Allright! Talkin' books.

Inspired by Kate's recent entry.  Funder's in on the literary posting too, but with one of dem fancy things that didn't kill trees.

I read a lot... in comparison to most of the people I work with, anyway.  Mostly memoirs and biographies, with some historical fiction and rarely some "normal" fiction peppered in for seasoning.  If I can't travel by TARDIS, I'll travel by the written word, dammit.  Here's what I've been reading lately: 

Currently reading:

Little Heathens: Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm During the Great Depression.  This memoir is charming.  I bought this used in Maine, almost passing it up by putting it back on its shelf at least once, but I'm enjoying it a lot more than I thought.  I'm not very far into it, so there isn't much to say other than I'm happy with it.

The last book I finished:

Destined to Witness: Growing Up Black in Nazi Germany.  Again, bought used in Maine, again, put back on the shelf at least once.

I have a ton of memoirs of the Nazi regime, but all from the Jewish perspective.  Trying to make sense of the story my father told me from the Holocaust (which he was old enough to remember first-hand) started me into memoirs and at least half of a bookshelf is now dedicated to the subject.

This book was surprisingly powerful but never preachy.  It just told it like it was.  Son of a loving and protective German mother and a Liberian prince who left them both when he was very young, Hans grew up in Germany during the heyday of the Nazis as the only black person in Hamburg.  Through his eyes, you see the height of the Nazi power and popularity which was so pervasive and encompassing that he proudly wore the swastika on his sweater as pictured on the cover.  That was not to last, of course.

The book vividly takes the reader into the beginning of WWII,  watching parades of goosestepping soldiers, huddling in bomb shelters as the city was turned to rubble, refugeeing to rural Germany, the Allied occupation, then onto Liberia for a family reunion and, finally America.  The story is written in a very engaging manner that made it come alive and kept the pages turning.

I was very impressed with this book.

The book before that:

Whatever You Do, Don't Run: True Tales of a Botswana Safari Guide.  I read this as we drove through Canada.  Funny and a quick read.

The book before that... or after that... can't remember:

The Dressmaker of Khair Khana: Five Sisters, One Remarkable Family, and the Woman Who Risked Everything to Keep Them Safe.  Inspiring.  With determination, persistence, and crafty resistance a woman becomes the breadwinner of her family after the Taliban take over Kabul.  In this memoir, a teacher stripped of her job becomes the head of an underground empire of women earning livings as dressmakers underneath the Taliban's nose.  Detailed are the living conditions under a regime that leaves you looking over your shoulder every time you go outside, as well as the ways to work around and exploit it to continue to have a breath of freedom.

Authors:

The nature of the memoirs that I read often means that they are one- or two-shot deals.  However, I do have a couple of authors that I do love and have read several of their books.

Frank McCourt, the author of my favorite book Angela's Ashes.  Granted, he didn't write a lot of books, but I do enjoy what he did publish.  There are controversies about the accuracy of what he wrote, and in fact he made a lot of enemies in Limerick, but the way that he weaves a story and arranges the English language captivates me.  I have 3 of his books in audio form on my iPod, read by him, that I listen to at work and they are practically memorized.

Alison Weir writes biographies (I have not read her historical fiction) that are meticulously researched and presented in a captivating fashion.  My particular favorite is The Children of Henry VIII which details what a lousy time it was to be Tudor royalty in the years following Henry's death.  Through the relationships of the children to each other, the often treacherous groups surrounding them, not to mention the short-lived rise of Jane Grey, these iconic figures become quite human and understandable.  Who would have thought of Bloody Mary as a terribly tragic figure?