Resistance Fighter by Jorgen Kieler is a commanding, first-hand account of the Danish Resistance movement during World War Two. After Germany invaded Denmark in April 1940 and a collaborationist government took control of the country, resistance fighters organized an underground opposition to occupation and collaboration.

Kieler, a medical student when the Nazis invaded, began his involvement by operating an underground press in Copenhagen with two of his sisters, his brother, and others. As the war intensified, they expanded their efforts – first by ferrying Jews and other refugees to neutral Sweden, then through increasing acts of sabotage against Danish factories producing Nazi war materials.

Kieler’s straightforward account of this unfamiliar part of the war is as interesting as it is inspiring. The efforts of Keiler’s group and others resulted in over 90% of Denmark’s Jews escaping to Sweden and the hampering of German war efforts. While Keiler is thorough in his identification of the key players in the resistance movement, the book does not become bogged down in exhaustive detail about the inner workings of the various resistance factions.

Eventually, the Nazis cracked down on the Danish resistance fighters, leading to the arrests of Keiler, his brother, two of his sisters, and their father. He and his brother spent six months as slave laborers in a concentration camp in Porta Westphalica. The camp was not one of the infamous death camps used for the mass execution of the Jews, but housed political prisoners, captured soldiers, and common criminals all being worked to death building bomb-proof underground factories for the Nazis. Keiler’s unadorned description of life in the camp is heart wrenching.

After surviving the war, Keiler became a doctor and spent years studying the effects of starvation and the stress-related disorder he labeled “Concentration Camp Syndrome.” He also testified at several war criminal trials and researched archival materials for this and an earlier history book.

His intimate chronicle is tribute to those involved in Denmark’s struggle against the Nazis. But it is much more than that. By focusing on a lesser-known aspect of World War Two, Resistance Fighter also provides a fresh perspective on the harsh facts of German occupation and concentration camps, and the related ethical and political issues of collaboration, resistance, liberty, and citizenship.

To describe Hallam’s War as an interesting, substantive Civil War novel is to explain both its strengths and weaknesses. Elisabeth Payne Rosen writes well, knows her subject matter, and has crafted a story that explores the ambiguity of racial and political issues at the center of the Civil War. Through her efforts, the book rises above the requisite hoop skirts, hollerin’, and hacksaws of all Civil War novels, but not by enough to transcend the genre and become a novel of general appeal.

My full review is here: http://rosecityreader.blogspot.com/2008/06/review-of-day-hallams-war.html

Franklin and Lucy is an intimate look into the personal life of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the women close to him. Joseph Persico examines the roles played by Roosevelt’s mother, wife, dearest lover, closest companion, daughter, and a cadre of others. While Persico occasionally makes assumptions based on no more than reasonable speculation, most of his conclusions are well-supported and persuasive.

The title is somewhat misleading in suggesting that the book focuses primarily on Lucy Mercer Rutherford, who became Franklin’s lover while working as Eleanor’s personal secretary during World War I, but then played only a peripheral role in his life until late in his third term as President. Persico’s point seems to be that Lucy was Franklin’s true love. However, the same point could have been made about Missy LeHand, Franklin’s long-time secretary and best friend, who lived with him for decades. Although the timing is fuzzy, a case could be made that, had Franklin not discarded Missy when she suffered a series of mental and physical breakdowns, she, not Lucy, would have deserved top billing in the book’s title.

Just to describe this minor flaw in the book is to demonstrate its absorbing appeal. Persico keeps the tone personal rather than prurient, but the intimate details are thoroughly discussed. He shows Franklin’s domineering mother Sara using the family purse strings to direct Franklin’s life. He explores Eleanor’s complex relationship as simultaneous inspiration and aggravation, as well as describing her own personal intrigues as she led her parallel life as an international do-gooder. He considers Franklin’s lifelong appeal to women and his delight in their company, despite being crippled by polio.

Although designed to fit a niche in collection of FDR biographies, Franklin and Lucy provides enough context to provide a good introduction to the man’s life. The book is entertaining, thorough, and readable.

How Far Can You Go? is a fascinating, anthropological novel following the lives and religious development of a group of English Catholics from their days in a college church group in the 1950s, through the tumultuous years of the sexual revolution. The friends question their religious tenant and traditions as they face marriage, families, religious callings, sexual identity, and mortality. At the same time, the Catholic Church wrestles with Vatican II, the battle over contraception, internal reform efforts, and the charismatic movement.

More on www.rosecityreader.blogspot.com.

This is my favorite book about astronauts. Of course, it is the only book about astronauts that I will ever read, so that isn’t the strongest praise. But it is perfect for a general reader looking for an entertaining history of America’s early space program.

Wolfe definitely keeps the tale interesting. He focuses on the personal, rather than the technical and administrative, aspects of the Mercury space program and the first seven astronauts involved. He follows the seven through their early careers, mostly as test pilots, through each of their turns in a Mercury capsule.

The most remarkable part of the story is the connection Wolfe makes between fighter jet pilots and astronauts. Having grown up in the NASA age, I did not know that the Air Force had a competing rocket program—a program that managed to send pilots several miles into space and then have them actually land the aircraft back on earth—before it was scuttled in favor of NASA’s moon missions.

The only drawback of the book is Wolfe’s Gonzo journalism style, which much have been refreshing and bold back in 1979. Now, the hipper-than-thou tone is a little tired and can get exasperating.

I am giving up on 1776 by David McCullough. Normally, I am too task-oriented to not finish a book once I start it, but I find it easier to drop an audio book than a paper book. Maybe there is something too immediately tactile about abandoning a paper book, while stopping the audio book is more of a “virtual” abandonment.

In any event, I only got through about two hours of the 12 hours of 1776. Nothing against McCullough’s writing, which is first rate, but I simply do not enjoy stories about battles. The guns, the tents, the weather, the food, the boots, the horses—none of it interests me. I did not realize that this book was all about fighting the first year of the Revolutionary War.

So, great book. Just not my cup of tea.

Hard Times by Charles Dickens is one of the many Victorian Era classics that I have never gotten around to reading. But thanks to an audio version new on the shelf of my library branch, it made it to the top of my TBR pile.

In equal parts good old fashioned storytelling and outdated social criticism, Hard Times is the tale of the Gradgrind family and their struggle to reconcile the rational, fact-based side of life with the emotional and imaginative side.

Thomas Gradgrind, Sr. is proud of his “system” of raising children – his own and those in the school he runs – to know and depend only on facts, with no “wondering” or amusement. The ultimate failure of his system leads to the final showdown and resolution of the story.

Dickens packed the book (first published in installments in 1854) full of his usual over-the-top characters. These really came to life in the audio version. Along with some Victorian moralizing, he mixed in plenty of humor and even a little intrigue and adventure. None of the characters are particularly likeable, perhaps especially to a modern reader with less sympathy for the outmoded social constraints under which the characters labor, but they all get their just deserts – for good or ill – in the end.

Despite its age, Hard Times remains thoroughly entertaining.

Lost in Translation is the imaginative and satisfying first novel by Nicole Mones. The protagonist, Alice Mannegan, is an American living in China, working as an interpreter, and striving to be accepted in the culture she has adopted. When hired by a second-rate American anthropologist, the two hook up with his Chinese counterparts and head to Inner Mongolia looking for the lost remains of Peking Man.

Mones does a great job of weaving the histories of the characters into the main story. While the team follows the trail of homo erectus, Alice struggles to understand her relationship with her powerful father; her boss worries about losing his son’s affection and respect; and their Chinese cohort searches on the sly for the wife he cannot abandon although she disappeared to a work camp during the Cultural Revolution. Mones uses the historic relationship between French priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and his platonic lover, Lucile Swan, to bring thematic unity to the varied storylines.

Equal parts historical mystery, foreign adventure, and cross-cultural romance Lost in Translation has a lot to offer.

Milan Pelouch is a 78 year old mushroom hunter who, in his charming guide, How to Find Morels (subtitled Even as Others are Coming Back Empty Handed) teaches how to identify and locate his favorite morels.

This slim volume is packed with practical information such as photographs identifying “true” and “false” morels, when to expect morels in different regions, and how to locate elusive morels by finding specific types of trees on which the mushrooms thrive. It is also full of folksy advice like the best way to carry morels while hunting (in a cloth bag) and the best way to store them (sauté in butter and freeze in plastic bags). He even includes several of his wife’s best morel recipes.

The book is a refreshing exhortation to enjoy the healthy, educational, and tasty pastime of mushroom hunting. Even for an armchair forager, How to Find Morels is a delight. As Pelouch says, “In less than an hour you can gain the needed know-how and will be flashing a big smile on the way home from a successful hunt instead of stewing in frustration after being skunked once again.” You can’t beat that!

The Stories of John Cheever, which won the National Book Critics Circle award in 1978 and the Pulitzer in 1979, is a chronological collection that spans Cheever’s short story career, from pre-WWII up to 1973. To read this collection – just shy of 700 pages – is to live in Cheever’s head, tracking his artistic and personal development in a way that a single novel or volume of stories doesn’t allow.

These are not happy stories. The earlier pieces are particularly bleak and raw. While the later stories are deeper and more nuanced, they are still pretty dark. Precious few have cheerful resolutions. The best Cheever’s characters seem to achieve is contentment despite imperfect circumstances.

Cheever’s is a world of commuter trains and cocktail parties, where everyone wears hats, has a cook, drinks martinis at lunch, summers, sails, and commits adultery. Not everyone is rich; in fact, money problems are a continuing theme. But the trappings, however tarnished, of a mid-century, Northeast corridor, upper crust way of life hang on all the stories. And that is Cheever at his best. He can bring us so deep into that world that it feels like living it.