I'm fascinated with World War II since my Grandfather fought there. I've written about him
before but in case you're new to my blog, here's the short story: Grandpa landed on Utah Beach on D-day, was wounded about a month later, met my Gram in England while he recuperated, and they will celebrate their 62nd anniversary in January 2009. Grandpa is 90 now, Gram is 84. They are who I visited for Thanksgiving.But getting back to the point of this post ...
War Through the Generations is meant to be a multi-year challenge with each year focusing on a different war. This first year focuses on World War II. Readers can sign up each year they are interested or opt out that year if they are not interested.
There's a blog dedicated to this challenge and it's a very interesting one at that! The challenge hosts have some great ideas for content that they are just beginning to develop. I'm looking forward to seeing it grow over the next few months.
The nice thing about this challenge is that I can set my own goals. The minimum number of books you're allowed to sign up for is 5 though. To be on the safe side I'm going to stick with that number. Personally I get more satisfaction from actually completing challenges successfully than I do from trying to stretch myself to read more. Anyway, here's my list so far:
- Red Rain (Tim Wendel) - a new book about a little known footnote to WWII, Japanese fire balloons
- The Greatest Generation Speaks: Letters and Reflections (Tom Brokaw) - this is a follow up to his original book, The Greatest Generations - I've not read that one, but it may be my 5th book for this challenge
- The Rising Tide (Jeff Shaara) - Book 1 in a trilogy following 4 different characters through WWII
- The Steel Wave (Jeff Shaara) - Book 2 in that trilogy (the 3rd isn't written yet)
The reason I chose these four is that they are already sitting on my bookshelf just waiting to be read. I'll need to come up with one more book but I'm sure that one will catch my eye over the next year.
I've seen several other bloggers sign up for this challenge so far. If you have, what books have you chosen? If not, is it something you are interested in? I'd love to have you join along with me!
6 comments:
Thanks for the comment on my blog about the WWII challenge. I chose most of my book choices because they are sitting on my shelf already too! I will look into the one you recommended. I have heard mixed reviews about The Zookeeper's wife and I think that it is partially why I haven't read it yet.
Have fun witht he challenge--
Kim
LOL-I saw this challenge mentioned somewhere else and though, OMG, Heather will be all over this!
I read a book a while back called Once Upon a Town: The Miracle of the North Platte Canteen by Bob Greene. North Platte is this little town in Nebraska (where I lived at the time...in NE, not North Platte) and the military trains ran through there with all these young soldiers going off to war. The town rallied around the troops to entertain them and basically let them know that they were appreciated and that someone was thinking about them. It's not a great book, but it was an uplifting story and an easy read, so if you get stuck and need a quick book to finish off your challenge, this might be a good one.
Heather, we're so glad you signed on to participate! I'm going to add these books to the WWII Reading List on the challenge blog.
And what a great story about your grandparents!
--Anna
Diary of an Eccentric
Your books can be fiction, right? If so, you should definitely read Skeletons at the Feast by Chris Bohjalian.
SO GOOD.
Heather, thanks for signing up.
Kelly, the books can be fiction, nonfiction, poetry, any genre so long as WWII is a primary or secondary theme.
dreamybee - I've heard of that one before but I'd forgotten about it - thanks for reminding me!
kelly - same goes for the book you mentioned - thanks!
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