TBR Jar Review: Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War 1937-1948 by Madeleine Albright

I almost gave up on this book before I really got started, because I didn’t feel like reading another badly written WWII book. I assumed this would be a book with a number of family anecdotes tenuously tied up with the actions of the war. But luckily I was wrong. This was really well written and in no way boring or disjointed. It is based on Albright’s experiences during the war, but more so her father’s as she was only a very young child at that point. Her father meanwhile, worked for the displaced Czechoslovakian government in London during the war and he was a diplomat before and after the war. Albright ties together his work and musings about their country with events in the war in an engaging and instructive way. I learnt a lot about the war, a subject which I considered myself pretty well versed in, before I read this book. But reading about the lead up to the war and the events that took place in Central Europe while Hitler aggressively moved his plans along and the West tried to placate him by sacrificing smaller nations like Czechoslovakia really showed me that there is still a lot for me to learn about this war, particularly about Central Europe and its history. 

I can only recommend this book to anyone who is even slightly interested in World War II or the history of Central Europe. This book is really insightful and instructive without preaching or taking sides. I gave this 5 stars out of 5. 

The next book out of my jar is “The Story of Beautiful Girl” by Rachel Simon, but I have already read that. Check out my review here. Next up is “Gone With the Wind” by Margaret Mitchell, so I guess it’s finally time to buckle down and read that classic.