, and stunning photography of the places and possessions left behind. 

This was a fascinating look at the daily lives of the many people who kept grand houses running for their wealthy owners. It covers how and why people entered into service, and how they might rise through the more menial jobs to jobs that had a bit more freedom and responsibility. So many facts in this book were amazing to me, and in many cases appalling. How much the servants lives were controlled, how little time they had to themselves. As noted in the subtitle this covers the Edwardian and Victorian periods.

The book described the levels within the servant classes and which servants interacted with the employers and which ones were supposed to be unseen by the residents of the house. It was funny at times (mostly due to quotes from actual servants) but also sobering to think of the demanding and demeaning lives that they led. The photographs of rooms used by servants, items of clothing, etc. were a bonus. This was the perfect mix of information and anecdotes about the subject and very readable.

Inevitably, I learned more about the world during that time from reading this book, such as types of transportation and more about life in country homes. I was especially interested in the last chapter on how World War I affected the serving classes and the owners of the grand homes and how it eventually decreased the availability of servants, as the servants began to see other opportunities opening up.

Reading this book whetted my appetite for a more in-depth book about this topic, so I am also planning to read another of my husband's books about this subject: Servants: A Downstairs History of Britain from the Nineteenth-Century to Modern Times by Lucy Lethbridge. He also has several books on country homes and I am going to have to read some of those, also.


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Publisher:  National Trust, 2011.
Length:     187 pages
Format:     Hardcover
Setting:     UK
Genre:      Nonfiction, Social History.
Source:     Borrowed from my husband.

Annual Book Sale: My Husband's Books

September 20th was the first day of the Planned Parenthood book sale that we attend every year. We go multiple times, and I always get too many books. My husband and son are more restrained. But we look forward to it each year and we always find unexpected treasures.

In this post I am highlighting some of my husband's purchases at the book sale. He looks for books in many genres: photography, history, social histories, mysteries, science fiction, and more. These are some of the mysteries and social histories that he found.

To see a larger view of the covers, click on the images.

My husband found seven mysteries in British Library Crime Classics editions.  The four pictured here are Death on the Riviera, The Cheltenham Square Murder, and The Lake District Murder by John Bude  and Murder in Piccadilly  by Charles Kingston.

John Bude wrote thirty crime novels between 1935 and his death in 1957. He worked in the theatre as a producer and director. Six of his books have been reissued by the British Library, and my husband found copies of all of them. There is a very good overview of John Bude's mysteries at Promoting Crime Fiction.

At the New York Journal of Books, D. R. Meredith describes Murder in Piccadilly as "a humorous mystery that will entertain the modern reader as much as it did at the time of its original publication in 1936." See full review here.

The DKA Files series by Joe Gores features a group of investigators who work for Daniel Kearny Associates, a firm specializing in repossessions of vehicles whose owners have defaulted on their loan payments. The setting is in and around San Francisco. These two books, 32 Cadillacs and Contract Null and Void, are the 4th and 5th books in the series. I have read the first novel in the series, Dead Skip, and enjoyed it very much.

And we conclude with two social histories. I think both will be very interesting.

• An Elegant Madness: High Society in Regency England by Venetia Murray covers upper-class life during the years 1780-1830. 
• The English Country House Party by Phyllida Barstow English gives an account of country house entertaining, from the death of Prince Albert in 1861 to the outbreak of World War I.

The Dusty Bookcase: Brian Busby

The Dusty Bookcase is a literary exploration of Canadian books, especially those that have been forgotten, neglected, or suppressed. As the author, Brian Busby, tells us in his introduction:

We should read the forgotten because previous generations knew them well. My father read the works of Ralph Connor, as did his. Reading Connor myself has brought me a better understanding of the times these men experienced.

We should be curious about the ignored because recognition is so often a crapshoot; too much depends on publisher, press, and good fortune. 

We should read the suppressed for the very reason that there are those who would deny us the right.

Brian Busby blogs on this same topic at The Dusty Bookcase, and the book gathers information from his posts over the years. I read this book straight through, over a few weeks, and I will dip into it again and again.

The books starts with a section on several books by Grant Allen, a Canadian author of both nonfiction books and novels written from the 1970s until his death in 1899. Allen was a friend of Arthur Conan Doyle, who finished his last book, Hilda Wade. A new author to me and one I will try out.

The last book covered in The Dusty Bookcase is I Lost It All in Montreal by Donna Steinburg, my favorite title in the book.

In between, he covers books by the Millars – Kenneth Millar, also known as Ross Macdonald, and Margaret Millar. Also several pulp novels, including some written by Brian Moore, a well-known author I don't know much about. And I will be seeking out books of his to read.

Here are the titles of some of the chapters:

• Dicks & Drugs
• Erotica, Porn, Perversion, & Ribaldry
• Pop & Pulp
• Romance
• True Crime
• War
• The Writing Life

Lots of variety, and a lots of information to ponder.  Outside of the section on the Millars, Pop & Pulp was my favorite group of articles.

Busby discusses these books in a very personal way, and each article is readable and interesting. Some of them are hilarious. I love the premise of this book, and I highly recommend it as an informative and entertaining read.

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Publisher:   Bibioasis, 2017
Length:       364 pages
Format:      Trade Paperback
Genre:        Reference, Books about books
Source:       I purchased this book.

Charlie Chan: Yunte Huang

The full title of this book is Charlie Chan: The Untold Story of the Honorable Detective and His Rendezvous With American History. The author, Yunte Huang, is a professor of English at the University of California, Santa Barbara. My husband and I are both fans of the Charlie Chan mystery novels by Earl Derr Biggers and the many Charlie Chan films that were based on or inspired by the novels. When this book came out, he bought a copy and he and my son both read it years ago.

When I first heard about this book, I thought it was about Charlie Chan the fictional character and Chang Apana, the Hawaiian police officer that Charlie was based on. That is true, but it is so much more. The book covers much of Earl Derr Biggers' life and it talks about most of the books he wrote, then moves on to the success of Charlie Chan on film. It also provides some background on the history of racism in the US.

All of that is a lot to digest and many reviewers complain that the book tries to cover too much and loses focus. For me, that approach worked fine and made the topic more interesting. The writing was fine and I had no problem staying interested. I was worried about getting too much information about the plots of the books (I have only read 3 of the 6 Charlie Chan novels), but that did not happen. The ones that were mentioned were given an overview and where they fit into Biggers' life.

I found the author very interesting. For one thing, we have some things in common. When Yunte Huang moved to the US from China, he chose to go to the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa for his undergraduate studies. That is where I went to college also. He chose Alabama because it was the first state alphabetically, not knowing much about that area of the country. And today he teaches at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Santa Barbara is where I have lived for decades. (In the middle he did post graduate studies in New York... but I have never been to New York.)

Resources:

• Southern Hospitality, but not for Newcomers is an article by Huang about his experiences in the South in the early 1990's (mostly good) vs. newer laws in Alabama which are anti-immigration.
• Investigating The Real Detective Charlie Chan gives some information on Yunte Huang and an excerpt from the Introduction of the book.

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Publisher:   W. W. Norton and Co., 2010
Length:       297 pages
Format:      Hardcover
Settings:     Hawaii; USA
Genre:        Nonfiction
Source:       Borrowed from my husband

Reading Summary for July 2018

I cannot believe it is August. And hot and muggy in Santa Barbara. I read ten books in July.  Seven of them were on my list of 20 Books of Summer.

I read two books that were not in the crime fiction genre. Although one of them was strongly related to crime fiction.

Charlie Chan: The Untold Story of the Honorable Detective and His Rendezvous With American History (2010) by Yunte Huang

This non-fiction book is a blend of many things. It covers much of Earl Derr Biggers' life and it talks about most of the books he wrote, including the success of Charlie Chan in novels and on film. It also provides some background on the history of racism in the US.  

It was a very readable book; I often have problems with non-fiction writing but this one was informative... without being boring or dry.

The Night Watch (2006) by Sarah Waters

The second was a historical novel, set in the 1940's in the UK, one of my favorite times and places to read about. This novel has an unusual structure, with three sections, one set in 1947, the next set in 1944, and the last in 1940. The book never returns to 1947 so we know the ending early on, so to speak. I did not find it totally successful, but I am glad I read it.

The crime fiction books I read this month are:

They Do It with Mirrors (1952) by Agatha Christie

In this fifth Jane Marple book, Jane visits Carrie Louise Serrocold at her Victorian mansion, Stoneygates, at the request of an old friend. The US title is Murder with Mirrors. My thoughts on the book are HERE.

Gasa-Gasa Girl (2005)  by Naomi Hirahara

This is the 2nd book in a crime fiction series featuring Mas Arai, a Japanese-American gardener in Los Angeles. Mas is seventy years old and the book starts as he arrives in New York City on his first visit with his daughter and her family. Mas and his daughter have not gotten along for many years, but now she is asking for his help. I enjoyed it very much.

Moskva (2016) by Jack Grimwood

I have read two of this author's books published as John Courtenay Grimwood and I was very impressed with them, so when I heard he had written a cold war spy thriller set in Russia, I had to read it. I was not disappointed, but there was more violence and sex in the novel than I was prepared for.

The Diggers Rest Hotel (2010) by Geoffrey McGeachin

Set in post-World War II Australia, the hero is Charlie Berlin, who rejoins the Melbourne police force after the war. This book won the 2011 Ned Kelly Award. I look forward to reading more of the series, although affordable copies are not easy to find.

Night Rounds (1999) by Helene Tursten

The second book in Helene Tursten's series featuring Inspector Irene Huss, set in Sweden. I enjoyed this book; it covers social issues in Sweden and sexual harrassment in the police department. My full review (and links to other reviews) is HERE.

The Woman Who Married a Bear (1992) by John Straley

This first novel about Cecil Younger, unofficial private investigator, is set in Sitka, Alaska, a port city on the Alaska Panhandle. I found Cecil to be a very unusual character that I grew to like. This book was winner of the 1993 Shamus for Best First P. I. Novel.

A Study in Scarlet (1887) by Arthur Conan Doyle

I have finally read a novel in the Sherlock Holmes series. This very short novel introduces both Sherlock Holmes and his friend Dr. John H. Watson. I did enjoy reading A Study in Scarlet, but it was not at all what I expected.

Queenpin (2007) by Megan Abbott

I did not know quite what to think about this book but I do rate it very high. The tension that builds wore me out when I was reading it, similar to when I was reading Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith. The two books are very different; Highsmith's book centers on two men, this one centers on two women. Set in the 1940s or 50s, in the world of gangsters and gamblers. In 2008, Abbott won the Edgar Award for Best Paperback Original Novel for Queenpin.

Guide to Writing the Mystery Novel: Barbara Gregorich

Description provided by the author:

Guide to Writing the Mystery Novel: Lots of Examples, Plus Dead Bodies, is aimed at those who are contemplating writing a mystery novel and those who have written one or two but are looking for fresh insights on how to think like a mystery writer. In it the author draws on her years of experience as a mystery reader, a mystery writer, and a writing teacher. The book illustrates the author’s points with numerous examples from her mysteries, as well as with charts, graphs, and diagrams that show how much or how little is called for in the way of planted clues, exposition, and presence of a minor-character villain, for example. An index serves as an additional aid for those who want to seriously pursue advice on any particular topic such as dialogue, foreshadowing, or casting suspicion on the innocent.

Even though I have no ambitions or plans to write a mystery novel, reading this guide was both educational and entertaining. I knew I would like this book because I am interested in writing and the process used in writing. I never imagined all the elements that need to be considered in writing a novel, including the specific considerations when writing a mystery. Deciding who will be the victim and who will be the culprit is important, although the writer may change their mind as they write.

I have always been interested in the differences between novels written from various points of view. Thus, I got a lot out of the discussion of first person POV and third person POV and the advantages and disadvantages of each. The author not only discusses a variety of topics related to writing a mystery, but also addresses why these steps are useful. Some of these that were interesting to me were: Subplots, Plot Complications, Timelines, When to Introduce the Villain, Foreshadowing, Dialogue,  Solution and Denouement, Outlining, and Rewriting.

In addition to the wealth of information, I found the author's style of writing to be accessible and easy to follow.

The author's website provides information on her fiction and nonfiction for adults and children. The author's two mystery novels are Dirty Proof (1988) and Sound Proof (2011). Gregorich has a strong interest in baseball, and has written both fiction and nonfiction books on that topic, including Women at Play: The Story of Women in Baseball.

See other useful reviews at: Windy City Reviews, San Francisco Book Review, and Julia Buckley's blog, Mysterious Musings.

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Publisher:   CreateSpace, 2014
Length:       207 pages
Format:      Trade paperback
Genre:        Nonfiction
Source:      The author provided a copy for review.

The Monuments Men: Robert M. Edsel with Bret Witter

The full title of this book is The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History.

At the beginning of the book, Robert M. Edsel describes the Monuments Men:

The Monuments Men were a group of men and women from thirteen nations, most of whom volunteered for service in the newly created Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives section, or MFAA. Most of the early volunteers had expertise as museum directors, curators, art scholars and educators, artists, architects, and archivists. Their job description was simple: to save as much of the culture of Europe as they could during combat.
... Of the initial sixty or so that served in the battlefields of North Africa and Europe through May 1945, the primary period covered by our story, most were middle- aged, with an average age of forty. The oldest was sixty- six, an “old and indestructible” World War I veteran; only five were still in their twenties. Most had established families and accomplished careers. But they had all chosen to join the war effort in the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives section, and to a man they were willing to fight and die for what they believed. I am proud to introduce them to you and to tell, as best I can, their remarkable stories.

Finally I am reviewing this book two months after I finished reading it. I put it off because I had such mixed feeling about the book. I am very interested in World War II history in general and the looting of art in particular. I was glad to see this book get such wide attention so that more people would know about the Monuments Men. My husband introduced me to this subject; he was the one who bought the book, then gave it to me when he finished it. But I really had not understood the magnitude of the loss of art during World War II (both from personal collections and from museums and churches) until I saw the documentary The Rape of Europa.

The stories of individual men performing heroically to save art are amazing. I enjoyed the personal stories of the jobs and families the men left behind. Most of the men featured in this book volunteered for the work, and had to join the military and put their lives at risk to do it.

However, I did not find it a compelling read. It took me many months to finish it. Part of that is just because nonfiction in general is not an easy read for me. Many reviewers describe the writing style as plodding and tedious. Others loved the book. I suspect the level of enjoyment in reading this book may be somewhat dependent on knowledge and interest in the topic. Some reviews criticized the book because the author invented dialogue. I actually don't remember that so much.

I plan to read The Rape of Europa by Lynn H. Nicholas, and then view the documentary again. Robert M. Edsel was a co-producer of the documentary.

We have watched the movie based on this book twice and I will be doing a post on that soon.

Other resources:

At the Smithsonian website.

Katie at Doing Dewey liked this book more than I did. As did Bill at Mysteries and More from Saskatchewan.

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Publisher:   Center Street, 2009
Length:       426 pages
Format:      Hardcover
Genre:       History, non-fiction
Source:      Received from my husband.

Planned Parenthood Book Sale, Part 2

My husband bought eleven books at the book sale. He is much more in control of his book buying impulses than I am. But he was very happy with most of the books he got. This is a sample.

Whispering Bodies by Jesse Michaels

About the author:

Jesse Michaels is an artist, musician and writer from Berkeley California. Over the years he has played in bands, created fanzines and illustrations, and written fiction. He was the singer of the punk bands Operation Ivy, Big Rig, Common Rider and Classics of Love. He has created art for Neurosis, Green Day, Christ on Parade, Filth, The Criminals, Spencer Moody, Pretty Girls Make Graves and many others.

Description of the book at the author's website:

Whispering Bodies is a comic novel which employs a mystery frame to tell the story of a reclusive man who must leave the safety of his isolated world to clear the name of a woman he has fallen for.

A comment on the back of the book suggests this book is like The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien, so Glen picked up a copy of that one also.

Unfortunately, Glen did not enjoy that book at all. Here is his review at Goodreads:

The unnamed narrator of this book is a failed farmer and pub keeper who finds himself increasingly under the thumb of John Divney, a hired man who - over time - considers himself part owner of the farm and pub. Divney needs money and his solution is to enlist the (very passive) narrator in murder and robbery. The murder takes place and so far so good. Then the book decides it will be an "Alice and Wonderland" - with a quest for a box possibly filled with loot, nonsensical and surrealistic dialog, a visit to eternity, and endless discussions on bicycles - and it is then that it becomes a slog (and only 206 pages!) for me. Many readers really (really!) like this book but I'm afraid I found it a great struggle to finish.

London After Dark

From Kirkus Reviews:

Addenda to his earlier Fabian Of The Yard fills in the picture of crime in England and works its way from general exposition on various types of illegalities to specific cases. From night haunts, guarding royalty, gambling, dope, sex, perverts, unlawful pictures and satanic practices, he goes on to the crooks themselves, the informers, the rackets, and winds up with 14 examples of the painstaking police activities that untangled varying iniquities. This dossier has a very moral tone to its yarning, and its expertising, by an ex-superintendent of the Yard, offers solid, dependable -- and interesting material for the true crime fancier.

Ghosts by Gaslight

From a review at Deseret News:

Ghosts by Gaslight: Stories of Steampunk and Supernatural Suspense edited by Jack Dann and Nick Gevers, is a collection of all new ghost stories, inspired by the likes of Edgar Allen Poe and Arthur Conan Doyle. The stories, by established authors, infuse a modern fascination with old-fashioned technology into a Victorian setting in a genre called steampunk. While not every contributing author is a short story specialist, each story has some unsettling or haunting aspect to it.

From the reviews I read, the biggest criticism of this book was that not all stories had steampunk elements. As in any collection of short stories, some are better than others, and this depends on the reader's taste.

Blackmail by Parnell Hall

This is the ninth book in the Stanley Hastings series.

From Goodreads:

Complications arise when Stanley Hastings handles a blackmail payment involving pornographic pictures. Not only does he fail to stop the blackmailer, but everyone he talks to dies.

“Every page quivers with comic frustration and the result is an absolute joy.”—Kirkus (starred)

“Parnell Hall succeeds in making Stanley Hastings one of a kind …. BLACKMAIL is pleasantly reminiscent of an earlier era, when detectives like Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin brought some humor to their chores.”—The Wall Street Journal 

The Girls of Atomic City by Denise Kiernan

The description below is from Boing Boing. There are also lots of photos at that post of WW II workers in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

At the height of World War II, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, was home to 75,000 residents, consuming more electricity than New York City. But to most of the world, the town did not exist. Thousands of civilians — many of them young women from small towns across the South — were recruited to this secret city, enticed by solid wages and the promise of war-ending work. Kept very much in the dark, few would ever guess the true nature of the tasks they performed each day in the hulking factories in the middle of the Appalachian Mountains. That is, until the end of the war—when Oak Ridge’s secret was revealed.
Drawing on the voices of the women who lived it—women who are now in their eighties and nineties — The Girls of Atomic City rescues a remarkable, forgotten chapter of American history from obscurity.

Wartime: Britain 1939-1945

Wartime: Britain 1939-1945 focuses on how World War II affected the populace of Great Britain, using in many cases quotes from letters and diaries written during that time. The emphasis is on what happened in the country itself, not on the war waged in other countries.

It is a superb reference for anyone who wants to know about life in Great Britain at this time. Many, many details of life at the time are covered in the 692 pages of text.  As a resource for research, or just to broaden one's knowledge of the time and the country, it is excellent.

The book gave me a much fuller appreciation of what World War II was like for the people of Great Britain. You can read comments on that topic, or even novels set in that time period, but not truly understand how much it touched all people, every day, in many ways and how many sacrifices were  made. However, I did not find this an easy book to read and it took me nearly a year to finish it. It was full of details, at times more than I was interested in.

One place I slowed down was somewhere in the three chapters (and about 100 pages) about the Blitz. The Blitz is a very interesting subject. I found that I could not read that many pages about the unrelenting horror of the realities of the Blitz. Never knowing what the night would bring. Losing family members and friends or one's home.  I did finish that section but I had to take a rest from it for a while.

Several of the chapters were of special interest to me. In a chapter on the arts and the artists, Gardiner says:

As the blitz spread in the autumn of 1940 it became harder to know where the nation's treasures, like the nation's citizens, would be safe. Britain's artistic heritage had to be protected from destruction.

Before the war began, paintings had been moved from the National Gallery in London to other, safer locations. Other treasures followed. But it was not only the art treasures that were affected, but the lives and work of the artists themselves. There was less money to pay for art and artistic pursuits, supplies were needed for the war, and artists suffered like everyone else.

The next chapter covers how the production of essentials for civilians and war materiel was affected. Men were pulled into occupations that they had not trained for. There was a need for skilled workers but it was difficult to organize the effort to fill the positions. Women were needed to fill many gaps, so that more men could be released for combatant duty.

The National Service (No. 2) Act became law on 18 December 1941. Its terms made Britain the first nation in the world to conscript women.

I knew that they filled many jobs in this period, but I had not known that women were conscripted. Women served in auxiliary branches of the armed services in many positions, including pilots.

The next chapter, titled 'OVER HERE', describes the influx of foreigners into the UK during the war. Italian and German prisoners of war were brought in as another solution to the demand for manpower in agriculture and industry. Servicemen from many countries came to the UK to join the fight. The largest numbers came from Canada and the US.

This chapter provided very interesting facts about how the US troops were prepared to come into the UK, and the impact their arrival made there.

I was most struck by the descriptions of how black GIs were treated in the military. A caption for a photo of two black soldiers says:

A 'Jim Crow Army' comes to Britain. US policy was not to 'intermingle' black and white enlisted men, and the 100,000 black GIs in Britain were in segregated units, often doing manual work, until high casualty rates by late 1944 meant they too were sent into battle.

She also says:

The British government did not want black GIs to come to Britain. As far as its own Black Dominion troops were concerned, the Foreign Office had already made it clear that 'the recruitment to the United Kingdom of coloured British subjects, whose remaining in the United Kingdom after the war might create social problems, is not considered desirable.'

Other subjects covered were: conscientious objectors, fascists in Britain, criminals and crime during wartime, and internment.

At the WW2history.com site, Juliet Gardiner's background is described:

She is an acclaimed social historian of the Second World War who has made a special study both of the Blitz and of the impact of the arrival of American soldiers in wartime Britain.

At that link, you can find interviews with Gardiner on World War II topics.

Wartime: Britain 1939-1945 was published in 2004.  Gardiner has written a book about the Blitz that has been published more recently, in 2010.

 -----------------------------

Publisher: Headline, 2004
Length:  782 pages, including endnotes, bibliography, and index
Format:  trade paperback
Genre: Non-fiction

Sticklers, Sideburns & Bikinis: Graeme Donald

This book is a compendium of words or phrases in everyday usage which have a military origin. The author,  Graeme Donald, "has been researching the origins of words, nursery rhymes, superstitions and popular misconceptions for years", per his publisher, Osprey Publishing.

I love to read about words and their derivations, and this book threw in some history too.

Some of the words are fairly obvious, such as "blitz" or "barrack," although even with the obvious terms, background information is supplied that is interesting and enlightening. Others are not so obvious, such as "thug." This word was brought back to England by soldiers who had served in India and had exposure to ritualistic killers in the Thuggee cult.

These are some that were of particular interest to me:

AL-QAEDA
Umbrella name for disparate terror groups.
As with so many other Arabic terms, such as "algebra," "alcohol," and "alcove," the definite article "al" is incorporated into the word in Western Usage, and Al-Qaeda means "The Base." Whether that means a military base or something more abstract such as a principle or an ethos is unclear. It is also uncertain whether the term was first used by terror groups of themselves and subsequently picked up by Western intelligence, or whether it was a Western coinage.

Of course, most people have heard of Al-Qaeda. I was never quite certain of what exactly it referred to. Now I know why.

BRAILLE
Writing system for the blind.
In 1819, a young French artillery officer called Captain Charles Barbier de la Sierra became frustrated by the difficulty and dangers of trying to read orders at night without lighting a lantern and attracting enemy fire. He devised a code of embossed night-writing, which failed to attract any interest in military circles. However, Louis Braille (1809-52), a teacher at the French National Institute for Blind Children, saw the potential for Barbier's system of dot-clusters to revolutionize texts for the blind, which until then had been presented as rather clumsy raised letters.

I have also read another reference book by this author: Loose Cannons: 101 Myths, Mishaps and Misadventurers of Military History. That one had lots of facts about World War II history that were very interesting to me. Both of the books are small format and not too long. They are entertaining books that also educate.

My son discovered these books by Graeme Donald. He has also read The Man Who Shot the Man Who Shot Lincoln: and 44 other forgotten figures in history by this author.

The Coming of the Third Reich: Richard J. Evans

After reading this book in fits and starts for five months, I finally completed The Coming of the Third Reich by Richard J. Evans.

This book, published in 2003, was the first book of a three-volume history of the Third Reich. It is followed by a second volume, The Third Reich in Power (2005), which covers the peacetime years of Nazi rule between 1933 and 1939, and a third volume, The Third Reich at War (2008).

From a capsule review at Foreign Affairs:

This first part of what will be Evans' three-volume history of Hitler's regime is the most comprehensive and convincing work so far on the fall of Weimar and Hitler's rise to power. Unlike past accounts suggesting that things could have turned out differently had some of the key players been less foolish, Evans builds, stone by stone, a monument to prove that Hitler's ascent was the only possible outcome even though the Nazi Party never captured an absolute majority of votes. ...

The last part of the book is a detailed, depressing account of Hitler's transformation of Germany in a few months in 1933, including the "cultural revolution" in which both Martin Heidegger and storm troopers played key roles.

I read this book because I know so little about the history of Germany and I am very interested in  Germany during World War II and how Hitler came to power. I wanted to understand how a nation was taken over by a concept like Nazism. Evans attempts to answer that and other questions in this book. Per Evans, "These three books are addressed in the first place to people who know nothing about the subject, or who know a little and would like to know more. I hope that specialists will find something of interest in them but they are not the primary readership for which the books are intended."

Did I get answers to my questions? For the most part, yes. But, as I say above, I wanted to understand, and I still don't understand why it all happened. I have explanations and a lots more background, and that is a big step forward. I probably will never understand fully (and that is OK).


One area that has hampered a lot of my reading (of historical fiction set in this time) was a confusion on the various police and paramilitary groups in Germany, beginning with the rise of Hitler through World War II. There were a lot of different groups, and their functions and power did change over those years. Now I do have a clearer picture of that.

Did I enjoy reading the book? No. I think it would have taken less time to finish had I found it more enjoyable. There was too much detail for me. I guess I wanted more of an overview.  Also, it was a depressing subject (which I knew going in).

Would I recommend this book? Yes, very much. First, because it does provide the overview and background that it sets out to do. As I mentioned above, there are many areas in this book where I picked up a lot of knowledge about this time and place. Second, because my husband enjoyed all of the books in the trilogy. He is not a historian but history and social history are among his favorite subjects.

In closing, I offer two reviews of The Coming of the Third Reich, should you wish to know more about the book.
          At Powells.com
          At Handful of Sand

Book Beginnings: The Coming of the Third Reich

Today, I have a submission for Book Beginnings on Fridays hosted by Rose City Reader.

The guidelines of the meme are: Share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Don't forget to include the title and author of the book.

The first sentences in my book are

Is it wrong to begin with Bismarck? On several levels, he was a key figure in the coming of the Third Reich.

An interesting beginning. The reason that I am reading this book is because I know so little about the history of Germany and I am very interested in  Germany during World War II and how Hitler came to power. Thus, I don't know the answer to the question asked at the beginning of the book, but it works fine for me.

The book I am reading is The Coming of the Third Reich by Richard J. Evans.

This is a very long book, and I am a slow reader, especially non-fiction that is dense with information and ideas. It is going to take me a while to get through this one.

Check out the other posts for book beginnings at Rose City Reader.

Do One Thing Different: Bill O'Hanlon

From time to time I throw a non-fiction book into my reading queue. I like to read mystery reference books, books about World War II, and some self-help books.And books about health. I am real sucker for the "Health, Fitness, and Dieting" category of books.

I had purchased this book, Do One Thing Different, years ago. Don't remember why, other than it is an intriguing idea. The subtitle is "... And Other Uncommonly Sensible Solutions to Life's Persistent Problems." The author proposes that one can solve problems better by finding solutions, rather than looking for why they are happening or blaming others. Sounds reasonable and obvious, but it is a different approach than most therapists use.

I enjoyed reading the book because I have experienced such occurrences in my own life, where I made a change and that change caused other improvements. Now to be able to do that in the future, intentionally. The author also suggests looking for other similar situations where you have found a solution that worked, and trying to adapt that solution to the current problem.

At times I found the format of the book frustrating. Some reviews I read said the content was repetitive. I felt like the summaries for each type of problem solution to be a waste of space. Perhaps I will appreciate that more when I go back and re-read the book, looking for a way to work on a particular problem. And if I don't go back and try a few, what was the point of reading it in the first place?

Actually, starting this blog was "doing one thing different." I had thought for years about a way to share book reviews, track my reading, and have a creative outlet. Yet I never felt ready or that I would do it well enough to please myself. Just recently I got interested in reading challenges and thought it would be fun and a way to motivate and direct my reading. I just bit the bullet and said "now is the time to take a chance." And that feels good.

This counts as one of my books for the Mt. TBR Challenge and also the Read Your Own Books Challenge. Also a choice for the A-Z Challenge.