During the past year I’ve had numerous friends recommend The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Schaffer and Annie Barrows. When my mom sent me home with the book, I knew the time was right to give it a chance. Once again, my mom was right — this is a great summer read.

As World War II ends and London residents attempt to return to some semblance of normality, Juliet Ashton receives a letter from a stranger who lives on Guernsey thanking her for donating a volume of Charles Lamb’s writings. Thus begins a lengthy and friendly correspondence between Juliet and Dawsey, and eventually several other Guernsey islanders.

The correspondence with Dawsey incites an interest for Juliet, who is a journalist, in Guernsey’s war-time occupation by German forces. Juliet receives letters from all the members of the Literary Society, which formed by accident and alibi. Several friends were on their way home from an illicit roast pork (meat was severely rationed) dinner when they were stopped by a Nazi patrol. Elizabeth made up the book club on the spot, then all the diners made it a reality. Despite its shaky beginnings, the group certainly helped the islanders survive hard experiences and forged strong lasting bonds. No one in Europe escaped the ravages of WWII, including those in this secluded spot in the English Channel.

Elizabeth occupies much of the letters to Juliet, and the epistles Juliet writes once she visits Guernsey. For a character who’s always "off-stage," the strong-willed, vibrant Elizabeth and her daughter give this book its heart. I enjoyed piecing together all the news and action by reading letters. In today’s world of instant, constant social media, I appreciated the slower pace of life delivered by snail mail.

Kristen Blount – Administration Offices

One summer, Octavia and her older sister Talitha (Tali) reluctantly travel cross-country from California to a family reunion in Alabama with their stylish, 80-something grandmother, a " skinny-cigarette-smoking-fake-finger-nail-wearing" eccentric, who prefers to be called Mare, like the French word mère for mother. Mare also drives a red car and wears stilettos. The sisters are at first repulsed by Mare’s very frank tales of growing up in a tiny southern town with her troubled mother and younger sister Josephine (Feen). When their mother sends Feen to live with an aunt in Philadelphia, Mare decides to run away and join the military, although she is only seventeen.

Mare’s War is craftily told in alternating chapters from three points of view, seamlessly switching back and forth between the war-filled 1930s to contemporary life. Sisters Octavia and Tali send cute, humorous postcards home to their parents and friends — allowing the reader to really feel their innermost thoughts. Author Tanita S. Davis fills her novel with keen insights on life, love, and true happiness. The story follows the lives of the young women who were members of the 6888th African American Battalion of the U. S. Women’s Army Corps during World War II.  

What a refreshing change from the typical young adult fare of vampires, school grudges, and mean girls! I actually learned quite a few revealing facts about the history of African American World War II WACs. Although I knew that many women served in the military during the "great war," I was surprised that black women were segregated from their white female colleagues, just as their male counterparts were separated from white military personnel.

I recommend Mare’s War to middle school girls, adults of all ages, and mother-daughter book clubs. If you enjoy Mare’s War, you may also like the author’s debut young adult fiction novel A La Carte, which features seventeen year old Lainey, who dreams of becoming a world famous chef.

Elaine Johnson – Central Library

Stephen Ambrose’s 1992 book Band of Brothers tells the story of Easy Company, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, "from Normandy to Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest." Developing from Ambrose’s interest in Eisenhower and the pivotal events of D-Day (June 6th, 1944) Band of Brothers takes us away from the political decision makers and grand strategists, putting the reader alongside the fighting men on the front line. Ambrose’s book collects the memories of Easy Company’s members, allowing us to share their circumstances, delights and frustrations as they were deployed — and redeployed — across Europe in the final year of the war. Easy Company’s experience is both representative and extraordinary. It was this close-up first-person detail, in combination with Easy Company’s extraordinary range of battlefield experience, that made the book an ideal candidate for development as a television miniseries.

The HBO miniseries, produced with the involvement of Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks, comprises a series of connected mini-feature films. Each episode focuses on a different member of the company, and has a different tone and feel.  We first encounter Easy Company in intensive training at Camp Toccoa, GA. Subsequently, the company parachutes into Normandy as part of the D-Day offensive, fights in Holland as part of Operation Market Garden, spends the winter at Bastogne in the Ardennes, and plays a significant role as allied forces push into Germany and Austria to bring the conflict to a close. The production pays great attention to detail and reveals a larger story by telling a specific — and personal — one in each episode.

The veterans themselves are interviewed in a companion documentary, We Stand Alone Together, and the success of Band of Brothers gave a number of them a wider audience for their remarkable stories. Richard Winters co-authored Beyond Band of Brothers with Cole Kingseed, and was profiled in Biggest Brother by Larry Alexander. Easy Company veterans Bill Guarnere and Babe Heffron collaborated to produce Brothers in Battle. Each of these books offers a different perspective and additional details about Easy Company’s experiences in Europe, providing a cumulative picture of Easy Company’s experience and a window into the larger conflict.

HBO’s companion series, The Pacific, premieres in mid-March 2010. The production is  based on Eugene B. Sledge’s With the Old Breed at Peleliu and Okinawa, Robert Leckie’s Helmet for My Pillow, and the experiences of John Basilone detailed in I’m Staying With My Boys. HBO’s new show presents an ideal opportunity to revisit the European Theater after D-Day with the Band of Brothers of Easy Company, 506th P.I.R.

John Jewitt – Savage Branch

Most stories are told with a beginning, middle, and end. Over the course of a novel, problems arise and are solved; characters learn something about themselves; the world resumes its rhythms with the closing of the final page. But then there’s Gravity’s Rainbow. Thomas Pynchon’s “novel” spans over 700 mind-boggling pages and won the National Book Award in 1974, but, after reading it, I cannot say what this book is really about.

In the heat of World War II, as A-4 rockets rain down on London, dream-reading bureaucrats, sadistic Pavlovian scientists, ghostly mediums, and lustful American liaison Tyrone Slothrop live and work under the threat of the Rocket, the tyranny of instantaneous annihilation. Meanwhile, in the defeated German state, known as the Zone, all chaos has broken loose. The “schwartzgerat,” a prototypical piece of a lost rocket, is missing and Slothrop is dedicated to finding it. But what exactly is it? And why are suicidal African commandos, power-hungry Russian spiritualists, smuggler pornographers, and the twisted agents of the British command searching for it too?

This is not an easy book to describe, much less to read. Pynchon’s narrative rarely stays in one location, style, or perspective for more than a page. On top of that, Slothrop, the closest thing we have to protagonist, is never really the center of the story, as the cast totals hundreds by the book’s end. And I haven’t even mentioned the many times that Pynchon will break into song, mid-scene. But in the mess, there is a tremendous beauty. Both the moments of clarity and the confusion are written in wondrous prose, astounding in detail, heart-wrenching in delivery. I cannot think of another novel that can go from maddening sadness to apocalyptic hilarity in the span of a single page, but Pynchon accomplishes this. Paragraphs will trail through your mind, haunting you for months after finishing this book.

Although the narrative is proudly puzzling and consistently offensive, Gravity’s Rainbow rewards those who are willing to forsake narrative cohesion in order to explore the treacherous, delirious Zone. The 1974 Pulitzer board didn’t call it “unreadable, turgid, overwritten and obscene” for nothing.

Khaleel Gheba – Miller Branch

I was initially bored with the descriptions of stylish clothing worn by the "beautiful girl" sisters — 21-year-old Pearl and 18-year-old May. However, as I persisted listening to the CD of Shanghai Girls by Lisa See, I became totally immersed in the imagery of the sights and sounds of 1930s Shanghai. The sisters were somewhat "modern" Chinese girls, living with traditional parents, while hiding their modeling job for a local commercial artist. The two also enjoyed late night dining and entertainment.

Here is what Pearl said about her relationship with her younger sister May: "Whenever you have two sisters – or siblings of any number or either sex – comparisons are made. May and I were born in Yin Bo Village, less than a half day’s walk from Canton. We’re only three years apart, but we couldn’t be more different. She’s funny; I’m criticized for being too somber. She’s tiny and has an adorable fleshiness to her; I’m tall and thin. May, who just graduated from high school, has no interest in reading anything beyond the gossip columns; I graduated from college five weeks ago. "

When their father’s financial circumstances decline, Pearl and May are shocked and dismayed to learn that he has arranged marriages for them in exchange for monetary assistance. 

With the onslaught of war, the family is torn apart and nothing is ever the same again. Pearl and May discover troubling family secrets, lies, and betrayals as they face the harsh realities of coming-of-age in a war-torn world.  Eventually they both endure the often tedious, humiliating immigration process into the United States via Angel Island — only to face even more difficult challenges in a new country.

The bonds of love, friendship, and sibling rivalry were brilliantly exposed in Shanghai Girls. Share this gem with your sisters! Chock-full of universal themes worth discussing, I would recommend See’s engaging, thought-provoking novel for most book clubs. 

A 2010 Adult Summer Reading Club recommendation

Elaine Johnson – Central Library

My Father’s Roses: A Family’s Journey from World War I to Treblinka by Nancy Kohner is a tricky little book to quantify. It’s part journal, part family letters, and part reminiscences.

The author spent years organizing and annotating the boxes of family papers and photos she discovered after her father’s death. She hired a translator to help with language and handwriting for some of the older documents, among the more than 40 years worth of correspondence from her father’s and grandparents’ generations. The book’s chapters alternate between letters and the author’s thoughts and memories of her childhood.

Kohner’s father was born the youngest of three children in a Jewish family in a German-speaking region of what is now the Czech Republic. The letters recount the family’s mundane life of owning a shop, tending their garden, educating the children, and surviving both World War I and its repercussions. Eventually Kohner’s father and other family members escaped to England, but (as the title warns) many others died during the Holocaust.

This book is most simply a labor of love — to remember the author’s beloved father, the family she never knew, and her Jewish heritage. In a final awful irony and as her daughter writes in the book’s prologue, the author died of cancer before the book was published. It’s a quiet book. Full of daily life and terrible moments, My Father’s Roses will stick with me for a long time.

Kristen Blount – Administration Office

Everyone knows that World War II was big, but not too many people grasp what this particular use of the word "big" really means. The Greatest Battle gives a reader the beginnings of a notion. 

This book is an account of the Battle for Moscow, fought between the Germans and the Russians during the winter of 1941-42. During six months of bitter fighting, a total of 2.5 million men (more than 600,000 Germans, nearly 1.9 million Russians) were killed, wounded, or captured. It was, Andrew Nagorski claims, the most important battle of the Second World War because outside Moscow, for the first time, and despite horrific Russian losses, Hitler’s armies were stopped in their tracks. 

The book’s broad scope covers diplomatic maneuverings, espionage, the German view of events, etc., in addition to the fighting. More than anything, though, The Greatest Battle is a window into the workings of Stalin and his regime. The view is horrifying. 

Balancing the evil inflicted by Stalin against the crimes of Hitler is kind of pointless. The crimes of each are so far beyond the imaginings of most common mortals that they tend to be as bewildering as they are horrifying. Stalin was lucky, though. Being on the winning side, much of what he did managed to get overlooked. To this day, there are surprising numbers of people who ignore his crimes and celebrate his supposedly determined and competent leadership during the Second World War.   

Actually, there’s less to celebrate than many would think.

As Nagorski makes plain, Stalin seemed more paralyzed than determined at the outset of the war with Germany. As for competence, his military ineptitude was so vast that it resulted in the collapse and even surrender of Russian armies numbering hundreds of thousands of men. Yet, during and after the war, the millions of men lost to German captivity as a result of Stalin’s lack of capability were punished as traitors by the very man whose own shortcomings caused them to fall into the hands of the enemy.

For many reasons, but particularly because of what it tells the reader about Stalin’s regime at war, The Greatest Battle is an utterly fascinating book, also available on CD. You can only feel sorry that the people of Russia had to fight under such a leader. 
 
Joe McHugh – Administration Office

Sarah Waters‘ The Little Stranger combines the intricate social class structure of post World War II Britain with elements of the unknown — the resulting effect is unsettling for the once-wealthy Ayres family. If you can imagine a cross between Wuthering Heights and Emma, as told by Alfred Hitchcock, you can grasp the experience of reading The Little Stranger. One thing you don’t have to fear, however, is the length of this novel; it is a well-written page-turner.

The Little Stranger is narrated by Dr. Faraday, who has risen above his class, complicating both his personal and professional lives. By coincidence Faraday is called to Hundreds Hall, the once magnificent home to the Ayres family. As he treats Roderick Ayres, who has not escaped the war unscathed either mentally or physically, the Ayres learn that this is not Faraday’s first visit to their home. His mother was formerly a maid in the mansion, a place he so coveted as a child that he broke off a piece of ornamental plaster to keep.

Dr. Faraday’s life becomes increasingly entwined with Roderick, the "spinster" Caroline, their mother, and Hundreds Hall — now a shadow of its former glory. Strange things begin to occur at Hundreds Hall, convincing the family that they may not be its only residents.

I confess that I am not a fan of the ambiguous ending, but in the case of The Little Stranger, Waters provides enough clues that I spent an evening re-tracing my steps to solve the mystery. I hope that you enjoy the book enough to do the same.

Andrea Misner – Administration

What do English spies and the author of the children’s classic Charlie and the Chocolate Factory have in common? Everything, I found out as I listened to The Irregulars in Playaway format. (For anyone who hasn’t tried these clever new devices, Playaways are small digital audiobooks that are highly portable, for convenient listening while walking or traveling.)

Not only did Roald Dahl write children’s books (James and the Giant Peach is another), he was also a member of a select group of Brits who moved among the Georgetown social set to both influence American policy toward increased support of the British war effort and gather information about isolationists in the U.S. Arriving in Washington in 1942, Dahl, a former RAF pilot who (because of injuries), was assigned as an Air Attache to the British Embassy. Among his fellow intelligence operatives were Ian Fleming, later the creator of James Bond, and David Ogilvy, who was to become an advertising legend. They called themselves “The Irregulars” after “The Baker Street Irregulars,” a group of amateurs aiding Sherlock Holmes.

Having always heard of the legendary Evelyn Walsh McLean, owner of the Hope Diamond, I was particularly fascinated by the episodes in this work describing dinners at her mansion. The table flatware was gold; the dashing Dahl (who was 6’6”) sported his RAF uniform; and McLean, wearing her Civil Air Warden uniform with the famous diamond underneath, let dinner guests, including young soldiers, pass the gem around for a close-up view.

I love the historical accuracy in this fast-paced work that reads like fiction. The Irregulars mentions celebrities, including columnist Drew Pearson, Congresswoman Clare Booth Luce, and even a young Texas Congressman Lyndon B. Johnson, a protege of then power broker and House Speaker Sam Rayburn. The young Roald Dahl (age 26) met them all as he used his skills at the bridge table and the cocktail hour to become a welcome guest on the social circuit. Dahl reported to William Stephenson, the head of British espionage who is said to have been the model for the James Bond novels (penned later by Ian Fleming).

The Library owns this work in several formats, but you may want to try a Playaway. Every branch has a selection of titles; just add your own AAA battery and headphones, or purchase some at the Checkout Desk, and “play away.”

Jean Salkeld – Administration

The first line of Beside a Burning Sea immediately pulls in the reader — “Ten minutes before a torpedo sliced through the sea and slammed into steel, most everything was normal aboard the hospital ship Benevolence.”

Thus begins a suspenseful WWII tale as nine very different people are thrown together on a small deserted island in the Solomons after their ship sinks. Coincidentally the island also happens to be a strategically desirable spot for the Japanese military. What follows in the next eighteen days is a tale of love, war, prejudice, deception, and survival.

Using fluid, lyrical prose throughout, author John Shors devotes a chapter to each day and initiates each chapter with a haiku. Day two begins:
Waves march like soldiers,
To bleed upon sun-bleached shores.
I long for old moss.

Beside a Burning Sea held my attention and I read it fairly quickly, all the while thinking which actor I would cast for each character — this is a novel with the requisite ingredients for a fast-paced movie! Adventure, suspense, romance, and interesting characters…what more could you ask for?

Eve Olsen – Central Library