The Girls of Atomic City: The untold story of the women who helped win World War II by Denise Kieran (read 8/23/19 to 8/29/19)

GoodReads description “This is the story of the girls/women of Oak Ridge Tennessee who unknowingly helped to create the Atomic Bomb. The Tennessee town of Oak Ridge was created from scratch in 1942. One of the Manhattan Project’s secret cities, it didn’t appear on any maps until 1949, and yet at the height of World War II it was using more electricity than New York City and was home to more than 75,000 people, many of them young women recruited from small towns across the South. Their jobs were shrouded in mystery, the penalty for talking about their work—even the most innocuous details—was job loss and eviction. They all knew something big was happening at Oak Ridge, but few could piece together the true nature of their work until the bomb "Little Boy" was dropped over Hiroshima, Japan, and the secret was out. The shocking revelation: the residents of Oak Ridge were enriching uranium for the atomic bomb. Though the young women originally believed they would leave Oak Ridge after the war, many met husbands there, made lifelong friends, and still call the seventy-year-old town home.”

From the very start I was excited. I like that there is a listing of who everyone is at the start. Sometimes I get names mixed up in historical books, and it is great to have a reference when I ask myself “who is this again.”

This book contained lots of facts, but a good mix of personal storytelling as well. Still never kept all the characters straight, but it was a really good read. I enjoyed the flow of the book, it really kept the events moving along and never got too bogged down with facts, yet I learned a lot at the same time.

I liked that the authors choose to follow different women from different social and economic backgrounds throughout the book, how were things for a scientist, a secretary, an operator and a janitor. White versus black? It let the reader know what was the same across the board, and what was not. Sometimes the differences were mind boggling.

I also really liked that the last chapter and some of the notes at the end of the nook told more of what happened to the women after the project was wrapped up, a sort of where are they now.

Why the Right Went Wrong: Conservatism from Goldwater to the Tea Party and Beyond by E.J. Dionne Jr. (read 8/11/19 to 8/22/19)

I am on a roll of political analysis books, this should be my final one for a bit. Well until the election really heats up. Then I will want to read about candidates and books from candidates. This is a history of the Republican party and their politics. As you could guess, I am really trying to understand why our government is functioning/or not functioning the way it is. I don’t want to just vote party lines, but I feel the need to understand what the other side is trying to achieve. This was obviously written by a liberal trying to understand the conservative side of things. I had good information, but there was just so much of it. I had a hard time reading it and digesting, it was so dense. And as a result I didn’t enjoy it, and at about halfway I just wanted it over so everything at the end was lost on me.

*Opinions expressed are solely my own and do not express the views or opinions of the US Government. None of the ideas expressed in this blog post are shared, supported, or endorsed in any manner by my employer.

The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris (read 8/12/19 to 8/13/19)

I choose this book as the first book of a new book club I have started.  I choose it because my boyfriends mother recommended it to me, and wow was she right, I could hardly put it down.  I think I read it in every free moment I had in a 24 hour period.
This is a true story, with a little historical/fictional embellishment.  All the major historical details are correct, but some of the timelines are a little changed for ease of reading.  Additionally since this is story in dedication to love it has a little of embellishment on the romance I am sure.
Lale is a jewish man who becomes the tattooist of Auschwitz, a privileged but dangerous position, he tattoos the number on the arm of a beautiful girl, Gita, and he spends the rest of his time romancing and protecting her as best he can.  This is the type of story I love, WWII always draws me in, the audacity of the Nazi's and the human carnage they left in their wake.  Yet there are just as many stories of human kindness and bravery fighting the horrors as there are horror stories.  I admire the survivors of the concentration camps, not only for surviving but because many did not allow their humanity to be taken from them.  I admire the stories of those that helped smuggle and protect the Nazi persecuted people, not just Jewish, because they did not say it's too hard.  They said this is wrong, and it's hard, but what small things can I do, and often the small things compounded to greatness.  This story encompasses all those. It was beautifully written and real pleasure to read.

The Shadows of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafron (read 7/25/19 to 7/30/19)

This was a BOTM read for August, but my library copy came in early, so I had
to read it early.
It starts off so dark and dreary and mysterious, and then a secret library with books nobody remembers are stored and still read and loved. And on Daniels first visit he adopts the book title, so it can never go extinct.  I loved the premise behind the story.  There was a great mystery and what happened to the  author Julian?  There were parts of the story that were very slow for me, particularly in the middle, I didn't really see how it added to the plot.  The ending had a bit of a twist, most of it I had figured out, but the shocker part I did not. But it did wrap everything up nicely in the end.   Overall it was an ok book.

The Cactus by Sarah Haywood (read 8/8/19 to 8/11/19)

This was an ok book for me. I didn’t love it. But it was a quick read. I don’t like Susan, she has a stick up her ass and is very cold. I don’t care for her treatment of people in her life, I understand it’s her character, but it doesn’t make me like her in the least. I feel no sympathy towards her, and actually I feel like she gets what she deserves. Throughout the book, I never really got to like her, I saw the twist by the 50% point. Everything wrapped up a little too neatly. It was an easy break between some heavier novels I have been reading. I don’t think I would recommend it. I like the writing style and authors voice, it was the story itself I didn’t care for, and the characters never grabbed me. There wasn’t a single one I cared about wha happened to them. I could see Susan’s growth as a person through the book, Haywood did that brilliantly, but I just didn’t care for who Susan was as a person enough to celebrate her changes.  I liked Haywood's writing style enough to see if she had written any other books, and she hadn't.  But I will be willing to her her next book a go.

The Deep State by Mike Lofgren (read 7/31/19 to 8/7/19)

This book is written by a former Republican Congressional Employee, he worked for 28 years as a staff member and national defense analyst for the House and Senate budget committees. He said, “My purpose with this book is to question the rationale of the game rather than attack the player who happens to be at bat at any given inning.”

Deep State: “A shadow government ruling the United States that pays little heed to the plain words of the Constitution8. It’s governing philosophy profoundly influences foreign and national security policy and such domestic matters as spending priorities, trade, investment, income inequality, privatization of government services, media presentation of news, and the whole meaning and worth of citizens’ participation in their government.”

“A hybrid association of key elements of government and parts of top-level finance and industry that is effectively able to govern the United States with only limited reference to the consent of the governed as normally expressed through elections.”

This was a depressing read, 265/277 pages about how corrupt and messed up our government is. I will give it to Lofgren he equally blamed both parties. It was a lot of depressing stuff, nothing is what it seems, everyone has a secret agenda, and nobody cares about the state of our country or its citizens.

But don’t fear Lofgren has the solutions in his final chapter.

1. Eliminate private money from public elections. 
2. Sensibly redeploy and downsize the military and intelligence complex. 
3. Stay out of the Middle East. 
4. Redirect the peace dividend to domestic infrastructure improvement. 
5. Start enforcing our antitrust laws. 
6. Reform tax policy. 
7. Reform immigration policy. 
8. Adopt a single payer health care system. 
9. Abolish corporations personhood status, or else treat the exactly like persons.

Overall Lofgren seems to have been telling what he saw as an insider at Congress, and how disappointed and disillusioned with our government he was when he left.  He provided a great amount of evidence for why change is needed, which I think we all know, and his solutions are not new ideas, just ones that no-one seems willing or able to make happen.  Besides writing this book, it did not seem he was trying to change anything, I did not hear about him becoming an activist or even a lobbyist.  Maybe he thought this book was action enough?  I don't know why I disliked it so much, yeah the subject matter was hard, there were some events that it provided a new perspective on, but for the most part, I already knew that at the upper echelons of our government there is disfunction and change needs to happen so that more can be accomplished.  Maybe it was his tone that bothered me, he writes with a disgust and a "no hope" attitude up until the last chapter.  I love my country, and I understand that we are not functioning at the best of our ability right now, both public and private, government officials and private citizens, maybe I am an optimist but I don't feel that there is no hope.  I just don't know when it will happen, but when it does I hope it will be swift.

*Opinions expressed are solely my own and do not express the views or opinions of the US Government. None of the ideas expressed in this blog post are shared, supported, or endorsed in any manner by my employer.