New Leaf Nominations for August 2018 • What is It Good for? Absolutely Nothin': War

[Dazrin]

I am prepping for some travel (meaning trying to get ahead at work) so I haven't had time to look into anything this month but I will second The Alice Network, third One of Ours, and third Station X.

I will be out for a few days so the selections list may not be updated immediately with the vote when that time arrives.

[gmw]

Originally Posted by bfisher

I'm very surprised that there aren't more nominations at this point. It's a very rich field. A small sample, just of fiction: [...]

If we're offering suggestions for others to nominate, this one piqued my interest recently: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (I'm currently still holding onto my other two votes to see what else shows up, but I suspect this book is going on my list anyway.)

[issybird]

Originally Posted by gmw

If we're offering suggestions for others to nominate, this one piqued my interest recently: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (I'm currently still holding onto my other two votes to see what else shows up, but I suspect this book is going on my list anyway.)

I'm relieved that you didn't nominate this, because as a result I feel I can say I didn't like this at all. That only means that I wouldn't vote for it if nominated.

[gmw]

Originally Posted by issybird

I'm relieved that you didn't nominate this, because as a result I feel I can say I didn't like this at all. That only means that I wouldn't vote for it if nominated.

And also means you've read it already. I only came across it recently, and with a title like that I had to look more closely. It sounded very appealing to my tastes (I like a good epistolary work occasionally). Aside from conserving my votes, I also noticed it was quite expensive in Australia - at Kobo anyway.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by gmw

And also means you've read it already. I only came across it recently, and with a title like that I had to look more closely. It sounded very appealing to my tastes (I like a good epistolary work occasionally). Aside from conserving my votes, I also noticed it was quite expensive in Australia - at Kobo anyway.

I haven't read it, but I did read a book that's been compared to it--also WWII, also epistolatory: The Chilbury Ladies' Choir by Jennifer Ryan.

For readers of Lilac Girls and The Nightingale, The Chilbury Ladies' Choir unfolds the struggles, affairs, deceptions, and triumphs of a village choir during World War II.

As England becomes enmeshed in the early days of World War II and the men are away fighting, the women of Chilbury village forge an uncommon bond. They defy the Vicar’s stuffy edict to close the choir and instead “carry on singing,” resurrecting themselves as the Chilbury Ladies’ Choir. We come to know the home-front struggles of five unforgettable choir members: a timid widow devastated when her only son goes to fight; the older daughter of a local scion drawn to a mysterious artist; her younger sister pining over an impossible crush; a Jewish refugee from Czechoslovakia hiding a family secret; and a conniving midwife plotting to outrun her seedy past.

An enchanting ensemble story that shuttles from village intrigue to romance to the heartbreaking matters of life and death, Jennifer Ryan’s debut novel thrillingly illuminates the true strength of the women on the home front in a village of indomitable spirit.

(I also liked The Nightingale and Lilac Girls, which the blurb references, though I don't see much similarity to Chilbury, other than the WWII setting and the focus on women.)

[CRussel]

I'd like to nominate The Great Halifax Explosion, a book that resonates strongly with Canadians, but also with the people of Boston, who to this day get their giant Christmas tree as a gift from the grateful people of Nova Scotia. Their assistance in the aftermath of the largest and most devastating, non-nuclear, man-made, explosion of all time is remembered to this day.

From Overdrive:

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The riveting, tick-tock account of the largest manmade explosion in history prior to the atomic bomb, and the equally astonishing tales of survival and heroism that emerged from the ashes, from acclaimed New York Times bestselling author John U. Bacon

After steaming out of New York City on December 1, 1917, laden with a staggering three thousand tons of TNT and other explosives, the munitions ship Mont-Blanc fought its way up the Atlantic coast, through waters prowled by enemy U-boats. As it approached the lively port city of Halifax, Mont-Blanc's deadly cargo erupted with the force of 2.9 kilotons of TNT—the most powerful explosion ever visited on a human population, save for HIroshima and Nagasaki. Mont-Blanc was vaporized in one fifteenth of a second; a shockwave leveled the surrounding city. Next came a thirty-five-foot tsunami. Most astounding of all, however, were the incredible tales of survival and heroism that soon emerged from the rubble.

This is the unforgettable story told in John U. Bacon's The Great Halifax Explosion: a ticktock account of fateful decisions that led to doom, the human faces of the blast's 11,000 casualties, and the equally moving individual stories of those who lived and selflessly threw themselves into urgent rescue work that saved thousands.

The shocking scale of the disaster stunned the world, dominating global headlines even amid the calamity of the First World War. Hours after the blast, Boston sent trains and ships filled with doctors, medicine, and money. The explosion would revolutionize pediatric medicine; transform U.S.-Canadian relations; and provide physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, who studied the Halifax explosion closely when developing the atomic bomb, with history's only real-world case study demonstrating the lethal power of a weapon of mass destruction.

Mesmerizing and inspiring, Bacon's deeply-researched narrative brings to life the tragedy, bravery, and surprising afterlife of one of the most dramatic events of modern times.

This 410 page book is reasonably priced in Canada, FREE in the UK, but a bit pricey everywhere else. It is, however, available on Overdrive. (I have no way to check Hoopla -- sorry.)

AmazonUS: $14.99USD
AmazonCA: $12.74CAD
AmazonAU: $14.99AUD
AmazonUK: £0.00 (FREE)
AudibleUS: 1 credit
Overdrive: (ebook) (audiobook)

This was a defining moment in Canadian history, and showed the wonderful magnanimity of the people of Boston in their rapid and effective response that saved thousands of lives.

[Bookworm_Girl]

Originally Posted by gmw

And also means you've read it already. I only came across it recently, and with a title like that I had to look more closely. It sounded very appealing to my tastes (I like a good epistolary work occasionally). Aside from conserving my votes, I also noticed it was quite expensive in Australia - at Kobo anyway.

I really liked this book, and we seem to have similar tastes. I really want to see the movie. It was very popular in the US at the time along with Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford and Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnay. Next up on my list for books similar to these is The Nightingale. I haven’t read any books by Kristin Hannah yet.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by CRussel

I'd like to nominate The Great Halifax Explosion, a book that resonates strongly with Canadians, but also with the people of Boston, who to this day get their giant Christmas tree as a gift from the grateful people of Nova Scotia. Their assistance in the aftermath of the largest and most devastating, non-nuclear, man-made, explosion of all time is remembered to this day.

This 410 page book is reasonably priced in Canada, FREE in the UK, but a bit pricey everywhere else. It is, however, available on Overdrive. (I have no way to check Hoopla -- sorry.)

The audiobook version is available at both Hoopla and Scribd.

[CRussel]

Good to know, thanks Catlady. I'm going to go with the eBook version this time around, though. There are pictures in the eBook (and pBook) that just don't come through on the audio book somehow.

[astrangerhere]

I'll second The Great Halifax Explosion

[issybird]

I'm going to nominate And the Show Went On: Cultural Life in Nazi-Occupied Paris by Alan Riding.

In the weeks after the Germans captured Paris, theaters, opera houses, and nightclubs reopened to occupiers and French citizens alike, and they remained open for the duration of the war. Alan Riding introduces a pageant of twentieth-century artists who lived and worked under the Nazis and explores the decisions each made about whether to stay or flee, collaborate or resist.We see Maurice Chevalier and Edith Piaf singing before French and German audiences; Picasso painting and occasionally selling his work from his Left Bank apartment; and Marcel Carne and Henri-Georges Clouzot, among others, directing movies in Paris studios (more than two hundred were produced during this time). We see that pro-Fascist writers such as Louis-Ferdinand Celine and Robert Brasillach flourished, but also that Camus's The Stranger was published and Sartre's play No Exit was first performed-ten days before the Normandy landings.Based on exhaustive research and extensive interviews, And the Show Went On sheds a clarifying light on a protean and problematic era in twentieth-century European cultural history.

Amazon US $9.99 | Kobo UK £5.63 | Kobo AU $9.89 | OverDrive

Ebook not available in Canada, alas, although the audiobook is.

416 pages

[CRussel]

By the way, I have no way of knowing, but that U.K. price (same at KoboUK I'm told) might well be promotional. If you have any interest at all, I'd strongly suggest "buying" The Great Halifax Explosion while it is free.

[Bookpossum]

I second And the Show Went On - a fascinating topic.

So is the Halifax Explosion, of which I had not heard before, so I hope someone has a spare vote for it too, as I’m out of them now.

[gmw]

Originally Posted by Catlady

I haven't read it, but I did read a book that's been compared to it--also WWII, also epistolatory: The Chilbury Ladies' Choir by Jennifer Ryan. [...]
(I also liked The Nightingale and Lilac Girls, which the blurb references, though I don't see much similarity to Chilbury, other than the WWII setting and the focus on women.)

Originally Posted by Bookworm_Girl

I really liked this book, and we seem to have similar tastes. I really want to see the movie. It was very popular in the US at the time along with Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford and Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnay. Next up on my list for books similar to these is The Nightingale. I haven’t read any books by Kristin Hannah yet.

Thank you both very much. This book club thing is not good for me. I keep discovering more I want to read, but no one is giving me any more hours in the day. Oh, woe is me.

[gmw]

I'll third The Great Halifax Explosion

ETA: It took me a while to remember where I'd read about this fairly recently: the event was described (but not in great detail) in Until I Find You by John Irving.