Deb’s 2020 Determination List

[John]

Great job - - especially Mardi Gras as the holiday!

[Julie]

madrano wrote: "I can see the end of the year in sight. Today i finished one book from my DL, "Sequel". This one was the second in the Louis L'Amour Sacket series. This one is set partly in England an..."

The Nazi wives book sounds interesting - adding it to my reading list!

[madrano]

Laughing, John, as i suppose Mardi Gras might not really be a "holiday" but a lead-in to Easter. Still, i learned about all sorts of customs from the book.

Julie, one of the people who review here, Dem, from Ireland, read about this Nazi Wives book. I had to wait for it, as my library took a long time to enter it into their system. At last i got it & have mixed feelings about the writing itself, although i think it's just too many names sound similar. That is one of my problems.

[Alias Reader]

madrano wrote: "I can see the end of the year in sight.

I will probably be able to finish both my book from Germany (Nazi Wives: The Women at the Top of Hitler's Germany--James Wyllie and "title starting with J", Jungle Child--Norah Burke.
.."
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You go, girlfriend ! You can do it, Deb.

I seem to gravitate to books about WWII, so I will be interested in your review of Nazi Wives.

[madrano]

I finished Nazi Wives: The Women at the Top of Hitler's Germany but cannot commend James Wyllie effort very much. In her review of the same book, she stopped listening to the audio because the women blurred to much for her to keep them straight. She opined that photos the hard version offered might help. Frankly, it helped in that i could constantly return to them to see which was which.

Wyllie's presentation was chronological and few of the women (i think there were 8 or so, not equally presented), became concrete personalities to me. There was the former actress, Emmy, married to Goering and Magda Goebbels, who i knew ended up killing herself & her 6 young children. Generally one blended into another in the retelling. Personally, i blame the author and the way he strung the stories together.

Still it answered many things i've wondered about them. For instance, i wondered if they were only married to these head Nazis or if they were true believers. Most were believers and with Hitler almost from the beginning. One woman, Gerda Bormann, was raised by a Nazi, knew Hitler as a child and married a Nazi. She bought into it all, including accepting her husband's mistress because he could double the outcome of Aryan children. She had 10 children, btw.

Himmler's wife, Margaret, who served as a nurse in WWI, continued to do so during II, as well as surveying Red Cross shelters and Veteran's hospitals. Others, such as Eva Hitler, focused only on themselves and the latest fashions they could attain. Because he was quite busy, his mistresses were often left alone and attempted suicide quite regularly.

And on. Because Wyllie had access to so many diaries & letters of these women, i found it disappointing that he didn't explore their depths deeper. Instead, recounted illnesses, homes and who attended which events. It just wasn't what i expected.

His concluding chapters were about their post-War lives and i felt he even botched that. Why not just tell the outcome for each woman (and her family, when needed)? Instead, he continued his chronological story, so that even now, less than 24 hours after completing the book, i can only tell you about one of the women by name, Ilse Hess, whose husband flew to England not long after the Blitz.

This isn't a compelling subject to me, but i did want to get a sense of their attachment to the cause. Again, in most cases they fully believed in Nazism but many claimed not to be aware of the killing of Jews and other non-military citizens. True, they didn't see their husbands nearly as often as they desired but i find this fact difficult to believe, nonetheless, as a couple of them even lived near concentration camps.

Disappointing book for me.

[Alias Reader]

I appreciate the review, deb. I'm sorry to hear that the presentation of the book was so poorly executed.

The reviews on Amazon are a bit all over the place but generally okay.

Good to know this doesn't work well for the audio book.

[madrano]

For me audio in nonfiction is a non-starter. I am constantly jotting down bits from NF. In this case, even a reader who likes audio NF might have a horrendous time differentiating the wives from one another, imo.

[madrano]

Three of the books i finished this week complete my DL. Sorta. I cheated on one. First, the legit ones.

Book title beginning with J--Jungle Child--Norah Burke. This is a book i purchased for $1, knowing nothing about the author. Now i know she was a romantic novelist, UK citizen who spent much of her youth in the jungles of India, where her father was a British forest administrator. Because she was young, many, many animals were part of this book. The details were fascinating and the interactions between children and others were neat. It's natural that her political opinion of UK-India actions were colored but that's part of the time. Ultimately, i wish i'd found & purchased one she wrote with her father (Redmond St. George Burke) instead, Jungle Days, about camping in India. Because he had to travel from site to site, staying weeks at a time, the family went with him, camping. Those chapters intrigued me. Sadly, there is not even a link to this one.

For my "Book with a strong female lead", i took to nonfiction. I don't think this was intended but if Jill Heinerth isn't a strong woman, i don't know who is. Her book, Into the Planet: My Life as a Cave Diver begins by explaining her youth in Canada and her successful career in PR at her own company. Feeling something was missing, she began underwater diving, learning all she could in the frigid waters of her home country. Then, she moved to the west Indies & began thriving. Most of the story is about explorations to the deepest, the longest and the coldest underwater caves (at the time) that she explored. I learned quite a bit about the equipment, the challenges, the people and the toll, including deaths, of this activity. Her focus has mostly been on the environment & keeping/finding fresh water for our future. She was daring to leave her own company and brave to dive into unknown territories. I was thrilled, even though her writing wasn't breathtaking, just full of info.

Finally, in order to complete my second DL of 2020, i needed a "Book about a cult". Well, i couldn't find the one i wanted (Undaunted: Surviving Jonestown, Summoning Courage, and Fighting Back--Jackie Speier, California congresswoman) and didn't look too hard after that, despite good suggestions from folks on this board.

Once i got so close to completion, i turned my last 2020 book into one about a "cult", to wit, US historians who refuse to see the myths perpetrated on citizens. “All the Real Indians Died Off”: And 20 Other Myths About Native Americans--Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz and Dina Gilio-Whitaker explores 21 "myths" people tend to believe about Native Americans and the governments who confronted them since Columbus. Each short chapter offers data, historic opinions and those of effected tribes. A few sample chapter titles include the following: "Indians were the First Immigrants to the Western Hemisphere", "Indians were Savage & Warlike", "The US Didn't Have a Policy of Genocide", and ones about Indian Casinos making members rich and that most Indians are on welfare. LOL, talk about clashing myths.

You probably heard many of the stories, as well as the "corrections" but to have them all in one volume was instructive.

Still, i need to be honest & say i didn't really read a cult book. I'm just stubborn in admitting it. :-)

Regardless, i'm tickled that i accomplished so much and managed to share them with others here.

[Alias Reader]

Well done, Deb ! I really enjoyed reading your comments.
You read a nice wide ranging selections of books, too.

Regarding cave diving, all I can say is, Wow !

[John]

madrano wrote: "For me audio in nonfiction is a non-starter. I am constantly jotting down bits from NF. In this case, even a reader who likes audio NF might have a horrendous time differentiating the wives from on..."

Audio nonfiction has little middle ground between engaging and dry. As for making notes, for me that pretty much applies only in regard to adding books referenced as TBR possibilities. When I see notes written in used books (and, yes, library books on occasion) such as "Ha!" or "Martha Jones did that five years earlier" I'm baffled.

[madrano]

Thank you, Alias.

John, i wouldn't write in library books, not even to "edit" the prose, however, i've seen instances of what you mention. I find that i refer to my written notes much more than i supposed i might. My official education has been limited but much of what i've learned in nonfiction, i've collected. Of course, my notes on fiction are usually quotes of wit or insight. Frankly, it is a compulsion.

[Alias Reader]

If I own the book, I am a marginalia maniac. LOL
I underline, highlight, write definitions and sometimes comments.

This year I read a lot of eBooks, and though one can make notes, highlight etc., it's just not the same.

[John]

madrano wrote: "Thank you, Alias.

John, i wouldn't write in library books, not even to "edit" the prose, however, i've seen instances of what you mention. I find that i refer to my written notes much more than i..."

I'm impressed you're driven to learn from your reading like that!

[madrano]

I began learning this way from books when i had no access to colleges in the Dakotas. As a slow learner, i need things written down. Now i'm more eclectic and don't feel the need to learn in-depth, which, for me, would require classes for which i have little patience, it seems. Perfect to have books on call, so to speak.