This World War II story is written by an American war historian, Adam Makos. Makos finds a story so compelling, he fights his patriotic instincts and centers his story from the German perspective. A Higher Call highlights the life of Franz Stigler, a German fighter pilot ace. Framing his book around the so-called enemy, Makos wonders early in the book, can good men be found on both sides of a bad war? Franz Stigler knew as a young boy he wanted to fly planes. His […]
A Million Deaths is a Statistic
I’m a bit of an accidental war tourist. I never plan these things but somehow, I’ve been to the trenches of Verdun, the reconstructed city centre of Ypres, the Passchendaele memorial museum, the D-day beaches and their immense cemeteries, the former sites of concentration camps, the battlegrounds of Malmedy. It seems important somehow, especially for someone my age, several generations comfortably removed from any world war. Yet the sheer scale of these immense cemeteries and their endless lines of identical headstones alone makes it paradoxically […]
I am sure there are other versions of happiness, but this one is mine.
I saw Lynsey Addario on The Daily Show promoting her book: It’s What I Do: A Photographer’s Life of Love and War (2015). Jon Stewart was obviously impressed, and even though Addario is just 41, she seems to have already lived a remarkable life. On the show Addario talked about photography, getting kidnapped in Libya, and the struggle to balance her work with being a wife and mother. Because Addario’s photographs are scattered throughout this book, I’d recommend reading the hardcover book rather than the Kindle […]
Long, Depressing but Really Well Done
This audio book is TWENTY-FOUR HOURS LONG. Yeah. I mean, I think one of the Song of Ice and Fire audio books is like 48 hours, but following a non-fiction book for 24 hours is a challenge for me. Mr. Scahill does a great job of creating a narrative story in the 680 pages of the book, but there are names of people and places that are unfamiliar, which increased the challenge of keeping up. I bought this because I had an audible subscription with […]
Professional athlete of the future turns superhero
This is my last review of the year (and the day)! By some miracle of will power, I met my half-cannonball goal despite only starting reviews last month. Must do better next year, for realz. My final post is for Mara, a YA graphic novel set in the future where professional sports is an even bigger business. Sport competitions keep everyone distracted from the endless world war cycle of Earth. Mara is superstar volleyball player whose been training since she was 2 years old! Barely legal, she lives […]
The Radiance of Tomorrow…aaaannnd Cannonball!
It is the end, or maybe the beginning, of another story. Every story begins and ends with a woman, a mother, a grandmother, a girl, a child. Every story is a birth… To round out my ten African books of the year, I picked up this novel by Ishmael Beah, known for his previous non-fiction, A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of A Boy Soldier. After reading this, I definitely want to pick that one up, too. This is fiction, but it’s obviously based on truth. […]