Posts tagged

"WWII "

September 12, 2012

The Nazis, Jazz, and Sacrifice In the Name of Art: Esi Edugyan’s Half-Blood Blues

Jazz musicians in Nazi Germany face a strange mystery and test the bonds of their friendship in a time when music for them was an escape -- and a potential death sentence.

June 20, 2012

Erik Larson’s Gripping Account of Pre-War Germany: In The Garden of Beasts

For those of you not yet familiar with Larson's work, be prepared to encounter an historian, a storyteller, unlike any other, in this meticulously researched walk through the Third Reich's Berlin.

May 6, 2012

Michelle Cooper’s A Brief History of Montmaray: Downton Abbey for Teens

On the surface, "Downton Abbey" and Michelle Cooper's A Brief History of Montmaray share similarities -- both are about British families right before a world war starts and both have their fair share of drama.

January 22, 2012

Words to Feed Your Soul in Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief

The New York Times has hailed the The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak, as “the kind of book that can be life changing.” And it must be true. Why else would the excitement continue for this long?

December 5, 2011

Robert Kurson’s Shadow Divers: A Historical Deep-Sea Adventure

So, you may ask yourself, why would I want to read a book about a U-boat, especially one that is filled with a bunch of dead Nazis? What if I told you that the boat was found only sixty miles off the coast of New Jersey and while the crew had been Nazi, they were really just boys? Sent on a blind suicide mission, these barely young men were under the direction of a demented leadership hell-bent on fighting a lost war until the last soldiers and sailors had fallen. Not enough?