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Tag Archives: World War II

Love and Ruin by Paula McLain

05 Monday Nov 2018

Posted by Weston Public Library Staff in Biographical fiction, Historical Fiction

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author's spouses, Cuba, Ernest Hemingway, Martha Gelhorn, Spain, United States, war correspondents, women journalists, World War II

What woman could hold her own and be married to Ernest Hemingway?  Meet Hemingway’s third wife, Martha Gelhorn, who did become one of the greatest war correspondents of the 20th century.  I have read both The Paris Wife and Circling the Sun, but McLain’s novel portraying this stormy, passionate marriage is by far the best of the three.

“Wonderfully evocative . . . This is historical fiction at its best, and today’s female readers will be encouraged by Martha, who refuses to be silenced or limited in a time that was harshly repressive for women.”—Library Journal (starred review)

“Propulsive . . . highly engaging . . . McLain does an excellent job portraying a woman with dreams who isn’t afraid to make them real, showing [Gellhorn’s] bravery in what was very much a man’s world. Her work around the world . . . is presented in meticulous, hair-raising passages. . . . The book is fueled by her questing spirit, which asks, Why must a woman decide between being a war correspondent and a wife in her husband’s bed?”—The New York Times Book Review

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Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers of World War II by Liz Mundy

05 Friday Jan 2018

Posted by Weston Public Library Staff in 20th century, History, Non-fiction, United States

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1939-1945, crytography, women participation in war, World War II

1942 – all the men were off to war.  An suddenly the Navy and Army needed brain power to break volumes of enemy codes. Senior women graduates started receiving mysterious letters asking them to come to Washington DC to help the war effort. 10,000 women responded from across the US and swore an oath of secrecy for life.  With these girls, I experienced WWII… battle to battle, ship by ship. Their efforts shortened the war, saved countless lives, and gave them access to careers previously denied to them. Fascinating!

“Mundy is a fine storyteller…. A sleek, compelling narrative…. The book is a winner. Her descriptions of codes and ciphers, how they worked and how they were broken, are remarkably clear and accessible. A well-researched, compellingly written, crucial addition to the literature of American involvement in World War II.”―Kirkus (starred review)

“Code Girls reveals a hidden army of female cryptographers, whose work played a crucial role in ending World War II. With clarity and insight, Mundy exposes the intertwined narratives of the women who broke codes and the burgeoning field of military intelligence in the 1940s. I cannot overstate the importance of this book; Mundy has rescued a piece of forgotten history, and given these American heroes the recognition they deserve.”―Nathalia Holt, New York Times bestselling author of Rise of the Rocket Girls

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Shadow Divers: the True Adventure of Two Americans Who Risked Everything to Solve One of theLast Mysteries of World War II by Robert Kurson

08 Monday Jun 2015

Posted by Weston Public Library Staff in Non-fiction, Sports

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1939-45, deep diving, German submarine, naval operations, New Jersey, shipwrecks, underwater archaeology, World War II

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In the tradition of Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air and Sebastian Junger’s The Perfect Storm comes a true tale of riveting adventure in which two weekend scuba divers risk everything to solve a great historical mystery and make history themselves.  Kurson is a dynamic writer who will give the reader some fascinating human interest stories as well as a history lesson and a scuba diving lesson.  This book was a great hit with the Non-Fiction Book Discussion Group at the Weston Public Library.  An engrossing read!

“Robert Kurson’s Shadow Divers, about the divers exploring a sunken shipwreck off the New Jersey coast, is a gripping account of real-life adventurers and a real-life mystery. In addition to being compellingly readable on every page, the book offers a unique window on the deep, almost reckless nature of the human quest to know.”–SCOTT TUROW, author of Reversible Errors

“A winning tale exceedingly well told, Shadow Divers takes us on a dangerous and seemingly quixotic descent into the murk–and then, in a fog of nitrogen narcosis, brings us back to the surface with a richer, fuller fathoming of a history we only thought we knew.”–HAMPTON SIDES, author of Ghost Soldiers: The Epic Account of World War II’s Greatest Rescue Mission

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The Invisible Bridge: a novel by Julie Orringer

14 Tuesday Apr 2015

Posted by Weston Public Library Staff in Historical Fiction

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architecture students, brothers, Budapest (Hungary), Jews, love stories, Paris (France), persecution, World War II

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Historical fiction at its best.   Three brothers you won’t forget.  A love story so deep that even the one you have known seems somehow less.  I was ready to book a trip to Budapest after reading only half the book only to realize that this mesmerizing Budapest, alas, is never to be again.  The Hungarian Jewish WWII experience was so different than those of other countries.  Be thunderstruck!

“To bring an entire lost world—its sights, its smells, its heartaches, raptures and terrors—to vivid life between the covers of a novel is an accomplishment; to invest that world, and everyone who inhabits it, with a soul, as Julie Orringer does in The Invisible Bridge, takes something more like genius.” —Michael Chabon, author of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

“The word ‘epic’ seems inadequate to describe Julie Orringer’s phenomenal first novel, The Invisible Bridge. You don’t so much read it as live it. . . . Profoundly moving. . . . This is one that cries for you to linger over it, page by enthralling page.” —Financial Times

“Orringer avoids pathos and has a gift for re-creating distant times and places: a Paris suffused with the scent of paprikas and the sounds of American jazz, the camraderies and cruelties of the work camps. The ticking clock of history keeps it urgent and moving forward, and the result is, against all odds, a Holocaust page-turner.” —New York magazine

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Citizens of London: The Americans Who Stood with Britain in Its Darkest, Finest Hour by Lynne Olson

08 Thursday Jan 2015

Posted by Weston Public Library Staff in Non-fiction

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alliances, diplomatic history, military leadership, US-Great Britian foreign relations, World War II

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Lynne Olson focuses on three extraordinary Americans who were in London from 1939-1945, Edward R. Morrow, the broadcast journalist, John Gilbert Winant, the American ambassador to Great Britain, and Averell Harriman, a confidante of both Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill. Their relationships with each other and others, including Pamela Churchill, the prime minister’s daughter-in-law and Tommy Hitchcock, a wealthy bon-vivant who flew fighter planes, changed the course of history. The author brings war-torn London alive in a fascinating way! This book was a great hit with Weston’s new Non-Fiction Book Discussion Group.

“Ingenious history . . . All three men were colorful, larger-than-life figures, and Olson’s absorbing narrative does them justice.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)\

“An engaging history . . . a vibrant city fueled by courage and resolve.”—The Christian Science Monitor

“[A] cracking good read.”—New York Post

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The Madonnas of Leningrad by Debra Dean

05 Wednesday Nov 2014

Posted by Weston Public Library Staff in Fiction, Historical Fiction

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Alzheimer's, art treasures in war, Hermitage Museum, memory, Seige 1941-44, St. Petersburg (Russia), World War II

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The author of this novel offers a poignant but marvelous glimpse into the life of Marina Buriakov, a former docent at the Hermitage Art Museum in Leningrad during World War II, whose mind is now slipping into the shadows of Alzheimer’s.

“Dean writes with passion and compelling drama about a grotesque chapter of World War II.” (People)

“Elegant and poetic, the rare kind of book that you want to keep but you have to share.” (Isabel Allende, New York Times bestselling author of Zorro)

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The Other Side of the Bridge by Mary Lawson

24 Tuesday Jun 2014

Posted by Weston Public Library Staff in Fiction

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brothers, conflict of generations, Depression years, farm life, Ontario, sibling rivalry, World War II

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I found myself recommending this favorite book to a patron the other day after a conversation about siblings.  Tension travels from page to page as two brothers working the family farm in northern Canada virtually despise the other and his ways.  Each day one taunts the other, cries wolf, plans pranks, needles relentlessly.   We all probably have experienced all-in-good-fun-go-suddenly-wrong… in seconds.  Siblings never let you forget ….ever.  Crow Lake is also an excellent read.   My name is already on the Holds list for her new book coming out this summer!

“Lawson’s gifts are enormous, especially her ability to write a literary work in a popular style. Her dialogue has perfect pitch, yet I’ve never read anyone better at articulating silence. Best of all, Lawson creates the most quotable images in Canadian literature.” —Toronto Star

 “[Lawson] returns to several of the themes that marked her brilliantly successful first novel, Crow Lake. . . . Lawson’s cornucopia of novelistic gifts, even more bounteously on display in her second book, includes handsome, satisfying sentences, vivid descriptions of physical work and landscape and an almost fiendish efficiency in building the feeling that something very bad is about to happen.” —National Post

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22 Britannia Road by Amanda Hodgkinson

18 Friday Apr 2014

Posted by Weston Public Library Staff in Historical Fiction

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England, Parent and child relationships, Poland, Secrecy, World War II

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English writer Hodgkinson won high praise from reviewers when her debut novel was released in 2011.  This is a poignant story that chronicles the struggles of a young Polish couple to recover their lives after several years of separation and suffering during the Second World War.

“Silvana Nowak and her seven-year-old son, Aurek, endure many hardships when German troops invade Warsaw in 1939. Six years later, British soldiers rescue them from the isolated forest in which they’re living and transport them to England, where they rejoin Silvana’s husband, Janusz, an RAF veteran. After successfully adapting to his new country, Janusz hopes to make a fresh start for them at 22BritanniaRoad in Ipswich. Fiercely protective of her son, world-weary Silvana’s hair has become gray. Aurek, a half-wild boy with no memories of traditional home life, has difficulties with school and sees Janusz as the enemy. Alternately presenting each of the Nowaks’ viewpoints on present and past, the novel courageously addresses tragic occurrences and lingering aftereffects. Both adults are hiding things, including complicated extramarital romantic feelings, and suspense steadily builds toward the surprising revelation of Silvana’s most painful secret. A stellar example of literary WWII fiction.” — Johnson, Sarah (Reviewed 04-01-2011) (Booklist, vol 107, number 15, p34)

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