Rainy Day Reads

This is a non-fiction account detailing how three brothers built an entire Jewish community under the noses of the Nazi invaders in the Belorussian area during World War II.   I had never heard of this story before, and I doubt many people have, even though this group of Jewish people was one of the largest to be saved during the war. The story itself is fascinating. We follow the Bielski family, as they endure a number of discriminatory acts from diverse governments and the civilian population in their area, even before the arrival of the Nazis. When the Nazis come the family first try to tough it out, but after the death of the parents and the many mass killings three of the brothers decide to make a run for the forest to try and bring their family through the war in hiding. At first it is only extended family, and the small group manages to hide somewhat easily in the massive woods, but soon hundreds of escapees from the ghettos in surrounding cities join the group. H...

Challenges:   Around the Year in 52 Books: A category from another challenge (my Bingo Board reading challenge) Bingo Board reading challenge: Read The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah Along with “All the Light We Cannot See” by Anthony Doerr I think this was probably the most hyped WWII book of this year. I say this year. Apparently they were actually published in 2015 and 2014 respectively, according to Goodreads, but I feel like this is the year they really became known (and hyped).  This book follows two French sisters during the Nazi invasion and occupation of France. Vianne is quiet, shy and just wants to keep her family safe, while Isabelle is brash and confrontational and looking for anyone to love her like she has been craving since childhood. It’s quite hard to give a brief synopsis of this book as there are so many things going on. Not only is there the Nazi occupation forces to worry about, but the small family has its own deep wounds to try and hea...

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 Wes...

I loved this book! It was suspenseful, fast paced without being rushed and had an interesting cast of characters.   This book is set in an alternate universe where the Nazis won the war. Hitler has expanded his empire and rules it with an iron fist. Meanwhile the resistance plots to take him down. They plan to do this by having one of their agents, Yael, win the annual motorcycle race between the axis powers, Germany and Japan. A victory will ensure an audience with Hitler bringing Yael close enough to kill him. In order to race she has to pretend to be last year’s victor, Adele Wolfe. This is one of my few qualms with this book. Yael has the power to skinshift, essentially changing her appearance to look exactly like someone else. This power was…obtained (for lack of a better word) in the Nazi death camp where a doctor experimented on the young girl and somehow infused her with the power to change her appearance. This is the only fantastical element in the story, and wh...

I picked this book up because I thought the premise sounded interesting. It tells the tale of the Warszava Zoo and how it was used as a hideout for Jews and resistance members during the Second World War. It is based on a true story and mainly gets its details from the diary of the director’s wife, who chronicled her life and work during the years of the occupation.  I was under the impression that this would be a fictionalized account based on the facts in the diary, but I soon discovered that it was actually more of a retelling of the events in the diary interspersed with facts and stories from other sources. I had looked forward to a retelling of an interesting, personal story from the war, as I always find these kinds of stories interesting, but instead I essentially ended up reading a non-fiction book. I kept waiting for the story to shift into “fiction-gear” but it never happened. Once I resigned myself to that fact, the story was still interesting, but I did no...