Mini reviews - If I Die in a Combat Zone by Tim O'Brien, Extreme Ownership by Willink and Babin, and Cat Poems by a variety of poets

Hard to believe, but I'm caught up on reviewing books I've read that were sent by publishers, so I have a couple days to write about the books I've read from my own shelves or borrowed. Then, hopefully I will have finished another ARC by the time I'm done catching up on personal reads.

After I read The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien, I put a number of his books on my wish list at Paperback Swap and managed to acquire 2 or 3 of them before relinquishing my membership. If I Die In a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home was one of them. I acquired every title I could get my mitts on without bothering to even read what they were about; that's how impressed I was with The Things They Carried.

If I Die in a Combat Zone is O'Brien's memoir. I didn't realize that till I opened the book and started reading. I read it specifically for Memorial Day. It was my little way to keep those who died for our country in my head and heart over the holiday weekend.

O'Brien tells about his life and his plans prior to being drafted, how he waffled about whether to show up for duty or run to another country and made actual plans to escape but then decided to report, his experiences with training and throughout his year in Vietnam, how he managed to go from dangerous jungle duty to a clerical job toward the end of his deployment, and his return home.

I had mixed feelings about If I Die in a Combat Zone. It's every bit as beautifully written as The Things They Carried, but the feeling I got from it was deeply sad and painfully honest. He was witness to some horrible atrocities, watched people die because of stupid decisions by his superiors with inflated egos, and lived with the knowledge that at any minute he could be amongst the maimed or dead. The only real light in the proverbial tunnel of O'Brien's war seemed to be the friendship he had with another man who was well-educated in literature. But, even then, the two of them occasionally got in trouble for having the nerve to sit around talking about poetry. It was a dark experience, overall, and it's hard to read. When he got that clerical job and then climbed on the plane and returned to Minnesota, I felt utterly relieved to have his combat days in the past. I love O'Brien's writing, though, and I still gave it 4 stars. Recommended but will rip out a piece of your heart.
Contains graphic violence.

Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy Seals Lead and Win by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin is a business book but because it's written by two Navy SEALs, it can be surprisingly gripping as they relate tales of their experiences in training and on deployment in Iraq. My husband has read Extreme Ownership at least twice and wanted me to read it but I'm not exactly sure why. I opened it up when he handed it to me and was surprised at the intensity. It begins with a story of a SEAL mission in which a potential terrorist ran from the building they'd surrounded. Willink pursued him and then realized, when he captured the man, that he had chased the man down without informing anyone where he was going. He had to make a critical decision about how to handle the prisoner and return without getting them both killed. He then applied that decision-making process to a particular business problem. It was fascinating and I was hooked.

The theme of the book, "extreme ownership" is about taking responsibility when things go wrong, the idea being that solid leadership and well-coordinated teamwork are the best ways to solve problems in business, but it's important for leaders to take responsibility when something goes wrong in order to lead well. "There are no bad teams, just bad leaders," is one of the quotes I highlighted after reading what I considered one of the most fascinating illustrations of leadership in the book. I don't recall which author told this story, but one of the men described a particular part of SEAL training in which the soldiers were divided into teams. Each team carried a heavy boat and raced it. He described how one team was consistently winning and another repeatedly came in last or next to last. The leader of the losing team thought he'd just ended up with a bad bunch of teammates. But, then the leaders were told to switch boats and the team that had been coming in last won. The team that had previously won still did well. I would have loved to see an actual film of the leaders of those teams in action.

Highly recommended - I've tried to apply the leadership principles to marriage by explaining to my husband how it benefits him to listen to my housekeeping leadership. Unfortunately, it's not working. I hope the principles do better for him at work than they have for me at home. I'd like to know what Jocko and Leif have to say about stubborn men who just don't get why socks need to be placed in the laundry right-side-out.


Cat Poems does not list an editor but it's an anthology of poems about cats, obviously. I got a copy of Cat Poems for Mother's Day from Kiddo and his fiancée.

The problem with an anthology about a particular chosen subject is that editors don't always go into the selection with the people who appreciate that subject in mind. I read a book of poems for and about children, a few years ago, in which some of them were actually quite dark — about the loss of a child or the horror of abuse, for example. They covered all the bases but it wasn't always pleasant. The same is true of Cat Poems. Some of them are funny or sweet, about the things a cat lover adores. Others are frankly awful, either because they're negative about cats, cruel, or sad.

My favorite was a poem by Muriel Spark, "Bluebell Among the Sables." The poem is about a visit from a friend wearing expensive sables. Muriel was bored by her social obligation to entertain the friend. Then, Bluebell began to attack the tails of the sables on the woman's coat and it diverted her. It's a cute story but short enough to relate through poetry. It was those poems in which the cat is recognized and appreciated that I obviously liked best, being a cat lover.  No surprise there. I'm iffy about recommending Cat Poems because I found some of the poetry downright upsetting, but I will definitely reread my favorites.

©2019 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

All the leftovers - More Was Lost by Eleanor Perenyi, The Goddess of Mtwara, and The Lost Words by Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris

I haven't skipped reviewing many books, lately, but there are a handful I haven't gotten around to -- all purchases -- so I'm going to do a quick wrap-up of those, before writing my October and November review posts.

More Was Lost by Eleanor Perenyi is a memoir that tells the story of a WWII-era romance. The author met and fell in love with a Hungarian baron in 1937, at the age of 19, while on a European tour. His family owned a castle and a working farm with a number of outbuildings, although not the kind of crenellated stone building that one typically sees in picture books or photos (there's a photo section in the NYRB Classics edition, shown at left). After their marriage, the couple moved into the family castle and set about bringing the farm back to life and eventually dealing with the changes wrought by WWII.

The majority of the book describes the romance and the author's everyday life, running a large household and farm, learning the Hungarian language, rearranging the castle to suit their needs, interacting with the locals, the farm workers, society, and family, and the complexities of the changing borders. I don't know that I ever fully understood or followed the the intricacies of what was going on around the castle and the reasons it came in and out of the family's ownership (although I got the gist of it) because I'd never heard of some of the ethnic groups in the area. It was a little challenging to sort out their characteristics and the details of the changing political situation. But, I found More Was Lost immensely entertaining.

Highly recommended - Eleanor Perenyi was one determined and impressive woman. For a 19-year-old to marry the man of her dreams, in spite of expectations, and not only learn the language and how to run a farm and maintain a castle but deal with the coming war and the changing political situation was pretty astounding. The ending is fairly sad, but I found this memoir charming and a very enjoyable read.

The Goddess of Mtwara and Other Stories: The Caine Prize for African Writing, 2017 is a book I bought when I had time to waste while waiting for a flight at O. R. Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg. The stories are so diverse that it's almost impossible to describe them all, plus I spaced the reading out pretty dramatically. Some are so very, very African -- with words from various African languages mixed into the text -- that I found them difficult to follow and longed for a glossary. Others were only different from other English language stories in their setting or their very uniquely African type of magical realism. Some were favorites, some less so because they were disturbing and one was almost completely incomprehensible to me (I ended that one feeling as if it was, perhaps, a bit of experimental writing).

Recommended, if you happen to be in South Africa. There's not even an image of The Goddess of Mtwara at Goodreads, so I presume it's not an easy book to get hold of outside of South Africa, but I would definitely recommend it to those who are interested in reading some uniquely African writing.

I kind of hate not writing a full post about The Lost Words by Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris but I'll try to show and describe as much as I can in a small space. I think I've mentioned the fact that I started following Robert Macfarlane - an Oxford professor, collector of words, naturalist, and author - earlier this year. I'm not sure of the accuracy of what I've read, but somewhere I read that The Lost Words is the result of his determination to bring words that were being taken out of the Oxford English Dictionary back into use after he heard they were being removed.

The resulting children's book is beyond impressive, a book of words in which each letter of the word has a sentence of its own. Kingfisher, for example:

Kingfisher: the colour-giver, fire-bringer, flame-flicker, river's quiver.
Ink-black bill, orange throat, and a quick blue, back-gleaming feather stream.
Neat and still it sits on the snag of a stick, until with . . .
Gold-flare, wing fan, whipcrack the kingfisher - zingfisher, singfisher! -
Flashes down too fast to follow, quick and quicker carves its hollow
In the water, slings its arrow superswift to swallow
Stickleback or shrimp or minnow.
Halcyon is its other name - also ripple calmer, water nester,
Evening angler, weather-teller, rainbringer and
Rainbow bird - that sets the stream alight with burn and glitter!

I don't have a photo of the kingfisher spread but here's an interior shot of one of the other illustration spreads -- some of the artwork is across a single, facing page, some spans two:

This is an oversized book, probably what one would call coffee-table sized and it is absolutely breathtaking.

Highly recommended - Spectacular in every way, with beautiful, poetic wording and stunning illustrations. The book is British and a bit pricey (I ordered my copy from Book Depository) but worth it. There are some British spellings (like colour in the kingfisher wording, above) and at least one word that may not be familiar to Americans: "conker". A conker is a kind of nut that you'll occasionally read about in British lit, mostly in regards to children playing games with them, but I can't say I know what kind of nut it is - from what tree, that is. No biggie; it's an excuse to learn something new and I can't imagine any word-loving, reading fanatic child not falling instantly and deeply in love with this book.

OK, this is all the leftovers but one. I just noticed I missed one book. I don't want to make this post any longer, so I'll save it for another day.

©2017 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Some Girls, Some Hats, and Hitler by Trudi Kanter

It is hard for us to say goodbye. Uncles, aunts, nieces and nephews, cousins, grandmother. Seventeen people. 

I remember a tiny pink-and-white gingham dress trimmed with white rick-rack.

None of Walter's family survived Theresienstadt.

~p. 143

On Sunday, 3 September 1939, I see a policeman wearing a tin hat. On top of our red pillar box a yellow square of gas-detector paint. The street is deserted. Everyone is listening, waiting, at home, abroad, at sea. Germany has invaded Poland, Warsaw is being bombed. The clock strikes eleven.

"The ultimatum has expired," Walter whispers.

I close the window. We sit at the kitchen table, staring at the wireless, trying to understand what Chamberlain is saying. 

"Everything that I have worked for, everything that I had hoped for, everything that I had believed in during my public life, has crashed in ruins."

Outside, silver barrage balloons float in the blue sky.

~p. 191


Somewhere, I've got a copy of the book that The Sound of Music was based upon, but I haven't yet read it so Some Girls, Some Hats, and Hitler is the first book I recall reading that describes Austria at the beginning of WWII.

Some Girls, Some Hats, and Hitler by Trudi Kanter is the memoir of a woman who owned her own millinery. Both a savvy businesswoman and an artist, she was responsible for going on buying trips to purchase the ribbons, flowers, forms, and other parts to make hats, as well as keeping an eye on the market and coming up with designs, which she then had her employees make in the studio portion of her Vienna flat. In the process of divorce as the book opens, Trudi (then Trudi Miller) was aware of the horrors happening in neighboring Germany and kept her eyes and ears open. But, the new love of her life was oblivious. Heedless to her warnings that they needed to leave the country, Walter presumed that the danger would be minimal and they ended up staying well after the German tanks rolled into Austria. Both Trudi and Walter were Jewish, as was her former husband, Pepi.

Through the author's eyes, you get a glimpse of what it was like being a Jew living in Austria at the beginning of the occupation. As her story opens, Trudi and Walter are falling in love. Both are prosperous but Walter seems particularly well off. When the Germans arrive, though, they begin to confiscate his possessions and eventually they go in search of the man, himself. Trudi is helped by sympathetic neighbors at least twice when the Nazis come to arrest him.

Using various contacts and with dogged persistence, Trudi slowly gathers the documents needed and takes journeys to help her prepare for their escape. She also manages to acquire the needed visas for her parents. In Czechoslovakia, they stay with Walter's family, and then they finally end up in England, where Trudi is able to work in her chosen profession and eventually set up her own business.

Trudi Kanter's story is particularly unique for its artistic viewpoint. As a hatmaker, she's got an artistic eye and aesthetics are very important to her. So, while someone else might describe the frustration of living in a drab flat after escaping Austria and leave it at that, Trudi talks about the way she worked to bring color into her life by draping a bright yellow shawl over the bed and buying yellow flowers. Some memoir readers might find her eye for beauty a distraction but it didn't bother me. I particularly thought it was interesting when she said hats were getting so small that a you could put a sequin and a feather in your hair and call it a hat.

At any rate, I thought the book was an excellent addition to the many WWII memoirs I've read. Having never read the perspective of a Viennese Jew, I was unaware that Jews were put to work scrubbing the streets. Just two weeks after closing the book, I read about that in another book (which I'm currently in the midst of: On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder). There are moments that it seems like Trudi's life could have sailed on just fine in spite of Hitler, and then something will happen . . . something terrifying or shocking . . . and you realize that, no, they're not safe. They'll never be safe in Austria.

Recommended - Particularly for those who like WWII memoirs. The only problem I had with Some Girls, Some Hats, and Hitler was that it was a bit choppy and sometimes that meant reading a paragraph or a sentence twice in order to figure out what exactly the author was trying to say. And, yet, there's an immediacy and a uniqueness to her storytelling that makes it a great addition to the many memoirs of WWII. During a particularly vivid bombing scene in which both Trudi and Walter ran to help pull people from the rubble and put out the fire, I think I barely breathed. Some Girls, Some Hats, and Hitler can also be seen as a tribute to Walter, the love of Trudi's life. The two times she spoke of his death, I could barely see through the tears. "To exist in a world which did not contain Walter seemed pointless," she said while Walter hid from the Nazis.

Trudi Kanter was, in fact, ahead of her time. She wrote Some Girls, Some Hats, and Hitler in the 1980s (the original publication date is 1984), before memoirs became a popular publishing category. It was apparently largely ignored. The copy I have, with the cover above, is a reprint by Virago with a "Clearance, $2.00" sticker on its cover. I have no idea where I bought it but it's been floating around for a while.

While looking for a cover image to post, I came across another cover that I really like:

This one is fitting because there were a lot of heavily flowered hats at the shows she attended; in fact, the author described some hats that were not just covered in roses but made entirely from them. I like the pink-dominated cover for that reason. But, I like the Virago cover, as well. I think both give a good sense of the time and place and the focus on the author's profession. Trudi Kanter was a formidable woman, admirable for her business sense and her persistence. Terrifying as the story can be, it almost feels like the word "feminist" should be attached to the description, somewhere. She was a feisty woman. A great book to read with a teenage daughter, to discuss how one woman's persistence and belief in herself paid off.

©2017 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Legacy of Rescue by Marta Fuchs

Legacy of Rescue: A Daughter's Tribute by Marta Fuchs
Copyright 2011
Csaladnak Press/Blurb.com - Nonfiction/Memoir told in several voices
191 pp.

Legacy of Rescue begins with the story of Morton (Miksa) Fuchs, a Hungarian Jew who survived forced labor during WWII, thanks to a gentile named Zoltan Kubinyi.  In Legacy of Rescue, the elder Fuchs' story is told in his own words as he related it to his daughter, who translated with only a few alterations for clarity.

I was expecting a detailed story of one man's escape from death, but the WWII portion of the story is actually only a fraction of the book.  Legacy of Rescue goes well beyond the story of Miksa Fuchs, the individual.  It wasn't just Fuchs, himself, who was saved but over 100 men.  After cleverly dodging instructions by superiors to keep his charges alive after they were no longer considered useful, Zoltan Kubinyi was himself arrested.  He died of illness in a Siberian labor camp in 1946 but he was not forgotten.  Legacy of Rescue also tells the story of how the Fuchs family tracked down Kubinyi's family and documented the rescue so that Zoltan Kubinyi could be memorialized as a Righteous Gentile.

There's an awful lot to this slender memoir.  It's one man about being aware of what a gift he'd been given and, although not stated in those words, Miksa Fuchs' story is very much about paying it forward -- being kind and positive and loving.  

Legacy of Rescue is a tremendously moving book.  As you'd expect of a Jewish family in WWII, very few of his relatives survived.  After the war, Miksa Fuchs returned to his home, opened a grocery store, married, and started a family.  But, Hungary was occupied by Communists and torn by further war.  Eventually, the Fuchs family crept across the Austrian border (into Austria) in a night-time escape reminiscent of the Von Trapp family's flight from Austria in The Sound of Music.  WWII had long since ended but the horror had not.  

Eventually, the Fuchs family settled in the United States.  Miksa changed his name to Morton and the family thrived.  The Fuchs children (and grandchildren) grew up hearing about Zoltan Kubinyi.

What makes Legacy of Rescue special is the way Mr. Fuchs reacted to his experience.  When you read about the elder Mr. Fuchs -- the terror, hardship and hunger he survived, the loss of much of his extended family, the years of Soviet occupation -- you can easily imagine how he could have become a broken, sad, bitter man.  Instead, he remained well aware of what a rare gift he'd been given and determined to honor the hero who made it possible for his children and grandchildren to exist.  He taught his family to spread kindness and love.  He was a man of optimism and joy.  Clearly, his family has carried on that legacy of joy and kindness.

Highly Recommended - Legacy of Rescue is a beautiful, heartwarming, inspiring book that will make you want to be a better person.  I originally gave it a 4/5 at Goodreads because there were times I felt it was a bit disorganized and I lost track of who was speaking, but that's really a minor complaint and after a couple weeks of reflection I returned to Goodreads and changed my rating to 5/5.

©2013 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Outlaw Platoon by Sean Parnell

Outlaw Platoon:  Heroes, Renegades, Infidels and The Brotherhood of War in Afghanistan by Sean Parnell with John R. Bruning tells the story of the author's time with a platoon nicknamed "Outlaw Platoon" while based at Bermel Forward Operating Base (FOB) in Afghanistan.  His purpose -- and I think he succeeded brilliantly -- was to clearly show readers what it's like to serve in the army during a time of war.

I was thoroughly impressed with Outlaw Platoon.  In fact, I found it so gripping that it took a few days to recover from the reading hangover I got after staying up till 3AM to finish the book.  Bermel FOB is located on the Afghanistan/Pakistan border, which was an incredibly dangerous place even before Pakistan (our alleged allies) made a deal not to interfere with Al Qaida.

What I liked about Outlaw Platoon:

Outlaw Platoon is beautifully paced and extremely well-written, probably at least in part because it was co-written by John R. Bruning, a man who has done a lot of military writing.  Bruning spent some time in Afghanistan and I'm sure that helped with the descriptions.  Point being, the book is exceptional for its type.  The author avoids the typical military-memoir format (which can get old if you read many memoirs of its type), skipping the description of training and diving right into the soldiers' arrival at FOB Bermel.

When I say the book is well-paced, I'm referring in particular to the fact that there are scenes from everyday life at the base to help describe the people, the life and the circumstances but, for the most part, the book focuses on times that the platoon was attacked -- or, in one case, the base itself.  Those scenes are so vividly drawn that I found my heart nearly beating out of my chest.  The actions, emotions, sights, sounds and smells are acute.  There were even times I found myself actually wrinkling my nose, imagining I could smell the rank odor of soldiers who had been out on patrol with no showers, no change of clothing, sleeping in their Humvees for 5 or 6 days at a stretch.  Ugh!

The wounded and dead were described with every bit as much detail, which may be a problem for a lot of people.  I've read quite a few war memoirs so I handled that fine.  I'm not okay if I see such graphically violent things as limbs flying on a movie theater screen, but I can read about them.  Weird.  At any rate, the violence didn't bother me because I was in the reading to get a good idea of what it's really like in Afghanistan.

It's also worth mentioning that Outlaw Platoon is among the most humbly written soldier memoirs I've ever read.  Those guys have egos; it's drilled into them that they're tough, they're warriors.  They need that confidence to get through the terror, although, as the author and others I've read explain, they're not mentally prepared for the reality.  You get to hear the good and the bad -- the author doesn't hesitate to talk about people who couldn't cope (although he gave them new names).  But, it's not a self-indulgent memoir.  It's about the platoon, the way the men worked together and the fine balance of leadership and teamwork required to keep the team functioning.  Seriously.  So impressed.

What I disliked about Outlaw Platoon:

I get so, so tired of the word "warrior" in modern war memoirs.  As I said, I know it's drilled into them and it's important because they need the confidence instilled in them, but it still gets tiresome.  "Rage" is another word that was used a great deal.  The rage bit is pretty scary, to be honest.  When you read Outlaw Platoon, you will understand how veterans can end up murdering back on home soil, after they leave the service.

Interesting addendum in the paperback:

The author received a letter from a person who also worked at FOB Bermel but did not go out on dangerous patrols.  Parnell refers to the people who seldom leave the base as "Fobbits".  The letter's author expressed his dismay at Parnell's disrespect for the other soldiers, those who don't necessarily spend time on patrol but are still important to the operation of the base and also live in a dangerous place.  Again, totally impressed that the author published the letter and wrote an apology for using a derogatory term to describe his fellow soldiers.  He didn't change the text of the book -- maybe that wasn't possible -- but he did admit it was demeaning and apologized.

Highly Recommended with Graphic Violence Warning - Outlaw Platoon is a rough read.  It's graphic, violent and disarming.  And, yet it's one of the best modern war memoirs I've read -- "modern" meaning from the last 25 years or so.   I have read Vietnam and WWII memoirs but war changes, the way people fight is not necessarily the same and the way people are prepared for war or treated upon their homecoming changes, as well, so I would not compare wars or memoirs between different wars.  I was immensely impressed with the author's humility and willingness to accept and embrace people for their unique skills and traits without judging them.  The author is a Christian (and a Harry Potter fan), but he didn't preach.

Upon closing the book, I found myself wishing that it had a small section on what individuals can do to help make the time of our men in uniform more tolerable.  If I could get in touch with the author, that's what I'd ask.  What can a single person do to make one or more soldiers get through their deployments a little easier?  I'd really like  to know.

My thanks to TLC Books for the review copy of Outlaw Platoon.  

©2013 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.