Why We Fought - Jerry Borrowman

This is a collection of seven stories from WWII. Individuals covered are Viriginia Hall (SOE/OSS), William Sebold (helped expose German saboteurs in USA), Marlene Dietrich (actress), Juan Pujol (double agent) and Carl Lutz (saved approximately 72,000 Jews). Additionally, the book covers the Ghost Army (deceived German army of troop locations) and the Battle for Castle Itter (Americans and Germans fighting together to save VIP prisoners being held by the SS at the end of the war).

The book is well researched, but with the length that it is, you can't really expect a deep dive on any of these topics. Personally, I was already familiar with most of them, but I still learned a few things. I appreciated the notes at the end of the chapters, so I could easily connect which books related to which topics in case I want to read into a subject further. The chapters also had enough breaks in them that it was easy to pick up the book, read a section, and put it down without spending an hour doing it.

I liked the writing style used in this book, and the topics weren't dragged out longer than they needed to be. Each of these were pretty surface level examinations, and that was what I was expecting. If you're interested in some really neat stories from WWII that aren't normally talked about, I would recommend this book. It easily earns a Good Book! review from me!

The Crimson Cipher - Susan Page Davis

It's been a while since I've read one of these. By that I mean a Christian romance. The subject matter of this one appealed to me, so I decided to give it a whirl.

Emma's father has died. He's been murdered, and she now has nowhere to go. A job offer gives her the door she believes God has opened for her, and she moves off to perform cryptography work for the government. All the while, a group of German sympathizers is sabotaging significant locations, even though America hasn't yet entered the war (WWI).

So, I have personal issues with this book. The way Emma handled her father's death (or not) bothered me. She never even found out who murdered him and wasn't really trying that hard. I realize this is a personal parallel issue that I've attributed to this story, but it still bothered me. If I push that aside, I still found it a bit strange the way Emma and John thought so much about themselves when there were lives at stake. I get this is a romance story, but the sabotage/cipher portions of the book were more interesting to me.

The other thing, and it's a minor thing, is the religion. It's not saturated to the point where I couldn't read a page without being smacked in the face with it, but there were a couple spots where I was tempted to roll my eyes. For example, one of the girls is happy to have a friend who believes the same way because she may be friends with the other girls, but it's not the same as having a friend that shares her religion. Or something.

Anyway, the notes at the end were neat. Learning what was based on facts that happened and what were fictitious was helpful, and the reading suggestions were interesting. The story itself was okay, but I wish there had been more focus on the matters at hand. People were blowing up ships and factories, and these two are worried about their next date. It also would have been nice to have more stakes with Kobold (the mastermind). He just pops up here and there and yells at people. Add that to the "daddy issue" I personally had, and I was on the fence with this one. I don't think it was written super poorly. It just wasn't for me.

The Sandman - Neil Gaiman

I've been working on this series for a while now. I saw first season of the show on Netflix, and I read in multiple articles about how good the overall story was. I've been drawn to the graphic novels lately, so I was happy to see what the hype was all about.

The Sandman is following the story of Dream, one of The Endless. He has some brothers and sisters, and together they have responsibilities they take care of. The story begins with Dream being the prisoner of a man. Once Dream escapes, he has to put his realm back in order and his life after. It's hard to describe the plot, since it covers 13 issues.

The box set has 14 books, but one of them is a duplicate title. The Dream Hunters was published with two different art styles. I preferred the more graphic novel art, but the other is beautiful as well. The books themselves were not too heavy and easy to pick up and read. It was harder to put them down!

I really enjoyed this journey. There are a lot of deeper emotions and thoughts explored that I wasn't expecting. The art was beautiful throughout, and I appreciated it. Endless Nights is a collection of short examinations of the Endless, and I'm glad it was in there. The Dream Hunters was more of a single story, but it was one of my favorites. The final book was something of a risk in my opinion. It's an end and a beginning, thus the infinity instead of the number on the spine. Making a series competently circle around is difficult and takes a great deal of talent. But it happened here. 

The Sandman made me happy, and it made me sad. I almost cried a couple of times, and I wanted to be able to rejoice at a happy ending. But it wasn't that simple, and it wouldn't have made sense to end that way. It's hard to describe, but with all that said, this series definitely gets a Good Book/Series! review. I'm hoping in the future to read more from Gaiman.

The Flying Sikh - Stephen Barker

Hardit Singh Malik was an Indian who served during WWI in the air forces for Britain. 

Looking at the cover, I was expecting the book to be about Malik and his service. A lot of it is, but a lot of it focuses on the political issues that surrounded the troubles Malik faced dealing with the British Government and military. Malik almost felt like a side character in his own book.

Normally, I would read through the appendices, but I was just glad for the book to be over. The issues were repeated, and I felt like I could almost predict where some parts were going. For example, I feel like I read about fitting in related to organized sports in Britain at least three times. And that's not even one of the Indian-British relations that are referred to consistently.

Overall, the book was organized in a chronological way, but the chapters aren't solely focused on Malik. If you're interested in the issues going on around that time, I suppose the book could be interesting. I wanted to learn about Malik. The amount of time spent discussing his actual air service wasn't as much as I expected, so that was disappointing. It looked like from the time Malik's service truly started and the conclusion was only about 120 pages (Kindle version). The conclusion talked again about the issues almost as much or more than Malik.

Hardit Singh Malik was a pioneer in his time, and he did write his own autobiography called A Little Work, A Little Play. I couldn't find a copy of that, so I tried this book. It wasn't an easy read for me, and that may have been due to my expectations. It was a miss for me.

Farewell, My Lovely (Philip Marlowe #2) - Raymond Chandler

This is the second book in the series. Back in September of last year, I read the first book, The Big Sleep. I liked that one, so I wanted to read more about the unique personality that was Philip Marlowe. Just as a quick disclaimer, there is dated language in this book.

In this book, Marlowe gets pulled into a bar to be involved in a murder (that no one seems to care about), then there's another murder at the handover of some jewels, and then a bunch of other stuff happens. It's kind of a mess. Marlowe walks into a lot of situations and weasels his way out of them in his normal fashion.

I didn't seem to enjoy this one as much as I thought I would. I liked the gentle giants of the book more than Phil. Well, the one wasn't really gentle, but Moose was definitely a giant. Red was the other character I really enjoyed. He had personality, and I was happy to find out he had a happy ending.

Other than that, the entire thing was a muddle for me. There were so many twists and turns, I got a bit lost a couple times. Maybe that's on me, but it wasn't a smooth sail for me. Marlowe was always playing an angle, but I had no idea what it was. I think I'm done with this detective. 

Proving Ground - Kathy Kleiman

Both my kids are into computers, and my husband is as well. One of the kids is majoring in Computer Science, so I was interested in seeing what women have done in the field when it was new.

This book follows 6 of the first programmers of the ENIAC machine. It lists many of the other people involved with the early ideas and the project as well. Not being familiar with a lot of the terminology, I was a little lost here and there. Aside from that, it was a good explanation of what the women experienced.

The page count is a smidge misleading. The product page lists the book at 274 pages. The main "meat" of the book ends at page 220, followed by an epilogue, photos on page 232, a postscript starting on page 233, and the end notes begin on page 244. (All page numbers are referring to the Kindle version.)

I learned a lot in this book. It was a fairly neutral narrative until I got to the epilogue. That part of the book was the author's journey of researching and learning about the subject. She also tends to lean toward the subject of gender inequality in this section. I'm not saying it's not a fair point, I'm just pointing out it becomes more prevalent all of a sudden. 

I think if you like computer science, and you're interested in the history of the field, you might like this book. It's not going to appeal to everyone, especially if you have no idea what goes on with mathematics and the basic concepts of programming. I'll give it a Good Book! review, because I enjoyed it, but I think it would've lost me if it was much longer.

Dear Daughter Dead - S B Hough

My other epic find at the used book store was this paperback. I was intrigued by the cover and the explanation on the back. I'd never heard of this author, and when I looked him up, I noticed he wrote under three different names and different genres. His actual name was Stanley Bennett Hough.

Caroline's naked body is found on the bank of a creek. Only a few families live in the secluded little neighborhood, and no one wants to guess what happened. Maybe someone from the outside came in and performed this terrible act, but Brentford stays on the site. He digs up a lot of history on all the residents and finds they all seem to be connected. But who is responsible for Caroline's death?

This book was different. I hated the tiny print, but that was my bad for not looking before I bought it. Brentford is the type of detective who doesn't let on what he's thinking. It makes for a winding journey but an enjoyable one. The ending is not what I would call satisfying. Does the killer get revealed? I would say...sure? But it's a bit convoluted, and the end is just sad all around. The story itself struck me as unique, and it was really interesting.

This is the kind of book where you need to pay attention to what's happening, or you'll miss something. It might be a clue or a connection between some of the characters. It may or may not make a difference overall, but I wouldn't try to read it while my attention was divided. I did enjoy the overall story, so it easily earns a Good Book! review.