The Olio Scholar Project: Gregory A. Freeman

Monday, October 10, 2011

The Big Finale: The year of the book...

My thirty-fifth year has come and gone. I've surpassed my goal of twenty-five books in a year and I am very pleased with how the the Olio Scholar project went. I read a variety of material and in the process changed my lifestyle, hopefully for the better. Reading is now an important part of my routine and looks to continue that way after this project fades away.

So what does my thirty-sixth year of life hold for the Olio Scholar project?

I plan to keep reading, although I don't have a set goal for the number of books I want to read this year. However, if don't reach at least twenty I will probably be disappointed. And please, visit the recommendations page and tell me what I should read next!
I plan on continuing the book reports. This blog shall continue to be my reading home; these reports are a good way to keep me motivated. However, If I do miss a book report every so often, don't criticize me too much.
I also plan to write some short stories this year to see how that works out. I have bits and pieces of inspiration laying around; a character here, a theme there, but no concrete story lines yet. I am a bit nervous about this goal actually. Considering how much work I put into these reports, constantly editing new drafts until it is satisfactory, I can only imagine how many iterations the stories will go through. And who knows if I will let anyone actually read them.

But enough about next year, it's the time we've all been waiting for: The first annual Olio Scholar Awards!

Best Novel

Winner: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
Other Nominees:Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Huckleberry Finn is a classic in every sense of the word, Good Omens was one of the most clever and funny books I've recently read and Jane Eyre exceeded my expectations enough to be considered as a nominee. But when it comes down to it, this wasn't much of a competition. The Book Thief was an amazing book. There wasn't a day that went by for months after reading it in which I didn't think about this book.

Best Non-Fiction

Winner: The Forgotten 500 by Gregory A. Freeman
Other Nominees: The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester

I didn't read many non-fiction books during this year, but of the two that I did read, I enjoyed the The Forgotten 500 a bit more. I guess war stories are more engaging than stories about linguists.

Best Novella

Winner: Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Other Nominees: A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

In a surprising upset, Picture of Dorian Gray won out over A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. I rated the former four stars while the latter got a full five. However, in the voting, I found that A Christmas Carol has its appeal around Christmas. Reading it in July doesn't carry the same weight whereas Picture of Dorian Gray can be read all throughout the year and therefore got the nod.

Best New (to me) Author

Winner: Neil Gaiman
Other Nominees: Kazuo Ishiguro, M.T. Anderson, Markus Zusak, Pramoedya Ananta Toer

I thought Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett was a great book. Although the writing style is obviously Terry Pratchett, there is an edge to the story that his other stories didn't have. I was interested in seeing what Neil Gaiman's own books were like. I started to research which books I should read and found out three things: one, that his Sandman comic series got critical accolades from both the comic and non-comic critics, two, his books were wildly imaginative, with memorable characters and well written, and three, he has a very large cult following. Well, after reading the entire Sandman series and The Graveyard book, I find myself part of the cult. I will definitely be reading more of his books. I also have him to thank for opening my eyes to the world of graphic novels. I realize now that the comic book world is made up of more than just super heroes and damsels in distress.

Best Short Story

Winner: "The Suicide Club" by Robert Louis Stevenson
Other Nominees: "Markheim" by Robert Louis Stevenson, "Thrawn Janet" by Robert Louis Stevenson

All of the short stories I read this year were packaged as part of the Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde book. The Suicide Club was by far my favorite story line. It is actually three stories following a Prince visiting a suicide club for an adrenaline rush. All of the other stories just didn't have the entertainment value of that series and it made for an easy win in this category. Please note, several of the individual Sandman comics could have been nominees in this category but I decided to keep each volume as an entity and not split them out.

Best Play

Winner: "Waiting for Godot" by Samuel Beckett
Other Nominees: None

I only read one play this year, so by default it is the winner. Maybe next year there will be more potential nominees.

Best Graphic Novel

Winner: "The Sandman Vol 8: World's End" by Neil Gaiman
Other Nominees: The Sandman Vol 3: Dream Country,The Sandman Vol 9: The Kindly Ones by Neil Gaiman

While I enjoyed most of the Sandman volumes, I really enjoyed the volumes which were collections of one-off stories. Neil Gaiman's imagination really shined through in those particular comics. My favorite volume was World's End which was a collection inspired by Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. The World's End is a Tavern/Inn where travelers from all over, including Fairies, Pixies, Humans, Immortals, et al. have to wait for a reality storm caused by Dream's depression to clear. To pass the time, they tell absolutely fabulous stories; many of which have other stories nested within them. The whole World's End volume was a treat to read.

To wrap things up, here is a list of everything I've read for fun this year. I've ordered them by my rating and within each rating category, I've tried to sort them again. However, it was very difficult to sort the remaining books as the criteria depends on what you are looking for in a book at any one time. For example, I have Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov rated as a four-star book, but also The Hot Rock by Donald Westlake. Would anyone say that The Hot Rock is at the same "level" as Lolita? No. But I was entertained by David Westlake's crime caper and thought that, for its genre, it deserved four stars.

Novels

Novellas

Short Stories

Non Fiction

Graphic Novels

Plays

Waiting for Godot by Samual Beckett (3.5 stars)

Saturday, July 9, 2011

BOOK REPORT: The Forgotten 500 by Gregory A. Freeman

Title: The Forgotten 500

Author: Gregory A. Freeman

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.