Tag: Japan Page 1 of 2

A Man by Keiichirō Hirano

On January 25, 2021

An interesting but disjointed and convoluted Japanese mystery in translation

As is all too typical these days, I can’t recall why I had A Man on my To Be Read list. Perhaps it was because the author is Japan’s award-winning literary sensation” and this is first novel to be translated into English. But for whatever reason the $1.99 Kindle price was right and I added the Audible version for a few dollars more.

A Man

Keiichiro Hirano

AmazonCrossing

May 19, 2020

Kindle/Audible

295 pages

Akira Kido is a divorce attorney whose own marriage is in danger of being destroyed by emotional disconnect. With a midlife crisis looming, Kido’s life is upended by the reemergence of a former client, Rié Takemoto. She wants Kido to investigate a dead man—her recently deceased husband, Daisuké. Upon his death she discovered that he’d been living a lie. His name, his past, his entire identity belonged to someone else, a total stranger. The investigation draws Kido into two intriguing mysteries: finding out who Rié’s husband really was and discovering more about the man he pretended to be. Soon, with each new revelation, Kido will come to share the obsession with—and the lure of—erasing one life to create a new one.

Because I purchased both the ebook and audiobook, this was another book that I both read and listened to at different times. I do this sometimes when I am juggling multiple books and employing strategies to maximise the books I finish (I was trying to read 100 in a year in 2020).

And that may have played a role in why I found it interesting but rather disjointed and/or convoluted. It seemed to meander and jump around and as a result left me rather confused as to what it was all about.

Audiobook Review: Countdown 1945 by Chris Wallace

By Kevin Holtsberry

On September 1, 2020

In Reviews

After I heard Chris Wallace on special Dispatch Live event with Jonah Goldberg, I put Countdown 1945: The Extraordinary Story of the Atomic Bomb and the 116 Days That Changed the World by Chris Wallace, with Mitch Weiss on my TBR pile.

Not that I am particularly interested in WWI (military history is Jeff’s bailiwick) or the dropping of the atomic bomb, but because I was interested in seeing how Wallace made the subject interesting given we all know what happened and the issues involved have been debated too death. I was curious to see what an old school, straight shooter journalist made of the history.

It turned out the easiest way to get a copy from the library was to listen to the audiobook narrated by Wallace himself. So when it became available, I grabbed it and started listening.

Not surprisingly, Wallace is a great narrator and the style and focus of the book work well in audio format. Unlike some more dense and technical history, I found this enjoyable to listen to and easy to pay attention

As to content, I found it to be a compelling and informative look at the events leading up the dropping of the atomic bomb on Japan in August of 1945. It gives you the perspective not only of President Truman and other larger than life figures but also of a host of minor characters from scientists and military leaders to those who worked at Oak Ridge and Japanese citizens who experienced the destruction of Hiroshima.

Tin Can Titans by John Wukovits

By Jeff Grim

On February 11, 2018

In Reviews

Tin Can Titans by John Wukovits is an excellent narrative of the blue-collar destroyers. Destroyers did not have the firepower of battleships or cruisers or the glamour of the aircraft carriers, but they had the grit and versatility to be vital parts of the U.S. war effort in the Pacific.

Wukovits brings his excellent naval writing pedigree to this book. He has written on many aspects of the Pacific War, including Hell from the Heavens about the USS Laffey and its defense against kamikazes and Pacific Alamo about the U.S. defense of Wake Island at the beginning of the war. This knowledge is abundantly clear throughout the book – many times he calls upon his knowledge of the war in the Pacific.

Wukovits draws extensively from the private letters and diaries of the officers and sailors who served on the destroyers – especially those from the USS O’Bannon, Nicholas, La Vallette, and Howorth. As with any writing that draws on the actual words of the participants rather than after-action reports, the war is more real and easier to understand the conditions in which battles were fought.

According to Wukovits, at the onset of the war, the U.S. Navy was at an extreme disadvantage to the Japanese in capital ships – many of the battleship and cruisers were either sitting at the bottom of Pearl Harbor or severely damaged from that attack and the carriers were few and needed to be protected. As a result, Admiral Halsey called on destroyers to carry the brunt of the load in defending Guadalcanal and taking limited offensive actions against the Japanese. They excelled at this task.

Wukovits keeps the reader engaged with interesting stories and nonstop action.

Never Call Me a Hero: A Legendary American Dive-Bomber Pilot Remembers the Battle of Midway

By Jeff Grim

On November 8, 2017

In Reviews

So, after too long of a hiatus due to family medical issues, I am finally getting back into reading and reviewing.

First up, N. Jack Kleiss (with Timothy and Laura Orr) recounts Kleiss’s role in the pivotal battle in the book Never Call Me A Hero: A Legendary American Dive-Bomber Pilot Remembers the Battle of Midway. This past June was the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Midway.

An overview of the book from the publisher:

On the morning of June 4, 1942, high above the tiny Pacific atoll of Midway, Lt. (j.g.) “Dusty” Kleiss burst out of the clouds and piloted his SBD Dauntless into a near-vertical dive aimed at the heart of Japan’s Imperial Navy, which six months earlier had ruthlessly struck Pearl Harbor. The greatest naval battle in history raged around him, its outcome hanging in the balance as the U.S. desperately searched for its first major victory of the Second World War. Then, in a matter of seconds, Dusty Kleiss’s daring 20,000-foot dive helped forever alter the war’s trajectory.

I love the title of this book. Kleiss never considered himself a hero for doing a job that thousands of other men did throughout the war – flew as pilots for the United States Army, Air Forces or Navy. The word hero has been thrown around so many times that it is now somewhat cheapened when it is used – which is too bad because there are/were some true heroes.

Kleiss’s account of the battle from his perspective is riveting. His detailed analysis of how everything transpired is a testament to the professionalism and expertise of the Navy pilots. Kleiss rightly criticizes naval commanders for their plan to form a large gaggle of planes from the three carriers – the pilots knew it would take too long – and then attack the Japanese fleet.

Kleiss’s personal account of the battle is touching. He brings the personal costs into focus. For example, he recounts the last time he saw his flight school buddy the morning of the attack. They both knew that his friend was going on a suicide mission (his friend was a torpedo plane pilot) because all naval pilots in the Pacific knew the defective nature of American torpedoes. You can sense his raw emotions of the moment even decades after it occurred.

The blow-by-blow account of the battle from a pilot’s perspective is great. Kleiss details what it was like to dive bomb a ship and see the results of a successful bombing run. Although morbid, he describes seeing parts of the ship and men flying in the air because of the explosions. Yet another description of war as hell.

Never Call Me a Hero is a fantastic first person account of the Battle of Midway.

The Question That Never Goes Away by Philip Yancey

By Kevin Holtsberry

On October 19, 2013

In Reviews

One of the best spiritual books I have read in recent years is Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference? by Phillip Yancey. He has a wonderful approachable style and humility and yet offers real insight into difficult questions. So when I so The Question That Never Goes Away available on Kindle for free I jumped at it.

Some days, the news seems too much to bear. Yet another tsunami or earthquake or flood or fire or war atrocity. One more gun-toting madman stalking young people in idyllic Norway or moviegoers in Colorado or schoolchildren in Newtown, Connecticut. We turn off the news only to get a phone call about expectant parents with a stillborn baby, or a loved one whose cancer has returned.

Really, God? we ask. This again?

If we have faith in God, it gets shaken to the core. What was God doing in the moment when that tragedy could have been prevented? If we can’t trust God to keep our children safe or our loved ones from dying in agony, what can we trust God for?

In his classic book Where Is God When It Hurts, Philip Yancey gave us permission to doubt, reasons not to abandon faith, and practical ways to reach out to hurting people. Now, with new perspectives and stories gathered across nearly twenty-five years, once again he tackles the hard questions head-on. His visits to three places in 2012 raised the old problems with new urgency.

I dipped into it to get a flavor and it was compelling enough that I stayed with it until the finish. Yancey doesn’t offer any particular groundbreaking insights into suffering or the theme that has followed him his entire career, Where is God When It Hurts?. But he is a smooth and natural writer and brings as sense of humility and grace to the tragedies in Japan, Sandy Hook/Newton, Sarajevo, etc.