What are you reading this week of November 8, 2015?

[hermetic]

Good afternoon. I am nearing the end of Outlander and it continues to amaze. I never expected THAT to happen, I keep saying to myself. Wow.

Anything wowing you this week?

[Enthusiast]

1. Hello, everyone! Thank you for the thread, hermetic.

Earlier I read A Swimming Monk by Malachy McCourt. TexasProgresive told me about A Swimming Monk. It is not strictly a work of fiction but I suspect it contains elements of fiction. It was fun! Entertainment is all I ask for in my reading and A Swimming Monk delivered.

Hermetic, I'm reading one that is wowing me right now! That is The Wreckage by Michael Crummey. Michael Crummey has a nack for bringing his characters to life. The characters are people I care about! I'm all caught up in this one.

Earlier in the past week Mrs. Enthusiast finished The Bartender's Tale by Ivan Doig. She liked it, especially the satisfying conclusion. Now she is reading Disco for the Departed by Colin Cotterill. She says she is really enjoying this one. She is especially fond of the Dr. Siri novels. Thank you for introducing us to Dr. Siri, scarletwoman.

[hermetic]

6. I say, Enthusiast

Don't know if you're familiar with The Comics Curmudgeon website but author Josh Fruhlinger has a book coming out next week called, interestingly enough, The Enthusiast. Thought that might interest you, or perhaps you already "know" something you're not telling. Hmmmm.

[Enthusiast]

9. Thanks for sharing that, hermetic! I like that website. I didn't know of its existence.

I knew nothing of Josh Fruhlinger or his new book.

I always tell what I know, which isn't much.

[shenmue]

2. "The Lost Girls of Rome," Donato Carrisi, and "Dark Secrets,"

by Michael Hjorth and Hans Rosenfeldt.

[TexasProgresive]

3. "Strip Jack" Ian Rankin

just finished a fun read of valerief's Hunny the TV Man: Tales of an Aging TV Repairman & Don Juan. I would've finished quicker but my kindle is acting weird. Back to a dependable paper and ink book.

[hermetic]

7. Bummer about the Kindle

Hope you can get it fixed. As much as I prefer a real book, the Kindle sure opens a world of opportunity to find hard-to-get literature. I guess I should try one some day.

[TexasProgresive]

8. Amazon has a free Kindle app for PCs and MACs

But my Mac is running OS10.6 and Amazon updated the app so it doesn't run. I like reading ebooks better on the tablet than the laptop but it's not bad.

[Enthusiast]

10. Nice to know, since I have no "device" aside from this old desktop PC.

[japple]

4. Finished Andrew Ervin's book, Burning Down George Orwell's House which was

fun, but not a "wow." Downloaded from the library a nonfiction work that came highly recommended by a friend.

A Higher Call by Adam Makos

December, 1943: A badly damaged American bomber struggles to fly over wartime Germany. At the controls is twenty-one-year-old Second Lieutenant Charlie Brown. Half his crew lay wounded or dead on this, their first mission. Suddenly, a Messerschmitt fighter pulls up on the bomber's tail. The pilot is German ace Franz Stigler—and he can destroy the young American crew with the squeeze of a trigger...

What happened next would defy imagination and later be called "the most incredible encounter between enemies in World War II."

The U.S. 8th Air Force would later classify what happened between them as "top secret." It was an act that Franz could never mention for fear of facing a firing squad. It was the encounter that would haunt both Charlie and Franz for forty years until, as old men, they would search the world for each other, a last mission that could change their lives forever.

[hermetic]

5. A Higher Call sounds awesome

I got chills just reading that blurb. Thanks.

[Enthusiast]

11. Hi, japple. I read about the Higher Call event somewhere. What an amazing event.

The WWII air war has always fascinated me. The incredible accounts are almost inexhaustible. I am also interested in aircraft engineering developments that took place leading up to and during the war. I have read many WWII books. My father was a WWII U.S. Army veteran of the Pacific theater.

[japple]

12. My father was a WWII US Army veteran, too. He served with the First Special Service

Force in the Italian campaign and later in Southern France. After the Germans surrendered, he was with the 474th as an MP, guarding the Nazi gold hoard and other treasures in the Merkers mine. Later, that unit went to Norway to help roust the Nazis. Dad reinlisted after the war and served in the army for 23 years. We lived in Germany from 1959-1962 and there were still places that had not been rebuilt. We went to Dachau--still chills me to think about it decades later.

Last year, I read Thomas Childers' book Soldier from the War Returning. He focused on 4 men from different areas and backgrounds who went off to war, had very different experiences which affected them in very different ways. It is an excellent book. You might enjoy it.

[Enthusiast]

13. The Thomas Childers' book will go on my list.

Funny. Mrs Enthusiast's father was an MP in Italy.

You have had an unusual perspective being an Army brat that way.

[japple]

14. Mrs. E would probably enjoy James McBride's book

Miracle at St. Anna. There is a movie tie-in with the film directed by Spike Lee. I enjoyed both, but esp. the book.

Also, Mary Doria Russell's book, A Thread of Grace.

Both are set in Italy in WWII.

[japple]

15. PS to add that both of my parents served in the US Army in WWII and they

met and married in Germany after the war. We joke about being raised by 2 army sergeants. My sister was born (and I was conceived) there, and we returned to live in Germany about 10 yrs. later.

[Enthusiast]

16. Now that is an unusal twist on the story!

[HeiressofBickworth]

17. This week I proof-read a novel

written by a friend of mine. This is her second one. I proof-read and did some editing on her first one, also. She is an extensive traveler and her two novels are based on some of her travel experiences. The first one, I Heard A Ram Call My Name, was about illegal hunting of the endangered argali sheep in Mongolia. This second one is about smuggling antiquities out of Turkey (where she lived for a couple of years) and into the black market. Her research is extensive and both books are very informative as well as easy-reads.

[Enthusiast]

18. Those sound interesting, HeiressofBickworth.

The Argali Sheep really resemble Big Horn Sheep. There must be a close genetic connection. I wonder if they originated in North America then migrated Westward into Asia, as Camels and Horses did.