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

[issybird]

Happy Canada Day to our Canadian members!

Help us select the book that the New Leaf Book Club will read for August 2018. The theme is What is It Good for? Absolutely Nothin': War

This year is the centenary of the Armistice that ended the war to end all wars. To quote Pete Seeger, "When will they ever learn?" But the topic is wide-ranging as usual; people can make of it what they will. Everyone is welcome to join the nomination process even if they'd rather lurk during the voting and discussion; if that is still a little too much commitment, please feel free to suggest titles without making a formal nomination.

The nominations will run through 7 AM EDT, July 7, 2018. Each nomination requires a second and a third to make it to the poll, which will remain open for four days. The discussion of the selection will start on August 15, 2018. Don't forget to show up for the discussion of the July selection, Dandelion Wine, on July 15.

Any questions? See below, or just ask!

FAQs for the Nomination, Selection and Discussion process

General Guidelines for the New Leaf Book Club

Official choices with three nominations:

The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara [bfisher, Bookpossum, issybird]
Amazon US $7.99 | Kobo CA $8.99 | Kobo UK £4.79 | Kobo AU $8.13 | OverDrive

Spoiler:

In the four most bloody and courageous days of our nation's history, two armies fought for two dreams. One dreamed of freedom, the other of a way of life. Far more than rifles and bullets were carried into battle. There were memories. There were promises. There was love. And far more than men fell on those Pennsylvania fields. Shattered futures, forgotten innocence, and crippled beauty were also the casualties of war. The Killer Angels is unique, sweeping, unforgettable—a dramatic re-creation of the battleground for America's destiny.

345 pages

One of Ours by Willa Cather [astrangerhere, bfisher, Dazrin]
Gutenberg free | LibriVox free

Spoiler:

One of Ours is Willa Cather's 1923 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about the making of an American soldier. Claude Wheeler, the sensitive but aspiring protagonist, has ready access to his family's fortune but refuses to settle for it. Alienated from his uncaring father and pious mother, and rejected by a wife whose only love is missionary work, Claude is an idealist without ideals to cling to. Only when his country enters the Great War does he find the meaning of his life.

250 pages

Station X: The Codebreakers of Bletchley Park or The Secrets of Station X by Michael Smith [Bookpossum, CRussel, Dazrin]
Amazon US $7.99 | Amazon AU $8.55 | Amazon CA $9.99 | Kobo US $10.59 | Kobo AU $12.31

Spoiler:

A melting pot of Oxbridge dons, maverick oddballs and more regular citizens worked night and day at Station X, as Bletchley Park was known, to derive intelligence information from German coded messages. Bear in mind that an Enigma machine had a possible 159 million million million different settings and the magnitude of the challenge becomes apparent. That they succeeded, despite military scepticism, supplying information that led to the sinking of the Bismarck, Montgomery's victory in North Africa and the D-Day landings, is testament to an indomitable spirit that wrenched British intelligence into the modern age, as the Second World War segued into the Cold War. Michael Smith constructs his absorbing narrative around the reminiscences of those who worked and played at Bletchley Park, and their stories add a very human colour to their cerebral activity. The code breakers of Station X did not win the war but they undoubtedly shortened it, and the lives saved on both sides stand as their greatest achievement.

240 pages

The Great Halifax Explosion by John U. Bacon [CRussel, astrangerhere, gmw]
AmazonUS: $14.99 | AmazonCA: $12.74 | AmazonAU: $14.99 | AmazonUK: £0.00 | Overdrive: (ebook) (audiobook)

Spoiler:

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.

410 pages

And the Show Went On: Cultural Life in Nazi-Occupied Paris by Alan Riding [issybird, Bookpossum, Bookworm_Girl]
Amazon US $9.99 | Kobo UK £5.63 | Kobo AU $9.89 | OverDrive

Spoiler:

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.

416 pages

Goodbye Sarajevo: A True Story of Courage, Love and Survival by Atka Reid and Hana Schofield [Bookworm_Girl, gmw, bfisher]
Amazon US $8.95 | Amazon UK £6.71 | Amazon CA $9.02 | Amazon AU $8.58 | Kobo, Overdrive, Scribd

Spoiler:

May, 1992. Hana is twelve years old when she is put on one of the last UN evacuation buses fleeing the besieged city of Sarajevo. Her twenty-one-year-old sister, Atka, staying behind to look after their five younger siblings, is there to say goodbye. Thinking that they will be apart for only a few weeks, they make a promise to each other to be brave.

But as the Bosnian war escalates and months go by without contact, their promise to each other becomes deeply significant. Hana is forced to cope as a refugee in Croatia, far away from home and family, while Atka battles for survival in a city where snipers, mortar attacks and desperate food shortages are a part of everyday life. Their mother, working for a humanitarian aid organisation, is unable to reach them and their father retreats inside himself, shocked at what is happening to his city. In Sarajevo, death lurks in every corner and shakes the foundation of their existence. But when Atka finds work as a translator in an old, smoky radio station, and then with a photojournalist from New Zealand, life takes an unexpected turn, and the remarkable events that follow change her life, and those of her family, forever.

352 pages

Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond [issybird, CRussel, Dngrsone]
Amazon US $9.18 | Amazon UK £7.99 | Amazon AU $4.99 | Amazon CA $14.15 | OverDrive

Spoiler:

In this "artful, informative, and delightful" (William H. McNeill, New York Review of Books) book, Jared Diamond convincingly argues that geographical and environmental factors shaped the modern world. Societies that had a head start in food production advanced beyond the hunter-gatherer stage, and then developed writing, technology, government, and organized religion—as well as nasty germs and potent weapons of war—and adventured on sea and land to conquer and decimate preliterate cultures. A major advance in our understanding of human societies, Guns, Germs, and Steel chronicles the way that the modern world came to be and stunningly dismantles racially based theories of human history.

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the Phi Beta Kappa Award in Science, the Rhone-Poulenc Prize, and the Commonwealth Club of California's Gold Medal.

528 pages

The Perfect Horse: The Daring U.S. Mission to Rescue the Priceless Stallions Kidnapped by the Nazis by Elizabeth Letts [Catlady, Bookworm_Girl, gmw]
Amazon US $13.99 | Amazon UK £8.99 | Amazon CA $13.99 | Amazon AU $9.99 | Kobo U.S. $13.99 | Kobo UK £11.03 | Kobo CA $13.99 | Kobo Au $9.99 | Overdrive, Scribd, Axis360, RB Digital

Spoiler:

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the author of The Eighty-Dollar Champion, the remarkable story of the heroic rescue of priceless horses in the closing days of World War II

In the chaotic last days of the war, a small troop of battle-weary American soldiers captures a German spy and makes an astonishing find—his briefcase is empty but for photos of beautiful white horses that have been stolen and kept on a secret farm behind enemy lines. Hitler has stockpiled the world’s finest purebreds in order to breed the perfect military machine—an equine master race. But with the starving Russian army closing in, the animals are in imminent danger of being slaughtered for food.

With only hours to spare, one of the U.S. Army’s last great cavalrymen, Colonel Hank Reed, makes a bold decision—with General George Patton’s blessing—to mount a covert rescue operation. Racing against time, Reed’s small but determined force of soldiers, aided by several turncoat Germans, steals across enemy lines in a last-ditch effort to save the horses.

Pulling together this multistranded story, Elizabeth Letts introduces us to an unforgettable cast of characters: Alois Podhajsky, director of the famed Spanish Riding School of Vienna, a former Olympic medalist who is forced to flee the bomb-ravaged Austrian capital with his entire stable in tow; Gustav Rau, Hitler’s imperious chief of horse breeding, a proponent of eugenics who dreams of genetically engineering the perfect warhorse for Germany; and Tom Stewart, a senator’s son who makes a daring moonlight ride on a white stallion to secure the farm’s surrender.

A compelling account for animal lovers and World War II buffs alike, The Perfect Horse tells for the first time the full story of these events. Elizabeth Letts’s exhilarating tale of behind-enemy-lines adventure, courage, and sacrifice brings to life one of the most inspiring chapters in the annals of human valor.

368 pages

[issybird]

Titles with one or two nominations:

*Word of Honor by Nelson DeMille [gmw]
Amazon US - $7.99 | Amazon UK - £6.99 | Amazon CA - $9.10 | Amazon AU - $12.99 | Kobo US - $7.99 | Kobo UK £6.99 | Kobo CA - $9.99 | Kobo AU - $12.99

Spoiler:

Goodreads:

He is a good man, a brilliant corporate executive, an honest, handsome family man admired by men and desired by women. But a lifetime ago Ben Tyson was a lieutenant in Vietnam. There the men under his command committed a murderous atrocity -- and together swore never to tell the world what they had done. Now the press, army justice, and the events he tried to forget have caught up with Ben Tyson. His family, his career, and his personal sense of honor hang in the balance. And only one woman can reveal the truth of his past -- and set him free.

This is not (what has become) DeMille's usual gung-ho American hero stuff*, but I think it is one of DeMille's best books. It is quite long (750 pages in paperback). It is a disturbing and thought provoking story about honour and what it may mean; of responsibility and how it may be carried; of loyalty and what may be hidden behind it; of war and the realities we prefer to forget.

750 pages

**The Alice Network by Kate Quinn [Catlady, Dazrin]
Amazon U.S. $9.99 | Amazon UK £5.99 | Amazon CA $8.24 | Amazon AU $14.99 | Kobo U.S. $9.99 | Kobo UK £5.99 | Kobo CA $10.99 | Kobo AU $14.99 | Overdrive, Hoopla, Scribd, Axis360

Spoiler:

In an enthralling new historical novel from national bestselling author Kate Quinn, two women—a female spy recruited to the real-life Alice Network in France during World War I and an unconventional American socialite searching for her cousin in 1947—are brought together in a mesmerizing story of courage and redemption.

1947. In the chaotic aftermath of World War II, American college girl Charlie St. Clair is pregnant, unmarried, and on the verge of being thrown out of her very proper family. She's also nursing a desperate hope that her beloved cousin Rose, who disappeared in Nazi-occupied France during the war, might still be alive. So when Charlie's parents banish her to Europe to have her "little problem" taken care of, Charlie breaks free and heads to London, determined to find out what happened to the cousin she loves like a sister.

1915. A year into the Great War, Eve Gardiner burns to join the fight against the Germans and unexpectedly gets her chance when she's recruited to work as a spy. Sent into enemy-occupied France, she's trained by the mesmerizing Lili, the "Queen of Spies", who manages a vast network of secret agents right under the enemy's nose.

Thirty years later, haunted by the betrayal that ultimately tore apart the Alice Network, Eve spends her days drunk and secluded in her crumbling London house. Until a young American barges in uttering a name Eve hasn't heard in decades, and launches them both on a mission to find the truth...no matter where it leads.

510 pages

*Armageddon by Leon Uris [drofgnal]
Amazon US $5.99

Spoiler:

At the end of World War II, American army officer Captain Sean O’Sullivan is commissioned with rebuilding Berlin. Reeling from the death of his brothers at German hands and faced with the direct horrors of the Holocaust, O’Sullivan struggles against his animosity towards the nation he is helping restore. Meanwhile, Soviet forces blockade Germany in a bid for power, and the Western Allies must unite to prevent a communist takeover. When the airlift begins, the Allies find their deepest convictions tested as they fight against a threat even more dangerous than Hitler.

Meticulously researched, this New York Times bestselling novel gives a historically accurate account of the early days of the Cold War and the fight for German redemption.

632 pages

*War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy [Catlady]

[gmw]

I nominate Word of Honor by Nelson DeMille (That's Word of Honour to the rest of the world.)

Amazon US - USD$7.99 | Amazon UK - £6.99 | Amazon CA - CDN$9.10 | Amazon AU - AUD$12.99 | Kobo US - USD$7.99 | Kobo UK £6.99 | Kobo CA - CAD$9.99 | Kobo AU AUD$12.99

From Goodreads:

He is a good man, a brilliant corporate executive, an honest, handsome family man admired by men and desired by women. But a lifetime ago Ben Tyson was a lieutenant in Vietnam. There the men under his command committed a murderous atrocity -- and together swore never to tell the world what they had done. Now the press, army justice, and the events he tried to forget have caught up with Ben Tyson. His family, his career, and his personal sense of honor hang in the balance. And only one woman can reveal the truth of his past -- and set him free.

This is not (what has become) DeMille's usual gung-ho American hero stuff*, but I think it is one of DeMille's best books. It is quite long (750 pages in paperback). It is a disturbing and thought provoking story about honour and what it may mean; of responsibility and how it may be carried; of loyalty and what may be hidden behind it; of war and the realities we prefer to forget.


* Which I happen to enjoy, but don't come to this book expecting a John-Corey-like adventure. This is much better than that.

[Catlady]

I nominate The Perfect Horse: The Daring U.S. Mission to Rescue the Priceless Stallions Kidnapped by the Nazis by Elizabeth Letts.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the author of The Eighty-Dollar Champion, the remarkable story of the heroic rescue of priceless horses in the closing days of World War II

In the chaotic last days of the war, a small troop of battle-weary American soldiers captures a German spy and makes an astonishing find—his briefcase is empty but for photos of beautiful white horses that have been stolen and kept on a secret farm behind enemy lines. Hitler has stockpiled the world’s finest purebreds in order to breed the perfect military machine—an equine master race. But with the starving Russian army closing in, the animals are in imminent danger of being slaughtered for food.

With only hours to spare, one of the U.S. Army’s last great cavalrymen, Colonel Hank Reed, makes a bold decision—with General George Patton’s blessing—to mount a covert rescue operation. Racing against time, Reed’s small but determined force of soldiers, aided by several turncoat Germans, steals across enemy lines in a last-ditch effort to save the horses.

Pulling together this multistranded story, Elizabeth Letts introduces us to an unforgettable cast of characters: Alois Podhajsky, director of the famed Spanish Riding School of Vienna, a former Olympic medalist who is forced to flee the bomb-ravaged Austrian capital with his entire stable in tow; Gustav Rau, Hitler’s imperious chief of horse breeding, a proponent of eugenics who dreams of genetically engineering the perfect warhorse for Germany; and Tom Stewart, a senator’s son who makes a daring moonlight ride on a white stallion to secure the farm’s surrender.

A compelling account for animal lovers and World War II buffs alike, The Perfect Horse tells for the first time the full story of these events. Elizabeth Letts’s exhilarating tale of behind-enemy-lines adventure, courage, and sacrifice brings to life one of the most inspiring chapters in the annals of human valor.

Praise for The Perfect Horse

“Winningly readable . . . Letts captures both the personalities and the stakes of this daring mission with such a sharp ear for drama that the whole second half of the book reads like a WWII thriller dreamed up by Alan Furst or Len Deighton. . . . The right director could make a Hollywood classic out of this fairy tale.”—The Christian Science Monitor

“Letts, a lifelong equestrienne, eloquently brings together the many facets of this unlikely, poignant story underscoring the love and respect of man for horses.”—Kirkus Reviews

Amazon US $13.99
Amazon UK £8.99
Amazon Canada CA $13.99
Amazon Australia AU $9.99

Kobo U.S. $13.99
Kobo UK £11.03
Kobo Canada CA $13.99
Kobo Australia AU $9.99

Also available as an audiobook.

Can be borrowed at Overdrive (ebook and audiobook), Scribd (audiobook), Axis360 (ebook), RB Digital (audiobook).

[Catlady]

I nominate The Alice Network by Kate Quinn.

NEW YORK TIMES & USA TODAY BESTSELLER
#1 GLOBE AND MAIL HISTORICAL FICTION BESTSELLER
One of NPR's Best Books of 2017!
One of Bookbub's Biggest Historical Fiction Books of 2017!
Reese Witherspoon Book Club Summer Reading Pick!
The 2017 Girly Book Club Book of the Year!
A Summer Book Pick from Good Housekeeping, Parade, Library Journal, Goodreads, Liz and Lisa, and BookBub

In an enthralling new historical novel from national bestselling author Kate Quinn, two women—a female spy recruited to the real-life Alice Network in France during World War I and an unconventional American socialite searching for her cousin in 1947—are brought together in a mesmerizing story of courage and redemption.

1947. In the chaotic aftermath of World War II, American college girl Charlie St. Clair is pregnant, unmarried, and on the verge of being thrown out of her very proper family. She's also nursing a desperate hope that her beloved cousin Rose, who disappeared in Nazi-occupied France during the war, might still be alive. So when Charlie's parents banish her to Europe to have her "little problem" taken care of, Charlie breaks free and heads to London, determined to find out what happened to the cousin she loves like a sister.

1915. A year into the Great War, Eve Gardiner burns to join the fight against the Germans and unexpectedly gets her chance when she's recruited to work as a spy. Sent into enemy-occupied France, she's trained by the mesmerizing Lili, the "Queen of Spies", who manages a vast network of secret agents right under the enemy's nose.

Thirty years later, haunted by the betrayal that ultimately tore apart the Alice Network, Eve spends her days drunk and secluded in her crumbling London house. Until a young American barges in uttering a name Eve hasn't heard in decades, and launches them both on a mission to find the truth...no matter where it leads.

“Both funny and heartbreaking, this epic journey of two courageous women is an unforgettable tale of little-known wartime glory and sacrifice. Quinn knocks it out of the park with this spectacular book!”—Stephanie Dray, New York Times bestselling author of America's First Daughter

Amazon U.S. $9.99
Amazon UK £5.99
Amazon Canada CA $8.24
Amazon Australia AU $14.99

Kobo U.S. $9.99
Kobo UK £5.99
Kobo Canada CA $10.99
Kobo Australia AU $14.99

Also available as an audiobook.

Can be borrowed at Overdrive (ebook and audiobook), Hoopla (audiobook), Scribd (ebook and audiobook), and Axis360 (ebook).

[bfisher]

I would like to nominate The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara

amazon.com

Goodreads

[Bookpossum]

I second The Killer Angels.

[issybird]

I'll third The Killer Angels, a very good book I read a long time ago.

I'm still thinking, although I realize time is passing! My initial criteria included earlier than the 20th century, outside the Anglophone zone, and either a memoir or a novel for sheer readability. It looks as if I'm not going to achieve that, though, and I'll probably just try to hit one point and emphasize something that I hope would lead to a good discussion (insofar as one can identify that).

[astrangerhere]

I would like to recommend Willa Cather's One of Ours.

From the description:

One of Ours is Willa Cather's 1923 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about the making of an American soldier. Claude Wheeler, the sensitive but aspiring protagonist, has ready access to his family's fortune but refuses to settle for it. Alienated from his uncaring father and pious mother, and rejected by a wife whose only love is missionary work, Claude is an idealist without ideals to cling to. Only when his country enters the Great War does he find the meaning of his life.

The book is free on Gutenberg.

There is also a free audiobook on LibriVox.

[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:
The Iliad
War and Peace
The Red Badge of Courage
Goodbye To All That *
Parade's End
The Good Soldier Svejk
All Quiet On the Western Front
A Farewell to Arms
Birdsong
Regeneration
The Radetzky March
A Long Long Way
The Thin Red Line
From Here to Eternity
Catch-22
Slaughterhouse-Five
The Naked and the Dead
Das Boot
Half of a Yellow Sun
The Sword of Honour trilogy

* - sorry, that one is a memoir

[bfisher]

I'll second One of Ours.

[issybird]

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:
The Iliad
War and Peace
The Red Badge of Courage
Goodbye To All That *
Parade's End
The Good Soldier Svejk
All Quiet On the Western Front
A Farewell to Arms
Birdsong
Regeneration
The Radetzky March
A Long Long Way
The Thin Red Line
From Here to Eternity
Catch-22
Slaughterhouse-Five
The Naked and the Dead
Das Boot
Half of a Yellow Sun
The Sword of Honour trilogy

* - sorry, that one is a memoir

Nothing wrong with a memoir! (I realize you were listing fiction.) I've been considering them for a nomination. Goodbye to All That is one of my favorite books of all time and I even own both versions; Great War memoirs are one of my favorite reading categories.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by astrangerhere

I would like to recommend Willa Cather's One of Ours.

I'll note that Cather entered public domain just this year in Life+70 countries, so everyone in countries with Life+70 or less can go ahead with this with a good conscience. (Your consciences are your own business in any case. )

[Bookpossum]

I would like to nominate a book by Michael Smith, which seems to be called either Station X: The Codebreakers of Bletchley Park or The Secrets of Station X. Here's a description from Kobo:

A melting pot of Oxbridge dons, maverick oddballs and more regular citizens worked night and day at Station X, as Bletchley Park was known, to derive intelligence information from German coded messages. Bear in mind that an Enigma machine had a possible 159 million million million different settings and the magnitude of the challenge becomes apparent. That they succeeded, despite military scepticism, supplying information that led to the sinking of the Bismarck, Montgomery's victory in North Africa and the D-Day landings, is testament to an indomitable spirit that wrenched British intelligence into the modern age, as the Second World War segued into the Cold War. Michael Smith constructs his absorbing narrative around the reminiscences of those who worked and played at Bletchley Park, and their stories add a very human colour to their cerebral activity. The code breakers of Station X did not win the war but they undoubtedly shortened it, and the lives saved on both sides stand as their greatest achievement.

It is $12.31 in Australia and $10.59 in the US from Kobo, so presumably would be okay for a discount code.

[CRussel]

I'll second the Michael Smith book. It's only $7.99 at Amazon.com
https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B006WV3FSU/ and $9.99CAD in Canada. And sounds interesting.