3.5 stars. I’ve heard so much about Bletchley Park code breakers and the Native American code talkers, that it somehow never even occurred to me that there were tons of Americans actively engaged in breaking both German and Japanese codes during World War II. Like the women at Bletchley Park, the American code women were sworn to secrecy about their work and it’s only now that their work is coming to light. Liza Mundy spent an incredible amount of time and effort tracking down women […]
We developed a coldness inside us that still has not thawed.
This was such a beautifully researched work of fiction, it almost feels wrong not to categorize it as a biography. The book can’t be discussed without discussing its use of the first person plural, as in “Some of us read this book. Some of us only looked at it. Some of us never even heard of it.” It’s an unusual choice, and I could certainly see where it could get old. It’s a very slim book and for me, it was just starting to show some […]
To forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time.
I will not review this as a book. This is not a book. It may be published as a book. It has a title, an author. A cover with neat little blurbs on the back from Oprah Winfrey, from the New York Times. WINNER OF THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE written on the front. All of it seems garish compared to what is inside. This is a witness. “To forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time.” Wiesel describes his life before […]
The kindle version is only $2.51 right now
3.5 stars. The premise of My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me is hard to resist. Though adopted as a child, Jennifer Teege had some contact with her biological mother and grandmother. As a young adult, she spent time in Israel, learning their language, making friends with the people, and even volunteering with Holocaust victims who wanted to speak German again. Imagine her surprise when she browsed a library later in life and saw her biological mother in a book about Amon Goeth, the notoriously vicious […]