What Are You Reading

[Stanley Doble]

Just finished Insanity Fair by Douglas Reed. Published in 1938, it is the best analysis I have seen of the political events leading up to WW2. Reed was foreign correspondent for English newspapers and lived in Europe for 10 years before the war. He spoke fluent German and visited Germany, Austria, Italy, Romania and other countries and knew many well connected people.

 

[pawineguy]

Just finished Insanity Fair by Douglas Reed. Published in 1938, it is the best analysis I have seen of the political events leading up to WW2. Reed was foreign correspondent for English newspapers and lived in Europe for 10 years before the war. He spoke fluent German and visited Germany, Austria, Italy, Romania and other countries and knew many well connected people.

Such a complicated man, his descent into Jewish conspiracy theories led almost all of his books to be banned. Anti Nazi, Anti-Communist, and Anti-Semite all rolled into one.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Such a complicated man, his descent into Jewish conspiracy theories led almost all of his books to be banned. Anti Nazi, Anti-Communist, and Anti-Semite all rolled into one.

And don't forget unrepentant imperialist.

 

[pawineguy]

And don't forget unrepentant imperialist.

Absolutely. Not a big fan of decolonization.

 

[Harp]

And don't forget unrepentant imperialist.

A New York Yankees fan?

 

[LizzieMaine]

A New York Yankees fan?

Stranger things have happened. Earl Browder was a Yankee fan.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Picked these up today. I think I'll have enough to read for a little while.

 

[Harp]

Stranger things have happened. Earl Browder was a Yankee fan.

Harper Lee is a Cubs fan.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Doris Kearns Goodwin was a Dodger fan and is now a Red Sox fan. That means she's suffered twice as much as anyone else.

 

[AmateisGal]

The Winter Guest by Pam Jenoff. Set in Occupied Poland.

 

[Fastuni]

The Winter Guest by Pam Jenoff. Set in Occupied Poland.

As you are into WW2 history... what's your opinion on the embarassing historical errors and implausibilities of this fiction novel?

 

[AmateisGal]

As you are into WW2 history... what's your opinion on the embarassing historical errors and implausibilities of this fiction novel?

Well, I just started reading it, so I'm not sure what possible historical errors there might be. Could you enlighten me?

 

[Fastuni]

Ok, I don't want to give too much spoilers... but here it comes:
...

The "winter guest" is a Jewish US soldier who drops into Poland to assist the resistance in the Winter 1940/41.
Before the US even entered the war. The author also enlightens the reader that there was no television in small Polish villages at that time. Well d'uh! :eusa_doh:

(As a caveat... I didn't read the book, but after it was recommended to me recently, I read various reviews. I'm sure there are more hilarious gems to be found.
Personally I find such things very off-putting.)

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

I looked it up on Amazon and found this customer review.

Sibling Rivalry Overshadows the Seriousness of War


I rarely waste too much time on books I don't like, but I was curious enough about what was going to happen to Sam and Helena in this book, that even though I disliked it already at 17%, I kept chugging along, only to come to regret that decision.

Having read and enjoyed for the most part Ms. Jenoff's work before, I am surprised to be saying this, but I hated this book. Been a while since I disliked a book as much as I dislike this one, especially one I read all the way through. That being said, however, the fact I feel so strongly about it and what the characters do within its pages is actually a point in the author's favor. At least it evoked strong emotion in me.

I enjoyed Helena and her romance with Sam and this being a Harlequin book, I expected a nice romance, but something happens in the story that makes what starts beautiful turn into ugliness. I couldn't stomach it. There's a lot of things I can handle, but this was a sick twist I seriously disliked to the point it ruined the story for me. It was also utterly ridiculous. What woman is overtaken by lust at the sight of a man she doesn't know, who's hairy, stinky, and starved?

That being said, there's a war on, all right. It's Poland and the Germans/Nazis have taken over, the Jewish community is disbanded, trains are roaring past full of Jews on their way to the camps, there's very little food to be had, but in the middle of all this trauma and war, the book focuses on a stupid sibling rivalry and loads of resentment between two twin sisters. Sadly, that's where all the emotion of the story is: resentment between sisters. Helena resents that Ruth has been coddled, favored, considered prettier, etc. Ruth resents Helena having a romance while she's stuck at home raising three kids due their being orphaned. And it goes on and on.

I loathed, with an extreme passion, Ruth. What a horrid woman. I wanted to gouge her eyes out and sadly, she's half the story.

There are bad things happening and Helena witnesses them, yet there's so little emotion here that even things that should have been frightening just fell flat. Example: the hospital. You hide under the bed while a nurse is raped on top of it and it warrants a mere three or four sentences? Then it's never mentioned again? I would think the trauma of that would evoke a lot more reaction. As I said above, there's a lot more emotion when it comes to the sisters hating on each other or blabbering about their family history than actual traumatic events.

And Helena just traipses around all this danger unscathed. That was also a killer. I was like, seriously? Nobody stops to check your papers? You just waltz around the Jewish hospital, the ghetto, the blackmarket, and nothing happens? It's WWII, lady...and you're occupied.

There's one more thing I didn't like but to say what it is would mean posting a spoiler.

 

[Big J]

I looked it up on Amazon and found this customer review.

So, you wouldn't reccomend it?

 

[LizzieMaine]

Currently enjoying a small stack of issues of "The Nation" from the fall of 1936, offering a cogent and careful analysis of the Roosevelt-Landon Presidential race. Notably, the issue of October 24th carries an editorial sharply criticizing the Literary Digest's famous pre-election poll which predicted a dramatic Landon landslide. The Nation suggests otherwise, predicting a comfortable FDR victory. Roosevelt, of course, took 46 of the 48 states, and the Literary Digest went out of business. (The Nation, however, is still very much with us.)

Something else interesting in these magazines is the remarkable candor of some of the book advertisements. A quarter-page ad by publisher Reynal and Hitchcock for Sidney Hook's "From Hegel to Marx" includes several laudatory blurbs quoted from contemporary reviews, as you usually see in book ads -- and then, at the end, this quote from "The New Republic's" review: "An arid, dreary waste, scholastic pedantry." Well now, I'm heading right out to find a copy.

 

[Harp]

Doris Kearns Goodwin was a Dodger...

Something else interesting in these magazines is the remarkable candor of some of the book advertisements. A quarter-page ad by publisher Reynal and Hitchcock for Sidney Hook's "From Hegel to Marx" includes several laudatory blurbs quoted from contemporary reviews, as you usually see in book ads -- and then, at the end, this quote from "The New Republic's" review: "An arid, dreary waste, scholastic pedantry." Well now, I'm heading right out to find a copy.[/QUOTE]
____________
The Yankees always cast a shadow across baseball and I idolized Mantle and Maris as much as Cub Ernie Banks.
But the Dodgers shone just as brightly. Reese, Robinson, Koufax.... There was magic in Brooklyn.
__________

"Truth in Philosophy means that concept and external reality correspond." Hegel

 

[AmateisGal]

I looked it up on Amazon and found this customer review.

Ugh. Well...I think I'll thumb through it to see what happens, but I doubt I'll read the whole thing. I was a little miffed at it already so it won't be any great loss.

 

[tmal]

The Collected Stories of Sherlock Holmes Vol 1. A B&N collection. It is amazing how good these stories are after all these years. Also the authors style seems modern, and not ploddingly Victorian. If you're not a Holmes fan, you should be. If haven't read about Holmes in years, you should start again. It had been years for me. So long in fact that it was like reading these stories for the first time!

 

[DNO]

A Hell of A Woman by Jim Thompson.