1946: Events and Inventions

Jan8

January 19, 1946. The United Nations holds its first general assembly session in London. British Prime Minister Clement Attlee: “Our aim is the creation of justice and security.”

February, 1946. IBM introduces a new electronic calculator using vacuum tubes.

February 24, 1945. Juan Peron is elected president of Argentina for a six year term, in spite of opposition from the United States.

March 5, 1946. In a lecture tour of the United States, Sir Winston Churchill warns that “an Iron Curtain has descended across Europe.” He urges an alliance between the United States and Great Britain to counter Soviet aggression, especially in the recently liberated (and re-enslaved) Communist countries of Eastern Europe.

March 2-4, 1946. Ho Chi Minh is elected President of North Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh signs an agreement with France which recognizes Vietnam as an independent state.

March 22, 1946. The United Kingdom grants Transjordan, as it is then known, its independence; 3 years later the country changes its name to Jordan.

May 1, 1946. A new plan proposed by Britain and the United States attempts to divide the ancient country of Palestine into separate Arab and Jewish states. Jewish survivors of the Holocaust and Jews from other parts of the world have been traveling to settle in Palestine, but the Arab population there is hostile to Jewish immigration into Palestine and to Zionist claims that Palestine is their hereditary homeland.

June 2, 1946. In a referendum, Italians decide to turn Italy from a monarchy into a republic. Women vote for the first time.

July 22, 1946. King David Hotel bombing: The Irgun, a Jewish Zionist terrorist group, bombs the King David Hotel (headquarters of the British civil and military administration) in Jerusalem, killing 90 people.

August-September, 1946. As the British move toward independence for India, violence between Muslims and Hindus in Calcutta leaves 3,000 dead. The interim government of India takes charge with Jawaharlal Nehru as Vice President. Street violence between Muslims and Hindus erupts in Bombay. The new British plan is to divide India into two countries, a Hindu-majority India and a Muslim-majority India that would later be renamed Pakistan.

October 16, 1946. The Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals end with 11 Nazi leaders condemned to death. Herman Goering commits suicide by swallowing cyanide hours before his scheduled execution.

November, 1946. The National Health Service (NHS) is created in Britain by the Labor government.

Suggested reading: Exodus by Leon Uris, Justice at Nuremberg by Robert Canot, Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges, Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie.

Winston’s War: Churchill, 1940-1945 by Max Hastings

Jan8

Winston Churchill was an amazing man, full of contradictions, as larger-than-life heroes usually are. He was a Tory (Conservtive Party), and yet he campaigned for and won huge changes in the way war was waged. He lauded freedom and democracy as the highest goals of mankind, and he governed as a one-man show, a near dictator during the years of World War II. He was Britain’s beloved and greatest war leader of the twentieth century, and yet as soon as the war was won, the British people threw him out of office.

Mr. Hastings, a British journalist and author, shows Churchill with all his warts and also with all the endearing and audacious qualities that make him a fascination to historians and readers and students of World War II. I can’t rewrite the book here, so I’ll just give you a few sample quotations from the book:

“His supreme achievement in 1940 was to mobilise Britain’s warriors, to shame into silence its doubters, and to stir the passions of the nation, so that for a season the British people faced the world united and exalted. The ‘Dunkirk spirit’ was not spontaneous. It was created by the rhetoric and bearing of one man, displaying powers that will define political leadership for the rest of time. Under a different prime minister, the British people in their shock and bewilderment could as readily have been led in another direction.”

Churchill on Pearl Harbor and the entrance of the United States into the war:

“it was a blessing . . . Greater good fortune has never happened to the British Empire. . . . Saturated and satiated with emotion and sensation, I went to bed and slept the sleep of the saved and thankful. One hopes that eternal sleep will be like that.”

Churchill on the Russians:

“Experience has taught me that it is not worthwhile arguing with the Soviet people. One simply has to confront them with the new facts and await their reactions.”

(I have learned this same fact recently about a certain teenage family member. Arguing is a waste of time and breath.)

Alan Brooke, senior commander in the British Army describing a scene in Churchill’s bedroom (of which there were apparently many):

“The red and gold dressing gown in itself was worth going miles to see, and only Winston could have thought of wearing it! He looked rather like some Chinese mandarin! The few hairs were usually ruffled on his bald head. A large cigar stuck sideways out of his face. The bed was littered with papers and dispatches. Sometimes the tray with his finished breakfast was still on the bed table. The bell was continually being rung for secretaries, typists, stenographer, or his faithful valet Sawyers.”

Marian Holmes, one of Churchill’s private secretaries:

“In all his moods—totally absorbed in the serious matter of the moment, agonized over some piece of wartime bad news, suffused with compassion, sentimental and in tears, truculent, bitingly sarcastic, mischievous or hilariously funny—he was splendidly entertaining, humane and lovable.”

The author’s summation:

“Churchill had wielded more power than any other British prime minister had known, or would know again. . . Himself believing Britain great, for one last brief season he was able to make her so. To an extraordinary degree, what he did between 1940 and 1945 defines the nation’s self-image even into the twenty-first century.
His achievement was to exercise the privileges of a dictator without casting off the mantle of a democrat. Ismay once found him bemoaning the bother of preparing a speech for the House of Commons, and obviously apprehensive about its reception. The soldier said emolliently: ‘Why don’t you tell them to go to h—?” Churchill turned in a flash: ‘You should not say those things: I am the servant of the House.'”

Hastings catalogues all of Churchill’s mistakes and disasters, and there were many throughout the war. But the author’s admiration and appreciation for Winston Churchill’s leadership during World War II shines through. Churchill comes across in this slice of his biography as The Indispensable Man without whom Hitler and his Nazis could not have been defeated. I’m sure a counter-argument could be mounted, but Churchill himself would have brushed all argument aside, a demagogue in the most admirable and heroic sense of the word.

Saturday Review of Books: January 7, 2012

Jan6

â€œMay your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you’re wonderful, and don’t forget to make some art — write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.â€ ~Neil Gaiman

Welcome to the Saturday Review of Books at Semicolon. Hereâ€™s how it usually works. Find a book review on your blog posted sometime during the previous week. The review doesnâ€™t have to be a formal sort of thing. You can link to your thoughts on a particular book, a few ideas inspired by reading the book, your evaluation, quotations, whatever.

Then on Friday night/Saturday, you post a link here at Semicolon in Mr. Linky to the specific post where youâ€™ve written your book review. Donâ€™t link to your main blog page because this kind of link makes it hard to find the book review, especially when people drop in later after youâ€™ve added new content to your blog. In parentheses after your name, add the title of the book youâ€™re reviewing. This addition will help people to find the reviews theyâ€™re most interested in reading.

After linking to your own reviews, you can spend as long as you want reading the reviews of other bloggers for the week and adding to your wishlist of books to read. That’s how my own TBR list has become completely unmanageable and the reason I can’t join any reading challenges. I have my own personal challenge that never ends.

1945: Events and Inventions

Jan6

February 15, 1945. Over 1000 British and American bombers flatten the city of Dresden, Germany in a single night of carpet bombing. The death toll, mostly civilians, is thought to be as high as 100,000.

February 23, 1945. U.S. troops capture the tiny Pacific island of Iwo Jima and raise the flag on Mt. Surabachi.

February, 1945. Winston Churchill, Josef Stalin and FDR meet in Yalta to decide how to end the war and what to do about the “liberated” countries of Europe in the aftermath of World War II.

March, 1945. Japanese schools and universities are shut down, and everyone over the age of six is ordered to help in the war effort.

April 12, 1945. Franklin D. Roosevelt, president of the United States in his fourth term, dies of a brain hemorrhage. Vice-President Harry S. Truman becomes president.

April 28, 1945. Mussolini and his mistress Clara Petacci are executed by Italian communist partisans.

April 30, 1945. Adolf Hitler commits suicide in his bunker beneath the Reich Chancellory garden in Berlin. On the 29th, he married Eva Braun, the woman who has been his mistress since 1932, and she joined him on the 30th in a double suicide.

April-May, 1945. Allied troops enter and liberate Nazi camps including Belsen, Treblinka, and Auschwitz. Despite efforts to save the remaining prisoners, hundreds die after liberation from disease and the lingering effects of starvation and torture.

May 8, 1945. V-E Day. The Germans surrenders unconditionally to the Allies on May 7th, and on the 8th Europe and the United States celebrate Victory in Europe Day with fireworks, parades, bonfires, and parties.

May, 1945. Werner von Braun and other German rocket scientists, who were responsible for the German V-2 rockets used to attack Britain, surrender to the U.S. Seventh Army. Von Braun says to the press:

“We knew that we had created a new means of warfare, and the question as to what nation, to what victorious nation we were willing to entrust this brainchild of ours was a moral decision more than anything else. We wanted to see the world spared another conflict such as Germany had just been through, and we felt that only by surrendering such a weapon to people who are guided by the Bible could such an assurance to the world be best secured.â€

In June von Braun and his fellow scientists are brought to the U.S. to work for the U.S. rocket development program.

July, 1945. The first atomic explosion, a test of the new U.S. weapon the atomic bomb, takes place in Alamogordo, New Mexico.

August 6, 1945. The Americans bomb Hiroshima, Japan, killing an estimated 80,000 people. Three days later on AUgust 9, Nagasaki, Japan is also bombed with the new atomic weapon that was developed in a top secret program in the U.S. called THe Manhattan Project.

September 2, 1945. Japan surrenders to U.S. and ALlied troops on the deck of the U.S. battleship Missouri.

12 Adult Fiction Titles I’m Looking Forward to Reading in 2012

Jan6

Believing the Lie: An Inspector Lynley Novel by Elizabeth George. January 10, 2012.

The Hour Before Dawn, The Hawk and the Dove series by Penelope Wilcock. January 24, 2012.

The Baker’s Daughter by Sarah McCoy. “A multi-period novel about wartime choices and the redemptive power of love.” January 24, 2012.

Lost and Found by Ginny L. Yttrup. “Jenna Bouvier and Andee Bell are at a crossroads. Jenna is in danger of losing her family and her wealth when her mother-in-law accuses her of having an affair. Andee has what she wants—fame, fortune, and Jenna’s brother—but she’s haunted by a dark secret.” February 29, 2012.

The New Republic by Lionel Shriver. I’ve, well, appreciated the other two novels I’ve read by Ms. Shriver, We Need To Talk About Kevin and So Much for That. This one, about terrorism and journalism on a fictional Portuguese peninsula sounds intriguing. March 27, 2012.

The Limpopo Academy of Private Detection: No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency (13) by Alexander McCall Smith. April 3, 2012.

Mr. Churchill’s Secretary by Susan Macneal. “Ensnared in a web of spies, murder, and intrigue, Maggie Hope must work quickly to balance her duty to King and Country with her chances for survival.” April 3, 2012.

The Life Boat by Charlotte Rogan. “In the summer of 1914, the elegant ocean liner carrying her and her husband Henry across the Atlantic suffers a mysterious explosion. Setting aside his own safety, Henry secures Grace a place in a lifeboat, which the survivors quickly realize is over capacity. For any to live, some must die.” April 3, 2012.

Waiting for Sunrise by William Boyd. “In 1913 an Englishman in Vienna for psychiatric treatment falls in love with a young woman in a story spanning London, Geneva and the battlefields of France.” April 17, 2012.

Dorchester Terrace by Anne Perry. “Charlotte & Thomas Pitt Victorian mystery in which they race to find a traitor within Special Branch.” April 17, 2012.

Nothing to Hide, Roland March mystery series by J. Mark Bertrand. July 1, 2012.

12 World War I Novels and Nonfiction Books I’d Like to Read in 2012

Jan5

War Through the Generations is focusing on World War I this year. Here a few of the books I’d like to read for that project.

Children’s and YA Fiction:
War Horse by Michael Morpurgo. “Joey, the farm horse, is sold to the army and sent to the Western front.” I’d like to read the book, then see the movie.
Private Peaceful by Michael Morpurgo. “Private Thomas Peaceful lied about his age and left his family behind to fight in the First World War. While standing watch over a battlefield, Thomas spends the night reflecting on his life, aware that the war has changed him forever.”
Without Warning: Ellenâ€™s Story, 1914-1918 by Dennis Hamley. “Ellen Wilkins becomes a nurse to follow her brother to war.”
A Time of Angels by Karen Hesse. “In 1918 Boston, Hannah Gold must face her own wartime suffering as the influenza epidemic sweeps through her family and town.”
Eyes Like Willyâ€™s by Juanita Havill. “A French brother and sister, Guy and Sarah Masson, and their Austrian friend Willy are separated by the war.”
The Shell House by Linda Newbery. “Greg explores a ruined English mansion, and meets Faith, a serious young woman who gives him a tour of the grounds. She also tells him about the past inhabitants, whose son disappeared after he returned home from fighting in World War I.”

Adult Fiction:
Strange Meeting by Susan Hill. Reviewed at A Work in Progress. “The trenches of the Western Front are the setting for this story of the extraordinary devotion that develops between silent, morose John Hillard, full of war’s futility, and his as yet unscathed trench mate, David Barton.”
How Many Miles to Babylon? by Jennifer Johnston. Reviewed by Dani at A Work in Progress. “When war breaks out in 1914, both Jerry and Alec sign up – yet for quite different reasons. On the fields of Flanders they find themselves standing together, but once again divided: as officer and enlisted man.”
To The Last Man by Jeff Shaara. “Spring 1916: the horror of a stalemate on Europeâ€™s western front. France and Great Britain are on one side of the barbed wire, a fierce German army is on the other. Shaara opens the window onto the otherworldly tableau of trench warfare as seen through the eyes of a typical British soldier who experiences the bizarre and the horribleâ€“a â€œTommyâ€ whose innocent youth is cast into the hell of a terrifying war.”
A Soldier of the Great War by Mark Helprin. “In summer 1964, a distinguished-looking gentleman in his seventies dismounts on principle from a streetcar that was to carry him from Rome to a distant village, instead accompanying on foot a boy denied a fare. As they walk, he tells the boy the story of his life.”

Nonfiction:
Blood and Iron: Letters from the Western Front by Hugo Montagu Butterworth. “Butterworth was a dedicated and much-loved schoolmaster and a gifted cricketer, who served with distinction as an officer in the Rifle Brigade from the spring of 1915. His letters give us a telling insight into the thoughts and reactions of a highly educated, sensitive and perceptive individual confronted by the horrors of modern warfare.”
Dreadnought: Britain, Germany and the Coming of the Great War by Robert Massie.

12 Nonfiction Titles I’m Looking Forward to Reading in 2012

Jan4

Some of these are new in 2012; others are Christmas gifts or library books that I plan to read soon:

Coming in 2012:
Why Jesus? Rediscovering His Truth in an Age of Mass Market Spirituality by Ravi Zacharias. Apologetics from one of the best Christian apologists who’s writing books to speak to the twenty-first century pagan. January 18, 2012.

Letters to Heaven: Reaching Beyond the Great Divide by Calvin Miller. Calvin Miller is sometimes hit or miss with me. I love his Singer series of fantasy books, and I asked for two of his books on Celtic prayer and spirituality for Christmas. However, others of his books have not lived up to the Singer trilogy’s high standard. The blurb for this nonfiction book sounds intriguing: “Reflecting on those who influenced him, his poignant epistles to C.S. Lewis, Todd Beamer, Oscar Wilde, and others encourage us to share with our loved ones now so we don’t leave this world with regrets.” January 23, 2012.

Still: Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis by Lauren Winner. Oooh, I like Lauren Winner. If you’ve never read her conversion story, Girl Meets God, you really should hunt it down. January 20, 2012.

Below Stairs: The Classic Kitchen Maid’s Memoir That Inspired “Upstairs, Downstairs” and “Downton Abbey” by Margaret Powell. Not really new, first published in 1968, but to be re-issued in January in a new edition. I am so looking forward to the second season of Downton Abbey, and this book would be a perfect accompaniment.

When I Was a Child I Read Books: Essays by Marilynne Robinson. March 13, 2012.

The Fourth Fisherman: How Three Mexican Fishermen Who Came Back from the Dead Changed My Life and Saved My Marriage by Joe Kissack. March 13, 2012.

A Daughter’s Tale: The Memoir of Winston Churchill’s Youngest Child by Mary Soames. I’m interested in almost anything about Winston Churchill. April 24, 2012.

Christmas gifts:
Truman by David McCullough.

The Path of Celtic Prayer: An Ancient Way to Everyday Joy by Calvin Miller.

Library finds:
London 1945: Life in the Debris of War by Maureen Waller.

Sahara Unveiled: A Journey Across the Desert by William Langewiesche.

Angry Wind: Through Muslim Black Africa by Truck, Bus, Boat, and Camel by Jeffrey Tayler.

12 Best Children’s and Young Adult Novels I’ve Read in 2011

Jan3

Some of these were actually published in 2011; some were older but good-er.

The Rise and Fall of Mount Majestic by Jennifer Trafton. Semicolon review here.

How to Save a Life by Sara Zarr. Not reviewed yet.

The Berlin Boxing Club by Robert Sharenow. Semicolon review here.

Lord of the Nutcracker Men by Iain Laurence. Semicolon review here.

For Freedom: The Story of a French Spy by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley. Semicolon review here.

Divergent by Veronica Roth. Semicolon review at Breakpoint Youth Reads.

Daughter of Xanadu by Dori Jones Yang. Semicolon review here.

Trash by Andy Mulligan.

Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi. Semicolon review here.

With a Name Like Love by Tess Hilmo. Semicolon review here.

Invisible Inkling by Emily Jenkins.

Fallen Grace by Mary Hooper. Semicolon review here.

For more great children’s and YA literature of 2011, check out the 2011 Cybils Finalists.

12 Children’s and YA Books of 2012 That I’m Looking Forward to Reading

Jan2

Under the Never Sky by Veronica Rossi. More dystopian fiction, but it sounds really good. “Exiled from her home, the enclosed city of Reverie, Aria knows her chances of surviving in the outer wastelandâ€”known as The Death Shopâ€”are slim. A hunter for his tribe in a merciless landscape, Perry views Aria as sheltered and fragileâ€”everything he would expect from a Dweller. But he needs Ariaâ€™s help too; she alone holds the key to his redemption.” January 3, 2012.

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. “Despite the tumor-shrinking medical miracle that has bought her a few years, Hazel has never been anything but terminal, her final chapter inscribed upon diagnosis. But when a gorgeous plot twist named Augustus Waters suddenly appears at Cancer Kid Support Group, Hazelâ€™s story is about to be completely rewritten.” John Green can write, no doubt about that, and sometimes I really, really like his fiction, in spite of (because of?) its “irreverence.” January 10, 2012.

Pandemonium by Lauren Oliver. Sequel to Delirium. February 28, 2012.

Out of Sight, Out of Time, Gallagher Girls series by Ally Carter. I like me some Gallagher Girls, and so do my daughters. March 13, 2012.

The Extraordinary Education of Nicholas Benedict, A Mysterious Benedict Society prequel by Trenton Lee Stewart. “Before there was a Mysterious Benedict Society, there was simply a boy named Nicholas Benedict. Meet the boy who started it all….” This one could be a disaster, or it could be very, very good. April 10, 2012.

Summer of the Gypsy Moths by Sara Pennypacker. From this Harper Collins publisher preview at Fuse #8. April 24, 2012.

The Drowned Cities by Paolo Bacigalupi. A companion novel to Bacigalupi’s Ship Breaker. “Paolo Bacigalupi brilliantly captures a dark future America that has devolved into unending civil wars, driven by demagogues who recruit children to become soulless killing machines.” May 1, 2012.

Insurgent by Veronica Roth, the sequel to Divergent. May 1, 2012.

The Last Princess by Galaxy Craze. Also found at Fuse #8’s Little Brown publisher preview post. “The year is 2090. England is a barren land. Food is rationed. Oil has decimated the oceans. The people are restless. A ruthless revolutionary enacts a plan to destroy the royal family, and in a moment, the king is dead. His heiress, Princess Mary, and her brother, Jamie, have been abducted, and no one knows their fate. Princess Eliza Windsor barely escapes, and finds herself scared and lost in London’s dangerous streets.” May 8, 2012.

The Missing: Torn by Margaret Peterson Haddix. “Still reeling from their experiences in Roanoke in 1600, Jonah and Katherine arrive in 1611 only moments before a mutiny on Henry Hudsonâ€™s ship in the icy waters of James Bay. But things are messed up: Theyâ€™ve lost the real John Hudson, and they find what seems to be the fabled Northwest Passageâ€”even though they are pretty sure that route doesnâ€™t actually exist. Will this new version of history replace everything theyâ€™ve ever known?” I actually haven’t read the third book in this series, called Sabotaged, yet. But I will. Torn comes out in June, 2012.

Lost Girls by Ann Kelley. Found at Fuse #8’s Little Brown publisher preview post. “What once seemed like a vacation in paradise has become a battle against the elements. Peppered with short, frantic entries from Bonnie’s journal, Lost Girls is a page-turning, heart-pounding adventure story about a group of teen girls fighting for their lives.” July 10, 2012.

Perfect Escape by Jennifer Brown. Road trip book, yes! Also found at Fuse #8’s Little Brown publisher preview post. “Kendra has always felt overshadowed by her older brother, Grayson, whose OCD forces him to live a life of carefully coordinated routines. The only way Kendra can stand out next to Grayson is to be perfect, and she has perfection down to an art — until a cheating scandal threatens her flawless reputation. Behind the wheel of her car, with Grayson asleep beside her, Kendra decides to drive away from it all — with enough distance, maybe she’ll be able to figure everything out. But eventually, Kendra must stop running and come to terms with herself, her brother, and her past.” July 10, 2012.

Sunday Salon: Books Read in December 2011

Jan1

Middle Grade and Young Adult Fiction:
Saraswati’s Way by Monika Schroder. Semicolon review here.
Words in the Dust by Trent Reedy. Semicolon review here.
With a Name Like Love by Tess Hilmo. Semicolon review here.
A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park. Semicolon review here.
Please Ignore Vera Dietz by A.S. King. This YA novel got a lot of publicity, maybe an award or two last year, but it wasn’t one of my favorites. In fact, I found it strange and somewhat tedious.
For Freedom: The Story of a French Spy by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley. Semicolon review here.
Alvin Ho: Allergic to Dead Bodies, Funerals, and Other Fatal Circumstances by Lenore Look. I didn’t think this one was as good as some of the other Alvin Ho adventures, but Alvin is still my hero—even if he is afraid of everything.
The Grand Plan to Fix Everything by Uma Krishnaswami. Bollywood. Lots of suspension of disbelief. Did you know that Mumbai and Bombay are the same city, just different names? I am ashamed to say that that bit of geographical knowledge escaped my notices until I read this kind of silly, kind of fun little novel about Dini, her best friend Maddie, and their obsession with Dolly Singh, the filmi star in Bollywood. (Yes, filmi is the word. I don’t know why.) Reviewed by Melissa at Book Nut.

Adult Fiction:
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson. My review at Chuck Colson’s Breakpoint.
When She Woke by Hilary Jordan. My review at Breakpoint.

Nonfiction:
The Egg and I by Betty Macdonald. Semicolon review here.
I Loved a Girl by Walter Trobisch. I picked up this book at the church library because I remembered reading it long, long ago when I was a teenager (back in the dark ages) and finding it helpful in the area of boy/girl relationships, dating, and s*x, which are some things we’re dealing with here in Semicolonland. This time through it was helpful, as I remembered, but the ending was abrupt. And it didn’t exactly speak to the particular issue we’re confronting.
My Father’s Secret War by Lucinda Franks. Review forthcoming soon. “I liked it, but . . .”

And that’s it for 2011. I’m reading Winston’s War: Churchill 1940-1945 by Max Hastings now, and it’s not a fast read. It may take me a while to finish, but I am learning a lot about England during the Second World War.