War Baby scores in new review

 

War Baby - 4 stars (of 5)

E-Book Planet’s Review

War Baby takes us on the journey of a recovering alcoholic. It is a powerful autobiographical account which demonstrates how any of us can stumble into a pitfall, and how the battle to get out can be a long and arduous one.

Dougald Blue writes in a descriptive, flowing manner which carries real emotional weight and makes each scene tangible. At times this book feels nostalgic, but more often it feels pained or bitter, and the circumstances Blue found himself in have taught him valuable lessons which he is happy to share. He has strived to capture the complexity of his own mind and of the individuals around him in order to process difficulties which are too often oversimplified.

The characters in the book are real people (with their identities changed) and by the time I had finished reading, I felt I knew them as individuals. The book is brutally honest throughout, and I imagine Blue exorcised a lot of demons during the writing process. His honesty just made the read that much more absorbing.

Those who have faced problems such as addiction will find a lot to relate to, and those who know someone going through such problems may  be able to understand them better once they have finished reading. This is a very good book which is a little on the short side, but has a reasonable asking price, and so is worth picking up.

More here: http://goo.gl/6Q2OnV

BOOK REVIEW: All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

First things first: the book won the Pulitzer Prize for Literature last year. And it was the number two best-seller among The New York Times’ hard-cover fiction books last week.

So why all the accolades? You will know by the time you have finished reading the first chapter. It is less than a page long – a whole chapter, mind you – and you find yourself engulfed in something that is almost impossible to put down – all 530 pages of it, all delivered in the same staccato short-chapters. I had dreams about the story. I felt at times as though I were in it. And I learned from its telling.

Set mostly in Nazi-occupied France during World War II, All the Light weaves together the lives of a French girl who has been blind since age six and Werner, a young German man, conscripted for service to the Führer, and a genius with radio and electronics.

How they finally meet and relate and what happens in their lives is the stuff of some of the best writing I have ever known. It is not what you expect. It is otherworldly – and in more than just ways of relationship.

There are legends of perfect diamonds – things the Germans seek to steal and put in what they plan to be the world’s largest and greatest museum ever.

Meanwhile a patriot they cannot find risks his life to radio codes – and Shubert’s music – to the Allies forming in England to take on the Teutonic Übertreibung. And in the end Doerr has somehow created one of the most beautiful stories of how we get along in this wretched world by caring for each other.   

The book takes concentration, and all the more – soul, spirit, belief, wonder, and imagination.

It is not for the faint of heart or the literary gadfly, the seeker of cheap thrills. To them I say: stay with your dime-novel-equivalent e-books.  All the Light is some serious literature.

It provokes thought – requires it, really – and is spirit-challenging with unforgettably well-drawn characters. Meshed with Doerr’s mastery of simile and metaphor, the result is a book that spoke to my heart. And our spirits are passed along, no matter what.

“And is it so hard to believe that souls might also travel these paths? ... They flow above the chimneys, ride the sidewalks, slip through your jacket and shirt and breastbone and lungs, and pass out through the other side, the air a library and the record of every life lived, every sentence spoken every word transmitted still reverberating within it.”

What reconciliation looks like

One hundred and fifty years ago this week (April 1-5, 1865), the Confederate capital of Richmond fell to Union forces. This editorial in the Richmond Times-Dispatch earlier this week recalled those days. Click here to read it.

Abraham Lincoln and his young son Todd came to town on April 5. By then most of the commercial areas of the city had been reduced to ruins by a fire set by Confederates who were heading south. Their plan was to retreat to Danville, Virginia. But the soldiers barely made it to Appomattox Court House, where Lee formally surrendered to Grant on April 9, 1865.

Just a few days later, Confederate General Joe Johnston surrendered to General William Tecumseh Sherman at Durham Station, North Carolina, effectively ending the Civil War.

Reconstruction followed. But less is written about reconciliation during those turbulent days.

This modest structure, located just behind the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond, and open to visitors to this day, evinces that spirit of reconciliation.

This is the Confederate Memorial Chapel. It was completed in 1887, funded by private donations. The largest single individual donation for its construction came from former United States President and General of the Union Army, Ulysses S. Grant.

That’s what reconciliation looks like.