Reviews

The Castaway’s War: One Man’s Battle against Imperial Japan by Stephen Harding

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Most people interested in World War II know that the U.S. Navy spent a majority of its time and assets fighting in the Pacific Theater. It was mainly the Navy’s show and it paid a dear price in its fight against the Japanese armed forces. An example of this price is highlighted in Stephen Harding’s The Castaway’s War, where he describes one American’s fight against the Japanese after his ship is sunk.

Here is an overview from the book’s publisher:

In the early hours of July 5, 1943, the destroyer USS Strong was hit by a Japanese torpedo. The powerful weapon broke the destroyer’s back, killed dozens of sailors, and sparked raging fires. While accompanying ships were able to take off most of Strong‘s surviving crew members, scores went into the ocean as the once-proud warship sank beneath the waves—and a young officer’s harrowing story of survival began.

Lieutenant Hugh Barr Miller, a prewar football star at the University of Alabama, went into the water as the vessel sank. Severely injured, Miller and several others survived three days at sea and eventually landed on a Japanese-occupied island. The survivors found fresh water and a few coconuts, but Miller, suffering from internal injuries and believing he was on the verge of death, ordered the others to go on without him. They reluctantly did so, believing, as Miller did, that he would be dead within hours.

But Miller didn’t die, and his health improved enough for him to begin searching for food. He also found the enemy—Japanese forces patrolling the island. Miller was determined to survive, and so launched a one-man war against the island’s occupiers.

As with many descriptions of  heroic feats, Harding first describes Miller’s years before the Navy, including his time at Alabama and his married life. Harding then tells how Miller was involved in the fitting out and launching of the USS Strong and the ship’s actions around the Solomon Islands.

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Reviews

A Tale of Two Citizens by Elyce Wakerman

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Elyce Wakerman’s A Tale of Two Citizens is an immigrant story based in the thirties and forties that rings true in today’s over-heated immigrant debate.

Harry Himelbaum is a twenty year old Polish immigrant who must tell a lie (that he is not married) in order to enter the United States. The lie eats at him, but he tells it to start a new life away from the oppression in Europe. Nearly a decade after telling the lie, Harry is forced to address the lie when he applies for visa papers for his wife and son.

The man who discovers the lie and tries to deport Harry is Will Brown, a federal government attorney who zealously pursues immigrants who lied to immigrate to the U.S. Will tries to uphold the nation’s laws and keep his country “pure.” Unbeknownst to Will, his wife Barbara has some affection for Harry from previous encounters in New York City – this complicates things.

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Reviews

The Devil’s Diary: Alfred Rosenberg and the Stolen Secrets of the Third Reich by Robert K. Wittman and David Kinney

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Most people know who Hitler was, but many do not know the man who gave Hitler some of his worst ideas. The “ideologue/philosopher” behind Hitler was Alfred Rosenberg, an Estonian who embraced the Aryan race myth. Robert K. Wittman and David Kinney have written a book, The Devil’s Diary, about Rosenberg and the search for his diary following its disappearance after World War II.

Here is a brief summary of the book:

A groundbreaking World War II narrative wrapped in a riveting detective story, The Devil’s Diary investigates the disappearance of a private diary penned by one of Adolf Hitler’s top aides—Alfred Rosenberg, his “chief philosopher”—and mines its long-hidden pages to deliver a fresh, eye-opening account of the Nazi rise to power and the genesis of the Holocaust.

An influential figure in Adolf Hitler’s early inner circle from the start, Alfred Rosenberg made his name spreading toxic ideas about the Jews throughout Germany. By the dawn of the Third Reich, he had published a bestselling masterwork that was a touchstone of Nazi thinking.

His diary was discovered hidden in a Bavarian castle at war’s end—five hundred pages providing a harrowing glimpse into the mind of a man whose ideas set the stage for the Holocaust. Prosecutors examined it during the Nuremberg war crimes trial, but after Rosenberg was convicted, sentenced, and executed, it mysteriously vanished.

New York Times bestselling author Robert K. Wittman, who as an FBI agent and then a private consultant specialized in recovering artifacts of historic significance, first learned of the diary in 2001, when the chief archivist for the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum contacted him to say that someone was trying to sell it for upwards of a million dollars. The phone call sparked a decade-long hunt that took them on a twisting path involving a pair of octogenarian secretaries, an eccentric professor, and an opportunistic trash-picker. From the crusading Nuremberg prosecutor who smuggled the diary out of Germany to the man who finally turned it over, everyone had reasons for hiding the truth.

The book almost should be considered two separate books – one that covers the search and discovery of the diary and the other that chronicles Rosenberg – but both are melded together perfectly. The first part highlights Robert Kempner, a prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials who fled Nazi Germany before the war because of his Jewish heritage. The authors describe how Kempner took many primary documents, including Rosenberg’s diary, during the preparation for the trials.

The second part is about Rosenberg and his life in the Nazi Party. It covers everything from Rosenberg’s witness and participation in the Beer Hall Putsch to his supervision of the pillaging of European Jews’ (and others’) possessions, including priceless art.

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Reviews

Crazy Horse (Penguin Lives) by Larry McMurtry

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After reading a short young adult novel on Crazy Horse I was motivated to pull this short biography of Crazy Horse off the shelf and read it. It was an enjoyable and interesting rumination.

McMurtry tries to, but knows it is impossible to really, separate the “man from the myth.” He tries to help the reader understand the limited number of facts involved and the perspectives of many of the historians and writers (personalities) who have tackled the subject.

It is not the type of biography to lay out the basic facts in a straightforward way, but it is an engaging and insightful way to think about this larger than life character.

As with the novel, I was frequently saddened by the tragedy of the American dealings with Native Americans and the disappearance of their way of life.

I agree with Publishers Weekly:

Deceptively brief and seemingly lightweight, this wonderful work effectively cuts through decades of hyperbole. McMurtry illuminates the enigma and the myth of Crazy Horse to present him as a man?no more, no less. He has stripped away the incessant Noble Savage image that persists in many serious works about Native Americans, even to this day. He gently jabs earlier biographers who based entire volumes on little or no evidence of the events in Crazy Horse’s life. “Still I am not writing this book because I think I know what Crazy Horse did much less what he thought on more than a few occasions in his life; I’m writing it because I have some notions about what he meant to his people in his lifetime, and also what he has come to mean to generations of Sioux in our century and even our time.”

Reviews

The Wander Society by Keri Smith

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The Wander Society by Keri Smith sounded intriguing and imaginative when the publisher brought it to my attention.

And it was all of that. But for some reason it left me a little cold in the end. To me it seemed a little too clever by half; all the mystery of the Wander Society, its membership and activities. And I didn’t care for the new age sensibility of it all either

But that seems a bit harsh. I am not exactly the creative or crafty type. I am a reader and a critic. I like to think about abstract things and argue about specifics of policy, art and culture. I really don’t think this book is aimed at me exactly. Or perhaps it is and I just refused to let it crack my shell or impact my life by diving into its instructions and ideas.

My wife, who has a BFA and is artsy-crafty, immediately loved it.  In fact, I was delayed in reading it because she grabbed it and started reading it.  She also also went out and bought Wreck This Journal and immediately began using it.  So she is a fan.

But despite any misgivings I might have, I think there are some very creative and worthwhile elements here. There is a sense in which our technology dominated world separates us from reality and clogs our brains. Creativity, imagination, connection, insights, etc. are all much more likely to flow if we can get away from staring at screens all day and night never getting out of the daily routine.

The willingness to wander and explore; to seek out new and unexpected things is worth cultivating. And Smith does a great job of laying out a way to do so wrapped in a mystery and infused with visual and literary stimulation and/or motivation. And the beauty of a book like this is you can take what you want from it and leave the rest behind.

I like the idea of wandering, and have done it myself in the past, and breaking free of technology and routine/habit. I like the idea of finding space to be open to new ideas and to feel better connected with who you are and where you want to go/be. I might even leave some stickers around town and slip some quotes into books. I think I need to find my sources and inspirations, however, as hers don’t quite line up with mine.

Reviews

Everyone Has Their Reasons by Joseph Matthews

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Most people have heard of Kristallnacht (the Night of Broken Glass) – the night when the Nazis targeted Jews throughout Germany – but most people do not know whose actions were used as the pretext for the attacks. That person was Jewish teenager Herschel Grynszpan who killed a Nazi diplomat in Paris. Joseph Matthews, in Everyone Has Their Reasons, writes a fictional account of Grynszpan as he escapes Germany and tries to hide in Paris as an undocumented immigrant.

Matthews writes from Grynszpan’s perspective in the form of letters to his court-appointed attorney in Germany. Although I was not sure about this style at first because it was a little disjointed, I eventually warmed to the approach. The letters are written in a formal manner that portrays a lot of information about Grynszpan’s experiences. The experiences vary from his constant struggles to find work and shelter to his pursuit of gaining legal status in France.

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