Reported by Garry
Good Medicine,
Hard Times: Memoir of a Combat Physician in Iraq by Edward Horvath. At age fifty-nine, and
thirty years after retiring from the Navy, Edward Horvath re-enlists with the
Army to be a combat physician in the Iraq war in order to save the “neighbor’s
kid” – no matter who that kid is. According to our reader, it didn’t take long
for Horvath to figure out that the war was completely unnecessary and led to
innumerable deaths and injuries on both sides, including innocents. “So good I
cried, and I don’t regret any of my tears”.
CD
The war theme continues with our next book, Meadowlands by Elizabeth Jeffrey. In this historical novel, the aristocratic Barsham family’s way of life is blown apart by the social upheavals of World War I, leaving the Barshams to figure out how to run the estate on their own. The servants, maids, and workers leave either to go to the front lines or factories to serve the war efforts. The Barsham children’s lives are upended when they take on roles that were deemed “unfit” for the children of the upper class. Class lines are obliterated on the front line, and when the war is over, things do not return to the way they were. A very human look at the societal changes during the horrors of wartime, this book is highly recommended by our reader. KN
The next war themed
book takes place on the other side of the world from England – Hawaii! The
Codebreaker’s Secret by Sara Ackerman is historical fiction that centers on
Isabel Cooper, a military codebreaker in Pearl Harbor. Isabel meets and falls
in love with her late brother’s best friend. Fast forward to 1965 and the
opening of the Mauna Kea Beach Hotel, an event being covered by journalist Lu
Freitas. One of the high-profile guests goes missing and Lu forms an unlikely
alliance with a crotchety veteran photographer to solve the mystery of the
missing guest – a mystery that ties in to Isabel’s story and threatens to
expose secrets long buried. Our reader loved the twists and turns in the
mystery and the way that this story evolves, and, even though she doesn’t
usually like time-jumps, found that this author handles them well. WJ
On The Rooftop by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton is the story
of a family in 1950s San Francisco and the social changes that engulf them. Vivian
is mother to three extraordinarily talented young women, Ruth, Ester, and
Chloe, known as The Salvations, who
have been singing and dancing together since they were toddlers. Vivian has
been working tirelessly to get the girls a recording contract and finally
scores an offer from a major talent agent. But is it too late? The girls are
now young women in their early 20s who have dreams and aspirations of their own
– many of which don’t have room for being in a “girl band”. This story is set
against the backdrop of the gentrification of their neighborhood, the Fillmore
District. White property developers are buying up Black owned homes,
demolishing them and putting up high-priced new housing, driving out the local
families that have called Fillmore their homes for generations. Our reader
commented on how beautifully and evocatively written this book is and highly
recommends it. MP
Also mentioned:
Haunted Historic
Abingdon by Donnamarie
Emmert
Civil War Sites
in Virginia by James I. Robertson
Jr. and Brian Steel Wills
Five-Star
Trails: Asheville: 35 Spectacular Hikes in the Land of Sky by Jennifer Pharr Davis
Daniel Boone The
Pioneer of Kentucky by
John S.C. Abbott
Billy Summers by Stephen King
Ireland by Frank Delaney
Fairy Tale by Stephen King
The Yellow House by Sarah M. Broom
Debt: The First
5000 Years by David
Graeber
All Good People
Here by Ashley Flowers
Contact by Carl Sagan
The Scarlet
Pimpernel by Baroness
Orczy
Here on Earth by Alice Hoffman
The Daughter of
Doctor Moreau by Silvia
Moreno-Garcia
Lessons by Ian McEwan
The Book of
Phobias and Manias: A History of Obsession by Kate Summerscale
Deaf Republic by Ilya Kaminsky
She Kills Me:
The True Stories of History’s Deadliest Women by Jennifer Wright
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