2017 Book Challenge - Hiatus

I had planned to read over 100 books this year, and to blog about it as I went. Unfortunately, life has gotten in the way. What with one thing and another, I am finding that the continuous, daily reading, note-taking and then blogging is too much of a time and energy drain at this point. I hope to pick it up again. I am still reading books... just not blogging about it.

War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy - Part 2

War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 176-181

June 25 to June 29, 2017 

Book 46 - War and Peace
Leo Tolstoy (1869)
 Part 2 - last 60%
Reading Time - many hours

I finished War and Peace!!! It took me 41.5 hours of reading but... it is done. It was a very, very good book and not at all like what I imagined it might be. The short chapters definitely make it digestible. And the characters are so intriguing and captivating. I didn't want the story to end... but end it did. I do have to say, the last 100 pages or so, the long philosophical musings, were a chore to wade through. Someone had suggested that I could skip that whole section but... I didn't feel like I would have completed the book if I had done it that way. So I wade through it. But if any newbie's out there want to read the book... for heaven's sake, skip the last 100 pages!

I know that I will read the story again some day. Now that I know the characters, I want to read it over again, to really get a sense of their development over time. At the same time, I want to read Tolstoy's other massive tome - Anna Karenina.... So perhaps that will come first.

An Unnecessary Woman - Rabih Alameddine - Part 1

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 175

June 24, 2017 

An Unnecessary Woman - Rabih
Alameddine

Book 51 - An Unnecessary Woman
Rabih Alameddine - 2013
 Part 1 - p. 1-291
Reading Time - 5 hours

A friend recommended this book to me. It's a fictional story about an old, divorced Lebanese woman. She loves books and translates English or French books into Arabic. But she doesn't translate books originally written in English or French. No, she translates books that were written in another language and then translated into English or French. So, she might translate War and Peace, but from an English translation. It's an odd choice but... she's a bit of an odd woman. And since it's her life, she gets to make the rules. After a translation is finished, she bundles it up and tucks the translation away into boxes.

Hers is an odd life and throughout the course of the book, we learn about her backstory - how she was married at the age of 20 and divorced a few years later. How she supported herself by working in a used bookshop for over 50 years. It is a bit of a sad, depressing story, but the end of the story lifts one up. She loosens up a bit and decides that she will allow herself to translate books originally written in English or French. She's stepping out a bit, living a bit more dangerously! The story is clearly a love story between the woman her literary work. She loves books and she loves translating. In the end, she allows herself to step outside of her own self-imposed boundaries and experience something new.

The London Cage - Lt. Col. A.P. Scotland O.B.E. - Part 4

The London Cage - Lt. Col. A.P. Scotland O.B.E.

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 174

June 23, 2017 

Book 50 - The London Cage
Lt. Col. A.P. Scotland O.B.E.
 Part 4 - p. 161-195
Reading Time - 45 minutes

In the last section we have another big story about German reprisals against the Italians. A bomb had been set off in Rome that killed or wounded a number of German police officers. In retaliation for the 33 dead Germans, Hitler decreed that 10 Italians would be killed for every 1 German. That meant 330 Italians had to be rounded up and executed. Scouring the prisons, the Germans found over 200 "worthy" Italians. The rest were made up from Italian Jews. But... eventually, 335 Italians were executed (possibly a math error). During the war crimes trials, the courts decided that the Germans had been within their rights to execute 10 Italians for every German... and so the perpetrators were only tried for the 5 extra Italians. Scotland is obviously outraged by these miscarriages of justice.

The other interesting thing is that many of the war criminals were given death sentences which were later reprieved. Or they were given life sentences but then freed a few years later. It does make one wonder then, why someone like Rudolf Hess, who flew to Britain on some crazy diplomatic quest in May 1941, was imprisoned in England (and then Spandau, Germany) until his death. Alas... Scotland tells us nothing about Rudolf Hess.

The London Cage - Lt. Col. A.P. Scotland O.B.E. - Part 3

The London Cage - Lt. Col. A.P. Scotland O.B.E.

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 173

June 22, 2017 

Book 50 - The London Cage
Lt. Col. A.P. Scotland O.B.E.
 Part 3 - p. 107-160
Reading Time - 1 hour

In this section, we learn a lot about the Stalag Luft III escape attempt. Stalag Luft III was a POW camp for Allied airmen - mostly British, Canadian, Australian with a smattering from other Allied countries. The airmen constructed a tunnel out of the camp and about 80 men made it out before the Germans discovered the exit point. Over the next few weeks, most of the escapees were recaptured (except for two who eventually made their way back to England). Hitler and his deputies, in the aftermath of the escape had decided that an example needed to be made and ordered the killing of "at least half" of the escapees. As they were captured, the escapees were handed over to the Gestapo, driven down deserted roads and shot.

Scotland spends more time talking about the entire story than he does about how the information was extracted from German prisoners of war. His biggest regret seems to be that not everyone involved in the atrocity was captured and/or convicted. It is a sad story.

The London Cage - Lt. Col. A.P. Scotland O.B.E. - Part 2

The London Cage - Lt. Col. A.P. Scotland O.B.E.

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 172

June 21, 2017 

Book 50 - The London Cage
Lt. Col. A.P. Scotland O.B.E.
 Part 2 - p. 59-106
Reading Time - 1 hour

Much of the rest of the book concerns various war crimes against Allied soldiers. I learned about the Mass Murder at Paradis, where, during the spring of 1940, 98 British soldiers, who had surrendered were executed by the Germans.

There is an amusing story about a German POW who, after the war was over, grew bored with the slow movement of repatriation. He snuck down to Ipswich harbour, onto a Swedish boat and over to Germany. He spent almost a year in Germany but eventually came back because he had no papers. Sneaking back into England, he reported to the POW camp but no one believed him. Scotland eventually had a chat with him, and did believe him.

Scotland sounds like a rather grandfatherly character and yet... it was out of the Paradis crime that rumours circulated of harsh treatment meted out to the German POWs held at the London Cage. Given that his initial manuscript contained details of his non-Red Cross sanctioned methods... it is interesting to see him deny any ill treatment of his prisoners.

The London Cage - Lt. Col. A.P. Scotland O.B.E. - Part 1

The London Cage - Lt. Col. A.P. Scotland O.B.E.

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 171

June 20, 2017 

Book 50 - The London Cage
Lt. Col. A.P. Scotland O.B.E.
 Part 1 - p. 1-58
Reading Time - 1 hour

A "work" book this time... or rather, a "research" book. The London Cage was a secret interrogation centre for prisoners of war during World War 2. It was run by MI19, under the command of Lt. Col. A.P. Scotland. Results of the interrogations were used to prosecute war crimes suspects, particularly those engage in atrocities against Allied soldiers. Rumours abounded that the London Cage used coercive methods of interrogation amounting to torture, against the Geneva Convention. The London Cage wasn't on any Red Cross lists. It was a no-where place. After the war, Scotland kept some files and papers from his time at the London Cage and wrote a manuscript. It created quite a stir in Military Intelligence circles, as he revealed a lot of what went on in the cage. The final version of the book was published 7 years later and highly edited (sanitized).

We start by following Scotland as he works in southern Africa for a logistics company that supplies food to the German Army (this was between the Boer War and World War I). It ended up being easier for him to do his job if he was a member of the German Army and so he served with them for four years. Already he had a love for intelligence work and learned quite a bit about how the German Army functioned, information that he then took back and shared with the British.

Several years later, he ended up doing intelligence work during World War I, even making forays into enemy territory to gather information on troop dispositions. Given his excellent command of German, and his understanding of the German psyche, he interrogated a lot of captured Germans. After World War I, he traveled extensively and, during the 1930s, saw the rise of the Nazis as a foreshadowing of the coming war.