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 This is a compilation of several diaries from World War II collected by the Mass Observations project. This project was designed in 1937 to see what the people of Britain were really thinking. In the beginning, the writers responded to prompts, but by the start of the war they were asked to keep diaries of their thoughts, feelings, and actions for posterity. These diarists are surprisingly intimate, giving details of their own lives in far more detail than those of the war, and this collection aims to give us a closer look into how the public really dealt with the war.
I found these diaries to be absolutely riveting. The book is filled with the everyday life of people going about in war for five years of their lives. Their lives all change in ways they probably didn’t imagine – some of them say so, like Muriel Green who becomes a gardener for the cause – and it’s absorbing to watch it happen. I thought the most striking thing about the diaries was that they were not overly dramatic and the people in them did not seem very dismayed by the thought that a bomb could kill them at any time. Sometimes nearby houses are destroyed with people in them but the diarist in question always remains remarkably calm. They’ll remark on the bombing of another town, but never seem worried that their own is next, although I’m sure they must have been. The only outpouring of emotion was from a man who lost his brother in the war, which results in some of the saddest and somehow most beautiful passages conveyed in the book.
Mostly, though, this book is a story full of the little things, improvising meals, shopping for clothes, trying to see sweethearts, job-hunting, dealing with the blackout, a robbery, births, deaths, dances, and kisses. All the ordinary bits of life go on amidst a country struck by war. People are people even when the Germans threaten to invade and sirens rush them into bomb shelters multiple times a day. Even more interesting is considering what these reactions say about the British public at large during World War II. It would be truly fascinating to compare these diaries with newpapers and other media produced at the time in order to see the differences in reaction to the war.
I was a little disappointed to discover that most of the diarists were given pen names since their families could not be contacted for permission, but it’s understandable. Apparently the Mass Observation project was viewed in some circles as spying, since diarists gave details of not only their own lives but their neighbors’ as well without permission. So in this book, names are shortened to a single letter if permission has not been given and summaries of diarists’ lives are reduced to a few lines regarding what they were doing in the war.
Overall I’m delighted to see a historical archive like this published and I can only imagine how amazing it would be to work in such an archive as is still going on now. I have another book of theirs on my shelf; it is the post-war diaries of Nella Last, one of the most prolific diarists and one whose family has given permission for her real name to be used. It’s called Nella Last’s Peace. I’m very much looking forward to it; I’ll be reviewing it in March.
And a final note, I discovered after completing the compilation that the editor, Sandra Koa Wing, passed away aged only 28 in 2007 after a battle with cancer. I think this wonderful book is a tribute to her since her future career in history was cut so tragically short.
Buy Our Longest Days: A People’s History of the Second World War on Amazon.
 Russell Shorto argues that Descartes’ theories underpin everything that modern people think and do, despite the fact that we give him little credit for it. To illustrate this, Shorto follows Descartes’ bones from the great man’s moment of death to the present day, illustrating how he and his mortal remains have powered and furthered thinking from the Enlightenment to 2008.
I didn’t really think this book was going to be any good. I read several reviews from people who had abandoned the book or who finished it only because they were compelled to as reviewers and had received an ARC like me. I have a bad track record when it comes to finishing non-fiction, even when I like it, so I opened this a bit warily.
Surprisingly, I didn’t have any trouble with it at all and really enjoyed it. I found the charting of intellectual and scientific history from Descartes’ time to now to be very interesting and relevant to the way I think now and the way I know others think. The use of Descartes’ bones and particularly skull to illustrate this mental journey was a clever device that unified the book from his death to the present. It isn’t exactly a story, but more a philosophical exploration of just how we got where we are, using the bones and the mystery surrounding them as a frame for the author’s deeper thoughts.
I thought it was smart, thoughtful, and a worthy read. I’d suggest this book if you’d like to delve into the issues behind our thought processes and theories, rather than looking for the mystery it’s sold as. You can buy it on Amazon .
 I can’t summarize this book effectively, so I’m just going to quote from the back:
“To this day, Americans think of themselves as a Puritan nation, but Vowell investigates what that means – and what it should mean. Who were these people who are considered the political and spiritual and moral ancestors of our nation? What was this great enterprise all about? What Vowell discovers is something far different from their uptight shoe-buckles-and-corn reputation. The people she finds are highly literate, deeply principled, and surprisingly feisty. Their story is filled with pamphlet feuds, witty courtroom dramas, and bloody vengeance.”
And so on. Let me say that this book is absolutely hilarious. I found myself laughing regularly throughout Vowell’s journey through Puritan history. She makes history that is normally dull and confusing (even for me, who loves history) into a riot of a book that I just wanted to keep reading. She also relates the past to the present and shows us a fair amount of horrifying examples where history repeats itself – or worse, when American presidents take out bits and pieces of Puritan speeches and ignore the important bits about being good to your fellow citizens. I’m not sure the book has potential for being read and understood a hundred years from now given the pop culture jokes, but it’s certainly amusing now.
Sarah Vowell does a brilliant job of showing us how history is relevant while keeping us entertained and informed. I’d wholeheartedly recommend this one. Buy it on Amazon.
 I love Russian history. I can hear you saying: “What? I thought you loved medieval history!”, which obviously I do, but Russian history is another one of those side interests of mine. I don’t love it enough to make it my life, but I find it fascinating. I did study Russian for 5 1/2 years, so a lot of my knowledge comes from reading stuff in Russian, and I think it’s the combination of the language and the history that makes it so enthralling to me. I’ve forgotten most of my Russian now, but I still have the stray thought float by in Russian; as I was reading this book, all the landmarks were automatically recognizable to me. Besides that, Russia is the only country that I’ve discovered so far where the history doesn’t get less interesting as time goes by. Generally my interest drops off once guns are invented, but with Russia, things just get more interesting.
So, I was very pleased to receive a review copy of Stalin’s Children, a memoir which covers three generations of a partly Russian family’s history in the 20th century. The author’s maternal family suffered greatly in the hands of Stalin’s purges; his grandfather, a loyal Party man, was shot and killed, his grandmother sent to a labor camp, and his mother and aunt separated and sent to orphanages, where they nearly starved. Matthews’ father, Mervyn, was a Welsh student enthralled with Russia and willing to do everything he could to get there; it’s not surprising that he fell in love with a Russian girl. The part that is surprising is their six year separation and the many love letters they sent to one another over the distance.
The beginning was particularly interesting. Stalin’s purges are, I think, well known, but we don’t often get such an intimate picture of a family torn apart by them. Many men who weren’t guilty of anything at all were sent to be killed or imprisoned permanently for no apparent reason other than extreme suspicion. Reading about this from Lenina and Lyudmila’s points of view brings home the suffering that they and many other families endured.
I think my own experience hindered my enjoyment of the rest of the book. You’d think that I would empathize and relate with Lyudmila and Mervyn, still in my own long-distance relationship with a foreigner. And I do to some extent; I could certainly feel the pain of their separation because it echoes mine so closely. I think the pain of being separated from someone you love above all others, not knowing when you’ll see them again, is universal. Nevertheless, I was actually bored by Mervyn’s endless struggle to free Mila. It seemed like pages and pages of him writing and trying to see various governmental officials went by, with excerpts from their copious love letters and woeful tales of how much Mila was suffering interspersed. I understood that it was a long time and it was very painful, but I had a lot of trouble feeling it once the initial separation was over. To be honest, it felt like a lot of complaining, and while they had to complain to get heard, I honestly just can’t take that much. I know that their separation is a great deal more difficult than mine and they didn’t even know if they’d end up together, but I just can’t stand when people complain about their long distance relationships. You’ll never catch me complaining about mine to anyone other than my fiance.
And then, this may be a spoiler here, she wasn’t happy when she got there. She was homesick, instead. We barely hear about how pleased Mervyn and Mila were that they finally got to be together after six years. Between you and me, I think they placed each other on pedestals too high to climb after all those letters. So I ended up very disappointed in the book’s outcome.
As for Owen’s own life story up until now, I think he did a fair job trying to bridge the Moscow of long ago with the Moscow of recent years. His parts were more like a contemporary memoir, and interwoven with the history they successfully demonstrated both how much and how little Russia has changed in the past 75 years.
I’m not sure I’ll recommend this one. I enjoyed the first half but was disappointed by the second half. Your opinion may vary, and in fact if you have reviewed this book and offer a more favorable opinion, please leave me a comment – I’ll link to your review in this post. Buy this book on Amazon.
 Tiny Kline spent her entire life doing stunts. From youth to middle age, she worked with the circus, her love for which is apparent throughout the pages of her memoir. She continued doing iron jaw stunts, descending inclines at ridiculous speeds suspended only by her teeth, into old age and performed as Tinker Bell at Disneyland when she was in her 70s. By all accounts, Tiny Kline had a fascinating life. She really wrote two memoirs in an attempt to share that life with us. One contained mainly personal anecdotes, related to her work on the circus. The second mainly contained circus history and was stripped of these more intimate details. The editor, Janet M. Davis, combined the two to produce a memoir that is still Tiny’s but in a form readers will be more eager to consume.
This book was a very educational experience. Circus history, while an interesting topic, is not something that I’ve ever learned in school and there don’t seem to be many accessible books written on it. There is the fiction bestseller, Water for Elephants, which I read and loved earlier this year, but that’s about all I’ve seen on my book radar. When this popped up on LT Early Reviewers, I knew that I simply must read it. And good choice by me; this is a terrific memoir. The combination of memoirs is brilliantly done and I never noticed a gap between Tiny’s two styles of writing. It’s fascinating to see how the circus changed over time, the insider’s view of circus politics, and just how some performers climbed the career ladder faster than others. Tiny’s ambition was tremendous and it’s easy to see why she advances so quickly.
The book does read precisely as someone’s account of their life. Tiny was not the best writer and it’s evident at times that she had little training, but it never hampers this book, just makes the author more real, if that is possible. It reads like a letter written by a friend; conversational, easy tone. There were some nice touches put in by the editor, such as including photographs with Tiny’s descriptions of some of her fellow performers, all bringing the circus to life. Tiny admits one lapse in her introduction; she included some fictional romances to make the book more “exciting”, even though she never had a romantic interlude after her husband died shortly after their wedding. The fictional parts are obvious and only in one part of the book; I don’t count this against it, especially as she admits their existence before the book even begins.
I’d definitely be recommending this book and if you’re interested in circus history, you shouldn’t miss it. I’m glad that I didn’t! Buy this book on Amazon.
Many thanks to Michael Roux and the University of Illinois Press for sending me this lovely book!
 As a teen and young adult, Ariel Sabar always thought his father Yona was a bit strange. Yona had immigrated twice in his life, from Zakho in Iraq to Israel to the US. When Ariel had his own son, he realized the errors he had wrought and set about learning the story of his family’s past in Kurdish Iraq and Israel to help him reconnect with his father, an internationally renowned professor at UCLA, and preserve history. This book traces his family’s journey, starting with his grandmother, moving on to his father’s academic rise, and finishing with his own journey to Zakho.
This was an excellent book. It reads like a novel at times, with bits of history and folklore intertwined with the Sabar family’s past. I couldn’t wait to get back to it when I wasn’t reading it, because I really wanted to know more about this fascinating family. I feel that there aren’t enough books that really center in on the Middle East and its vast changes that are accessible to ordinary people, but this book bridges the gap beautifully.
It also tells the universal story of the immigrant; searching for better opportunities and rarely finding them. I’ve read about this situation a lot with American immigrants. The only way I’d heard about this in respect to Israel before was through my Jewish friends at Brandeis University, some of whose parents and grandparents had had journeys similar to Yona’s. So not only is Sabar recording his family’s history, he is also chronicling that of an entire group of displaced persons, the Kurds. I was astounded by the attitude of other Jews in Israel to them; I thought Israel was the promised land and that all people were equal and welcomed there. It may be that way now, which is what modern Jews tell me, but it certainly wasn’t the case 50 years ago when Yona Sabar’s family immigrated there.
This book contains a story that is immersive, historical, and human. I definitely recommend it. Buy this book on Amazon.
 This half-memoir, half-journal, was penned before and immediately after Agnès Humbert’s horrific experience as a French political prisoner of the Nazis. Agnès was a courageous woman, full of spirit and defiance, holding her love of France and desire for independence above all, even the worst treatment at the hands of inconsiderate jailers who did not mind if the prisoners lived or died, let alone suffered, so long as the work got done. Her journal chronicles her activism for the underground newspaper Résistance before her arrest, and afterwards moves on to a memoir style account of her time in prison and in various labor camps and factories before her eventual rescue by the Americans in 1945.
I found her newpaper days to be slightly over my head; they are full of names and I never quite managed to work out just who was who, or which of the members survived and which were killed. I did admire her sense of independence; she never masked who anyone was in her journal, seemingly certain that no Nazi would ever find it. She retains her composure under questioning and in the torturous jail cells, never revealing any of her compatriots, though most of them seem to be caught regardless. Her experience was consistently horrifying and it’s almost impossible to imagine human beings could treat each other so abominably. I know much about the experience of the Jews and other “rejected” minorities at the hands of the Nazis; I’ve been to the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC, which is a place that everyone should visit for their own education and to help prevent future genocides (which we aren’t doing very well at). I never heard much about political prisoners, however, or their ordeals in labor camps and factories rather than in the death camps. These, of course, are still horrific.
Reading about Agnès’ suffering was extremely affecting and upsetting. I’m sure I would have committed suicide in her position like so many of the other girls did. Remarkably, Agnès retained her spirit and when she was released, immediately set about helping the Americans with their occupation of Germany and attempts to catch the remaining Nazis and Nazi sympathizers.
I’d recommend this book; it’s an account of one woman’s experience that really applied to many other prisoners. Agnès’ chronicle can help to ensure that these atrocities are not committed again. Buy this book on Amazon.
Those were my majors in college, and it is very strange to say “were” there, as three months on I haven’t quite realized that I’ve graduated yet. Anyway, many of you have visited my giveaway for Marie-Therese, Child of Terror by Susan Nagel and posted your favorite period of history. It wasn’t easy for some of you, and I find all the responses interesting – I’ve always wondered if others had a specific preference like I do, or if they were interested in all history. Now, I love all history and I’ll happily read about any time period, but you know if you’re reading this blog that I have a favorite.
I’ve always had a special place in my heart for medieval history, and I’ve been delighted in the past year to be able to focus in on what I really like. Typically, I can’t decide between early or late medieval English history. The middle isn’t that exciting, with the exception of Eleanor of Aquitaine, who is all the excitement wrapped up in one person. Early medieval history has the Anglo-Saxons taking over England, the Viking raids, and my favorite historical figure of all time, Aethelflaed, “Lady of the Mercians”, daughter of Alfred the Great. We know very little about her except that she ruled in a time when it was nearly unheard of for women to rule, in defiance of her brother, and fought with her army at least at the Battle of Tettenhall. There’s a stained glass representation of her in Worcester Cathedral with a sword – the only woman with a sword of all the monarchs represented.
As for my other love, that’s Richard III. I spent the last year of my life researching him and I’d be quite happy to spend the next few doing the same thing. Fascinating man – he brings to life all the struggles of late medieval England. I’ve essentially chosen the late medieval period for my research interests. The power play between kings and nobles, which all the late medieval kings struggled with, is my favorite part. You can see England changing into the early modern period, how their ideologies are evolving. Richard has lots of these clever ideas, but doesn’t live long enough to implement them. Henry VII does instead. (He is my least favorite English monarch, except maybe for the Georges. I don’t like them much either.)
 In other news, I think I’m in love. I just finished The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and I’d like to say that it is my favorite novel of 2008. Whatever I read next is going to be a total disappointment. I stopped reading it an hour ago because I didn’t want it to end, but then I couldn’t wait so I finished it. And now I’m not quite sure what to do with myself. I don’t want to condemn another book by starting it now (which is part of the reason for this post). Guernsey was that good. Well, except its name could be shorter. Regardless, expect a euphoric, adoring review in a few days. Experience it yourself – here’s a handy Amazon link. That’s code for you should buy or borrow this book, and read it, and come back and talk to me about it. =)
 Marie-Therese was only a child when her parents, King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette of France, were beheaded during the French Revolution. After a childhood of privilege, she faced great deprivation as a teenager and endured constant struggle through the rest of her life, yet somehow managed to remain dedicated to France and her people. Marie-Therese was an inspirational woman and Susan Nagel has done well on writing her first biography. I have always wondered exactly what happened to Marie Antoinette’s children. So often, history focuses on her and her husband, ignoring that one of the children survived and went on to live a mostly healthy life.
Contrasted with Marie-Therese’s story, there are short snippets about another woman, “The Dark Countess”, whose story has convinced many that she was the real Marie-Therese. There was another girl very similar in appearance to Marie-Therese, but who died at a much younger age, so the identity of this woman has never been discovered. This story was relevant, but I was glad that it only had a small place in the book, as I thought the real Marie-Therese deserved her own story.
This book is horrifying to read at times, particularly when the royal family is imprisoned and treated disgracefully. As a historian, Nagel can tease out all the details and we can learn how unjust their treatment was. The entire family lived less extravagantly than their forebears and essentially fell prey to the ambition of their cousin, who made the most of a bad situation. The royal family remained loyal to France despite their despicable treatment as prisoners.
Nagel’s writing is always fluid and easy to read. At times, I did get bogged down in the vast number of people that I was supposed to be remembering, especially regarding the Dark Countess. I think that if I knew a bit more about post-Revolution France, or even if I spoke French, I would have had an easier time of it.
Regardless, I enjoyed this a lot and I felt I learned a great deal about one of those parts of history that isn’t normally focused on. Marie-Therese was an interesting person who led a fascinating life, even in its extremely unhappy parts. As the only royal to survive, she had a great legacy on her shoulders and she bore it well. I’d recommend this book to anyone interested in history. Buy this book on Amazon.
Thanks to Marcia at The Printed Page for generously sending this book to me!
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Or, would you like to win a copy? I have an ARC of this book that I will be happy to give away to one winner. The rules are easy:
- Leave a comment on this post telling me about your favorite part of history. That will earn you one entry. You must leave a comment or I won’t know that you’ve entered.
- For another entry, blog about this contest and link back to me!
- Comment by Wednesday, August 20th, at 11:59 pm EST. I’ll draw a winner on Thursday, August 21st.
Good luck!
 A shocking murder occurred at Road in 1860. A little boy, Francis Saville Kent, was whisked from his bed in the middle of the night, and only found the next day with his throat cut, shoved down a privy and wrapped in a blanket from his bed. At the same time, a fever for investigation and detection has swept the country and every man and woman is intent on solving the crime, blaming everyone from Saville’s father to the nursemaid to the neighbors. When the local police fail to turn up anything, Jonathan Whicher is called in, a detective from London. His conclusions shock Victorian sensibilities, however, and he falls from grace, though the book continues to unravel the mystery in his absence.
In addition to solving the crime and proposing some final solutions to the mysteries involved, Summerscale also provides us with a very interesting cultural and social study of the mid to late nineteenth century. In detail, she describes the detective fervor, early crime cases, their influence on literature, and how the great Whicher himself inspired such literary figures as Sergeant Cuff in The Moonstone. This is easily the most interesting part of the book. The mystery feels solved one third of the way in, although the public isn’t convinced and it isn’t fully unravelled yet, but the interesting effect it has on the English view of detectives is certainly the best part of the book and worth reading just for that. In addition, Summerscale puts forth the new view of the middle-class home as a place of privacy and demonstrates how this case tore it wide open, making us realize just why Whicher’s conclusions were so objectionable. The effect of newspapers on all of this is striking and detailed.
The narrative flows along smoothly for the most part and doesn’t get boring or drag. There are some parts that don’t fit, in particular details of William’s biological work are simply dull and don’t reflect any of the book’s greater qualities, but they are few and mostly towards the conclusion of the book. The conclusion itself gets very interesting as Summerscale enters into her most interesting speculations about the true nature of the crime and the Kent family, so it is most certainly worth going through.
In the end, this was a really interesting read. Very informative and entertaining. I’m glad I read it and I’d recommend it to someone else, particularly someone interested in Victorian literature or history.
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