The World Book Night Reading List

Hi Everyone!

I found a new book list! You know how I love these things; they are a great inspiration for future reading. I stumbled upon this list when I followed a link in twitter posted by Neil Gaiman (@neilhimself on twitter).  He was asked to contribute a list of his top-ten books of all time for the 2012 World Book Night event.  What I found was a great ever-evolving list of books that readers of all walks of life love.

The list:  http://worldbooknight.org/your-books/the-wbn-top-100-books

As of this writing, I've read twenty-nine of the books on the list with ten of them being read during this project. I've read six of the top-ten, and eight of the top-twelve. However, this number might change as more people weigh in with their favorites. It is important to note that this list is again UK centric as that is where the organizer is based so there is a lot of overlap with the "BBC" list I posted earlier. 

The project associated with the list is interesting.  From the website:

The first World Book Night was held in the UK in the spring of 2011 and saw 20,000 people give away 1 million specially printed books - 40,000 copies of 25 brilliant titles.

This site exists in order to celebrate books and to connect readers with one another. You can learn more about World Book Night itself, the 2011 books and authors, and connect with other passionate readers.

And most importantly, you can help us shape World Book Night 2012 by telling us your ten favourite books - the books you most love to read, give and share - to give them a chance to be featured in next year's list. Simply sign up or login and tell us what books really matter to you.

Each copy of the book given out is a special edition.  The publishers ask that anyone who reads one of these special versions to send them a note so they can see how the books travel throughout their life.  It would be interesting to know if a project like this could take off in the US.

Anyway, take a gander and chime in if you feel like it.  I'm still compiling my top-ten books.  I will post in the comments when my list is complete.  If you have a list, please share it with me!

BOOK REPORT: Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut

Title:                          Cat's Cradle

Author:                       Kurt Vonnegut

Original Copyright :  1963

My Rating:     3.5 out of 5 stars  ( clever )

Back-Cover Description

Cat's Cradle is Kurt Vonnegut's satirical commentary on modern man and his madness.  An apocolyptic tale of this planet's ultimate fate, it features a midget as the protagonist, a complete, original theology created by a calypso singer, and a vision of the future that is at once blackly fatalistic and hilariously funny.  A book that left an indelible mark on the entire generation of readers, Cat's Cradle is one of the twentieth century's most important works -- and Vonnegut at his very best.

My Thoughts

Cat's Cradle is a story about the interesting ways people may naively affect the viability of their species long term existence told with the comic absurdity for which Vonnegut is known.

The story revolves around a free-lance writer who is researching the life of a scientist involved with the Manhattan project for a book he was writing about nuclear war.   Unbeknownst to all but a few members of his family, the scientist, before he died worked on one last, seemingly innocuous invention.  It was never intended as a weapon; the military just wanted a way to keep the marines from getting muddy in the field.  The project was never formally pursued, but the scientist, in his curiosity, worked on it during his spare time. This small insignificant invention it turned out, if mishandled, has the ability to destroy the world.  

When Cat's Cradle was published in 1963, the cold war was on everyone's mind.  It was all but certain that humans would destroy themselves at the hand of a large weapon (read: the Atomic bomb) which was developed solely for the intent of intimidation and destruction.  But Cat's Cradle puts forward the idea that the end could be brought on, not by a large explosion, but by something as small as a grain of sand which was developed more out of curiosity than malicious intent.  Adding to this plot line, Vonnegut weaves in a new religion called Bokonism which openly states that its canon is based in lies and a small banana republic in the Caribbean which changes governments more often than most people change their socks.  All of these layers complement each other very well and they build upon themselves in more and more outlandish ways throughout the book.

Cat's Cradle is a quick read that was extremely clever and  funny.  I didn't give it 4 stars just because it was such a short read and there were just a few ideas he could have expanded upon. On the whole, my  expectations were met and I would recommend this book to most anyone.

On a side note, I need to relay a story which happened whilst reading this book on a flight from Atlanta to San Francisco.  First, I read a chapter in Cat's Cradle  which chronicled the long twisting path a character follows to the small Caribbean island.  One step in his journey, during World War II, he was captured at sea by the Germans and forced to go fight the Partisans in Yugoslavia.  This was really weird in that I just finished reading  about the Partisan fighters in Yugoslavia in The Forgotten 500.  I wouldn't have known who the Partisans were unless I read that book.  I thought to myself, "This is neat, two books I've read are connected."  Then, about ten minutes later, I decided to take a break from reading and played the in-flight trivia game.  One of the questions was, "Which Author invented the religion 'Bokonism'."  Then I thought to myself, "Creepy..."

BOOK REPORT: The Forgotten 500 by Gregory A. Freeman

Title:                           The Forgotten 500

Author:                       Gregory A. Freeman

Original Copyright :  2007

My Rating:     4 out of 5 stars  ( fascinating )

Back-Cover Description

The Forgotten 500: The Untold Story of the Men Who Risked All For the Greatest Rescue Mission of World War II

Here is the astonishing never-before-told story of the greatest rescue mission of World War II -- When the OSS set out to recover more than five hundred airmen trapped behind enemy lines in Yugoslavia

During a bombing campaign over Romanian oil fields, hundreds of American airmen were shot down in Nazi-occupied Yugoslavia. Local Serbian farmers and peasants risked their own lives to give refuge to the soldiers while they waited for rescue, and in 1944, Operation Halyard was born. The risks were incredible. The starving Americans in Yugoslavia had to construct a landing strip large enough for C-47 cargo planes--without tools, without alerting the Germans, and without endangering the villagers.  And the cargo planes had to make it through enemy airspace and back without getting shot down themselves. 

Suppressed for more than half a century for political reasons, the full account of this unforgettable story of loyalty, self-sacrifice, and bravery is now being told for the first time ever.  The Forgotten 500 is the gripping behind-the-scenes look at the greatest escape of World War II.

My Thoughts

Shortly after the beginning of World War II, the royal family of Yugoslavia was forced to flee the country when the Nazi's took over in 1941.  The resistance movement which rallied together to fight this invasion fractured into two parties quickly afterwards.  The Pro-Royal Serbs under the guidance of General Milhailovich (the Chetnik's), and the Pro-Communist ( Partisans) under General Tito already looked past the German occupation to the new post-war government. By the middle of the war, the two sides took to fighting each other just as much as the Germans.  

The Forgotten 500 is a fascinating view into the logistical nightmare of a daring rescue mission to bring home hundreds of airmen in Nazi occupied mountainous terrain of politically unstable Yugoslavia.  

The book is roughly divided into four main parts. The beginning section gives the personal stories of several of the airmen who chose to fly a slow, behemoth of a plane across enemy territory.  It was interesting to learn what motivated and drove them to become pilots, tail gunners or the most dangerous of them all, the ball turret gunner. These brave men along with hundreds of others were tasked with bombing a major oil field in Romania and couldn't quite make it home. 

The second part tells the stories of the airmen post-bailout in the mountains of the what is now Serbia. The Chetniks saw the American soldiers as liberators and welcomed them with open arms.  They did everything they could to protect them, often at the risk of their own lives.  This section also outlines the back-story of the OSS, the predecessors to the CIA, and the people responsible for Operation Halyard.  One of the more interesting stories in this section is about the OSS officer who was the son of Yugoslavian immigrants; he was responsible for organizing the rescue mission.  For those who may decide to read this book, I won't spoil his interesting and serendipitous journey into the OSS, but I will tell you that someone who has that many close calls and chance meetings must be living right.

The third section goes into details about not only the Chetnik/Partisan conflict, but of the politics of allied British and American forces working "together" in the area fighting the Germans.  This was by far the most intriguing section of the book. The British were technically the lead force fighting the Germans in Yugoslavia.  The Americans were helping where they could but got their direction from good man Churchill.  The problem with this was that there was a communist double agent feeding the British misinformation.  The double-agent was saying that Milhailovich was secretly aiding the Germans and the Allies needed to support General Tito to make any progress in the area.  A rescue couldn't be attempted without British consent and they did everything they could to stall and hinder the mission as they saw it as aiding the enemy.

The final section is the aftermath of the rescue.  The troops were told to keep quiet about the rescue mission just in case any future rescues needed to be performed.  However, when the war did end,  the American soldiers were directed to not openly acknowledge the support given by Mihailovich for fear of upsetting the newly communist Yugoslavia, which was supported by the Russians. Shortly thereafter,  Mihailovich was executed for war crimes.  The role Mihailovich played in the resistance movement is still a contentious issue today and the many of the same dividing lines drawn in the sand during World War II were still fighting through the war in the Balkans during the 1990's which ended with the creation of Bosnia-Herzogovinia, Serbia, Croatia, and Montenegro.

The Forgotten 500 was very well written and thoroughly researched book which I would recommend to anyone who has an interest in non-fiction accounts of World-War II or military covert operations.