As is so often the case, the movie added exciting but completely fictional events to the events of the book. In some ways, this might have been the right thing to do. For instance, even with the added action, my boyfriend who had not read the book found the movie a bit slow. However, I think these men deserve to be remembered and I think fictionalizing their story defeats the purpose of telling it to begin with. I found the fictionalized crush the one women had on one of the men in the movie particularly offensive because I think she seems less admirable as a result. I also disliked that exciting events were made up. There were instances in the book, such as one of the monuments men being mistaken for a spy that could have been humorously elaborated on instead of making things up from scratch. For all my complaints, I think this was a well made if slightly slow movie. It just doesn’t stand up well to a comparison with the wonderful book!

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I’m constantly intrigued by the many amazing true stories from the WWII period and this is another good one. The Monuments Men were a group of mostly older men from artistic careers who volunteered to go to Europe to protect monuments during the Allied offensive. They also became involved in retrieving and returning the many valuable art works stolen by German forces. As the war turned against them, German commanders were ordered to destroy art rather than let it be recaptured. Meanwhile, Russian troops claimed any art work they found as the spoils of war. Limited support left the Monuments Men trying to accomplish miracles, rescuing art as quickly as possible.

I enjoyed this book from the very beginning. The author starts with notes about sources and an explanation of how dialog in the book was crafted from primary sources. I love knowing exactly where the information I’m reading comes from, so I really appreciate books with a section like this. The author also includes small biographies with pictures of each of the major players in the story. This was incredibly helpful throughout the book. Something I’m sure it’s hard to do is to help the reader connect with the large number of people involved in a project like this. The biographies gave me something to refer back to each time a character was mentioned. That helped me keep track of everyone enough to have a connection with each of the characters. I think that was critical to my enjoyment of this book.

The book also included some personal stories about each of the men (and the one woman) involved. These were perfectly balanced with sections describing the art and sections describing the action. The author also did a great job integrating the story of the Monuments Men into the overall story of the war. There were descriptions of some of the major battles which I’d heard about before, but there were also more new-to-me descriptions of the time leading up to the war, the experience at the homefront, and the ending of the war in Germany. Although the descriptions of battles made me think deeply about whether the Monuments Men’s choice to risk their life for art made sense, the author does clearly articulate the reasons they thought this choice was worthwhile. The author did a great job telling their story in an engaging way and I would recommend this book to anyone interested in WWII or art history.

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This is the story of five couples doing group marriage counseling and of one author who sat in on the sessions. I  liked that it became a story that was a little bit about the author too. This could easily have turned into a detached third-person narrative. Instead, it’s clear that the author connected with the couples, so it’s easy for the reader to connect too. That does make this some very unobjective non-fiction though. The author isn’t shy about inserting her own speculations about the couples’ feelings. However, she generally makes it clear when she’s speculating, so I didn’t mind too much. I think a similar fictional story could be a great character driven narrative, but I liked that this was non-fiction. It made the story more interesting that it was true. It made it easy for the author to hold information back without being manipulative because she shared information in the order she found it out. And of course, it made for a very believable story. This is in part due to the author’s ability to convey the personalities of the people involved, but I’m sure the fact that they were real people didn’t hurt either!

Title: The Neighborhood Project
Author: David Sloan Wilson
Source: library
Rating: ★★★★☆

This book describes some incredible examples of applied science. The author had studied a lot of questions relating to evolution before he decided that if an evolutionary approach is truly valuable, it should be possible to use that theory to improve our quality of life. He selected his hometown of Binghamton, NY as a testing ground. In the data collection phase, he discovered enough fun facts for any trivia lover to enjoy. The coolest parts though were those where he actually works to improve his city. This was a very inspiring story and the author does a great job giving people some idea of what being a scientist is like (although in my experience it’s more work and less cycling around the countryside than in his description). You get to see the vast knowledge at our fingertips, learn about great experiments, and hear stories of how many different people were attracted to working in science. I’d love to see this book read in high school or early undergrad science classes.

Title: Tiny Beautiful Things
Author: Cheryl Strayed
Source: library
Rating: ★★★★★

 When I just read a few of these essays in isolation, I thought they were a little strange and over-shared more of the author’s personal life than I ever wanted to know. But from Kim at Sophisticated Dorkiness‘s review it sounded really good and so I decided to give it a try. I’m so glad I did! Something about the introduction putting context around the author’s writing and then reading it all together made me appreciate it in a new and different way. I actually loved that the author shared so much of her personal life. It was a very different approach to giving advice from the typical disintant columnist and, I think, far better. As the author writes more, you get to know her and you have to know someone before you can trust their advice. Occasionally, I was bothered by her advice, such as the essay where she unequivocally suggests that two women get divorced just because they’re not feeling it any more. Most of the time though, I found her encouraging, straight-forward, and insightful. Even when I disagreed with her, I was awed by her way with words and by her ability to speak so personally in a public forum. These short essays really pack an emotional punch. Highly recommended.

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While many of us dream of taking an unscheduled road trip and many of us dream of making the world a better place, author Keith Maginn did both. With his friend Emily, he traveled through the Southeastern US with stops to volunteer and give away money to deserving strangers. In Goodwill Tour, Keith tells their story and the stories of those they helped.

I was a bit nervous starting this because it had no Goodreads reviews. This meant that my opinion would be the only opinion and what if I didn’t like it? I would feel pretty bad. So I was thrilled when I could tell within the first few pages that this book was going to blow me away.  The author’s description of family car trips and his longing to just drive around the country really resonated with me. The writing reminded me of classic adventures like The Swiss Family Robinson in which the writing is plain but still has a poetic ability to speak to the human spirit. 

My only complaint about this story is that it included many quotes and many descriptions of food for such a short book. In general though, the author’s use of quotes and detailed descriptions worked for me. I liked that  the author included a number of e-mails he and Emily exchanged. I also enjoyed the personal idiosyncrasies, the rough patches, and the small details he shared. Together these things brought the story to life and made me connect with the author and Emily as real people. I feel a bit strange saying that about non-fiction since it is real, but fiction or non-fiction, not every author can achieve that!

Actually I lied… I do have one more complaint. I wanted more! I loved the way the author wrapped up, with thoughtful but not sappy reflection on his trip and the people they helped. I thought the whole thing had great emotional impact and packed a punch for such a small book. That said, I enjoyed this book enough that it could have been twice as long and it only would have made me happier.

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Currently in Japan regular employment is becoming scarcer, the population is aging, and recovery from the nuclear disaster of 3/11 is still underway. All of these factors have made life more uncertain in Japan. Many people feel a lack of belonging and connection to other people. The author, Anne Allison, addresses these issues both through social theories about Japan and her extensive interviews with Japanese citizens.

This is one of those books that is a three star book because there were four star bits and two star bits. I loved when the author shared interviews with individuals, her personal experiences, and news stories. I also enjoyed learning about the history of Japan and how it impacts the way people feel now. The theories the author had about current events were fascinating, as were her tentative suggestions for ways the Japanese might recover a feeling of security. Despite being full of facts and clearly well researched, parts of this book were very profound and emotionally moving.

The only bad bits were places where the language got too dense for me to follow. There were some bits where I would google word definitions (because not all of them were in my kindle dictionary) and re-read a sentence several times without ever feeling like I really understood what they were saying. Sometimes I felt like it was some academic just trying to sound smart without saying much, but I think it’s more likely that these words have different meanings within the field of sociology. This happened the most when the author was integrating ideas from other scholars. It was almost as though there was a dissertation mixed in with my narrative non-fiction.

Overall, this was a good book and I think there were far more interesting, understandable bits than bits that were hard to follow. If, like me, you’d like to know more about different cultures and current events, I’d recommend giving this a try. The published version might even add some clarification at which point I would highly recommend it.

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Five Days At Memorial is a reconstruction of the time following Hurricane Katrina that survivors spent at the hospital, largely without electricity and with decreasing supplies of food and water. Horrific mismanagement led to a situation so desperate and chaotic that later some doctors and nurses were accused of having euthanized some of their patients. The second half of the book deals with the investigation and trials following that accusation.

The first thing the author did right was pick a captivating, if horrifying, story to tell. This book was intense! Everyone was constantly making tough decisions. Sometimes I wanted to scream I was so frustrated by administrators who were obviously (in hindsight) making very poor decisions. At other times I was deeply moved by people’s compassion. Even the second half, detailing the investigation and trials, was emotionally engaging because of the number of people whose lives were going to be affected by the outcome.

I think the main reason this story had such an impact was because the author did such a great job making people come to life for me. The primary focus of the story was on only a few of the many individuals trapped at Memorial. This made it easier to keep track of who was who and what was going on. However, even characters who were mentioned tangentially were often fleshed out with some small details about their personal life. I was very impressed by the author’s ability to share just enough to make me remember that these “secondary characters” were real people without distracting from her main narrative. Given the emotional impact of the story, the ending felt like a bit of a let down, but I think that’s simply one danger of telling a true story. Not everything always works out in a satisfying, this is the end of the narrative kind of way in real life.

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Lost in Shangri-La was my first experience with narrative non-fiction and I think I may be in love. For those of you like me who haven’t read narrative non-fiction before, I would describe it as a novel in which personal lives are as well researched as the bigger picture and the whole thing is presented as a story.  In this particular story, we learn about a plane crash in New Guinea stranding three service men and women in the jungle with potentially unfriendly natives.  Due to their isolated location, finding them in the jungle was only the first challenge.  A daring and dangerous rescue mission was then required to get them out.

Thanks to the many primary sources included in the narrative, this reads as much like an adventure novel as a non-fiction account.  Unlike my experience with The Universe in a Mirror I never felt like the primary sources broke up the flow of the story.  They were incredibly well integrated into the author’s narrative and helped make me feel really invested in the people involved.  I also thought it enriched the story that we heard about the crash from the natives and got some explanation of the culture behind their reactions to the survivors.  My only complaint with the book is that sometimes these asides about the natives or a new character’s personal history did interrupt the main plot line.

This book was clearly well-researched and answered all the questions I could think of about the people involved.  I particularly enjoyed the pictures and the new post-script in the paperback edition I read which included letters from relatives of the people involved.  It was fun to get a little extra detail about their lives after the crash and to hear how their adventures were viewed by their families.  This was a nice, easy read and I would recommend it to anyone interested in WWII as well as anyone who enjoys adventure novels.

This book review was part of a TLC book tour.  If you liked this review, you can find the many other reviews on the tour here, as well as Sophisticated Dorkiness’s review and author interview which initially sparked my interest in this book.

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