Unbroken

Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resiliance, and Redemption
by Laura Hillenbrand
5 Stars
WWII, Nonfiction: Memoir
Setting: USA, Japan
473pages
Published 2010

Ellie's Review
While I enjoy historical fiction because it’s an interesting way to learn, Unbroken astonished me with true facts of the World War II experience of Louis Zamperini.  His story is so astonishing that fiction would not have been as fascinating.  Across the globe from the Nazis, Zamperini’s World War II service was in the Pacific fighting the Japanese.  I learned so much about this part of the world during WWII and realized I had previously focused on Europe.  Zamperini is an incredible man who was described quite aptly by my friend as someone who possesses the “Viktor Frankl gene” to stay strong and survive under horrendous circumstances.  The first 90 pages of the book were a bit slow for me, but once Zamperini’s plane went down in the ocean I was enthralled.  While I am horrified at the cruelty of the Japanese prison guards during WWII, I am inspired by Zamperini and others' ability to survive.

Book Summary
On a May afternoon in 1943, an Army Air Forces bomber crashed into the Pacific Ocean and disappeared, leaving only a spray of debris and a slick of oil, gasoline, and blood.  Then, on the ocean surface, a face appeared.  It was that of a young lieutenant, the plane's bombardier, who was struggling to a lift raft and pulling himself aboard.  So began one of the most extraordinary odysseys of the Second World War.

The lieutenant's name was Louis Zamperini.  In boyhood, he'd been a cunning and incorrigible delinquent, breaking into houses, brawling, and fleeing his home to ride the rails.  As a teenager, he had channeled his defiance into running, discovering a prodigious talent that had carried him to the Berlin Olympics and within sight of the four-minute mile.  But when war had come, the athlete had become an airman, embarking on a journey that led to the doomed flight, a tiny raft, and a drift into the unknown.

Ahead of Zamperini lay thousands of miles of open ocean, leaping sharks, a foundering raft, thirst and starvation, enemy aircraft, and, beyond, a trial even greater.  Driven to the limits of endurance, Zamperini would answer desperation with ingenuity; suffering with hope, resolve, and humor; brutality with rebellion.  His fate, whether triumph or tragedy, would be suspended on the fraying wire of his will.

In her long-awaited new book, Laura Hillenbrand writes with the same rich and vivid narrative voice she displayed in Seabiscuit.  Telling an unforgettable story of a man's journey into extremity, Unbroken is a testament to the resilience of the human mind, body, and spirit.

I used the discussion questions on Lit Lovers for my book club.

I made the cupcakes on the right to snack on while we discussed this amazing book.  On top of the blue wave frosting were gummy fish, life savers (powered sugar mini donuts with licorice), buoys (two spice drops skewered with a toothpick), and shark fins (Thin Mint cookies cut and dipped in gray frosting).  These brought some nice humor into an otherwise serious conversation!

Madame Tussaud: A Novel of the French Revolution

by Michelle Moran
5 Stars
Historical Fiction
Setting: France
446 pages
Published 2011

Ellie's Review

Although I've never toured a Madame Tussauds wax museum, I've walked past the NY location numerous times not knowing how this tourist attraction claimed its name.  Who is/was Madame Tussaud? 

I stumbled upon this novel and soon became engrossed in the French Revolution, which is a war I previously did not understand nor not have an interest in.  This historical fiction tale tells of the French Revolution from a girl who makes wax sculptures of famous people in her uncle's salon - this tourist stop started long before I had realized.  She mingled with both sides of the war and was brought into the midst of it.  I learned so much about this turbulent time for France, and I loved being engrossed in this wonderful woman's life.

If you enjoy historical fiction, this is an amazing read!  I'm excited to read other historical fiction novels by Michelle Moran.

Book Summary
Spanning five years, from the budding revolution to the Reign of Terror, Madame Tussaud brings us into the world of an incredible heroine whose talent for wax modeling saved her life and preserved the faces of a vanished kingdom.


Smart and ambitious, Marie Tussaud has learned the secrets of wax sculpting by working alongside her uncle in their celebrated wax museum, the Salon de Cire.  From her popular model of the American ambassador, Thomas Jefferson, to her tableau of the royal family at dinner, Marie's museum provides Parisians with the very latest news on fashion, gossip, and even politics.  Her customers hail form every walk of life, yet her greatest dreams is to attract the attention of Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI; their stamp of approval on her work could catapult her and her museum to the fame and riches she desires.

Ellie's Review of Michelle Moran's novel Nefertiti

Infidel

by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
5 Stars
Nonfiction: Memoir
Setting: Africa, Middle East, USA
353 pages
Published 2006

Ellie's Review
This memoir was fascinating to me! Ayaan grew up in Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia, and Saudi Arabia and just told her life story as a Muslim. On one hand, she's just a normal person who had a typical childhood. On the other hand, she is incredible for what she's gone through. I learned so much about Muslims and the world we live in.

Book Summary
Somali-born author Ayaan Hirsi Ali is one of the most controversial women on earth. For years, she has been forced to live in hiding; her life has been threatened numerous times; an anti-Koran script that she wrote provoked the assassination of filmmaker Theo Van Gogh; and a dispute over her citizenship indirectly brought down the Dutch government. This memoir about her family's travails living under strict fundamentalist Islamic precepts tracks the evolution of a world-changing radical feminist.

Born to Run

Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen
by Christopher McDougall
5 Stars
Nonfiction: Memoir
Setting: USA, Mexico
287 pages
Published 2009

Ellie's Review
If you run or have ever thought about running, you should read this book. I was completely hooked from the first page to the last: the story was so incredibly interested and was well written. Learning about the running tribe in Mexico was amazing, and I am seriously considering purchasing a pair of Five Finger running shoes (even though I've openly mocked their appearance). I will honestly think of this book every time I run, and I hope to think of it whenever I face a challenge I think is too great for me. I loved this book!
 
Book Summary
Full of incredible characters, amazing athletic achievements, cutting-edge science, and, most of all, pure inspiration, Born to Run is an epic adventure that began with one simple question: Why does my foot hurt? In search of an answer, Christopher McDougall sets off to find a tribe of the world’s greatest distance runners and learn their secrets, and in the process shows us that everything we thought we knew about running is wrong.

The Forgotten Garden

by Kate Morton
5 Stars
Setting: Australia, England
645 pages
Published 2008

Ellie's Review
This was a great book with an intriguing mystery about a foundling. Throughout the book, Morton carefully solves one part of the mystery while presenting other small mysteries. Readers are hooked! She jumps between three time frames without being confusing, which is a hard effect for authors though many try. I highly recommend this novel for a book club - readers love it and have a lot to discuss.

Book Summary
A foundling, an old book of dark fairy tales, a secret garden, an aristocratic family, a love denied, and a mystery. The Forgotten Garden is a captivating, atmospheric and compulsively readable story of the past, secrets, family and memory from the international best-selling author Kate Morton. 

See Ellie's reviews of Kate Morton's other novels: The House at Riverton and The Distant Hours.

Book Club Information
Click here to see a video of Kate Morton talking about The Forgotten Garden (no spoilers).


Discussion Questions

1. Christian said the following about “The Golden Egg” fairy tale, “The characters in the story are all doing what they think is right.  It’s just that it can’t have a happy ending for all of them.”  In The Forgotten Garden, who do you think had a happy ending?
2. Lady Montrechet convinces Eliza not to travel to New York with herself and Rose.  She convinces Eliza that lying to make someone happy is a good thing.  Do you agree?
3. Discuss what parts of Nell’s true story were never discovered by Cassandra.
4. Ruby said the following about not having children, “You make a life out of what you have not what you’re missing.”  Nell admits to herself she has focused too much on her missing late husband and child.  Who else focused on what was missing? 
5. Did Hugh and Lil make the right decision when they kept Nell? (question from katemorton.com)
6. On the night of Nell’s twenty-first birthday, her father Hugh tells her a secret that shatters her sense of self. How important is a strong sense of identity to a person’s life? Was Hugh right to tell her about her past? How might Nell’s life have turned out differently had she not discovered the truth? (question from katemorton.com)
7. Is it possible to escape the past, or does one’s history always find a way to revisit the present?  (question from katemorton.com)

Crone: The crone is a stock character in folklore and fairy tale, an old woman who is usually disagreeable, malicious, or sinister in manner, often with magical or supernatural associations that can make her either helpful or obstructing. She is marginalized by her exclusion from the reproductive cycle, and her proximity to death places her in contact with occult wisdom. As a character type, the crone shares characteristics with the hag.  The word "crone" is a less common synonym for "old woman," and is more likely to appear in reference to traditional narratives than in contemporary everyday usage. 

Change Your Thoughts - Change Your Life: Living the Wisdom of the Tao

by Wayne W. Dyer
5 Stars
Nonfiction: Self Help
416 pages
Published 2007

Ellie's Review
This is an amazing book! Split into sections for every verse in the Tao Te Ching, Wayne Dyer gives his interpretation of the verse and suggests how to apply it to your daily life. I read one verse a day so the meaning could sink in. I can honestly say this book has changed my life and helped me be more at peace. Regardless of your religious beliefs, I think you could benefit from this book. The world would be a much better place if everyone read this!

Book Summary
Five hundred years before the birth of Jesus, a God-realized being named Lao-tzu in ancient China dictated 81 verses, which are regarded by many as the ultimate commentary on the nature of our existence. The classic text of these 81 verses, called the Tao Te Ching or the Great Way, offers advice and guidance that is balanced, moral, spiritual, and always concerned with working for the good.In this book, Dr. Wayne W. Dyer has reviewed hundreds of translations of the Tao Te Ching and has written 81 distinct essays on how to apply the ancient wisdom of Lao-tzu to today’s modern world. This work contains the entire 81 verses of the Tao, compiled from Wayne’s researching of 12 of the most well-respected translations of text that have survived for more than 25 centuries. Each chapter is designed for actually living the Tao or the Great Way today. Some of the chapter titles are “Living with Flexibility,” “Living Without Enemies,” and “Living by Letting Go.” Each of the 81 brief chapters focuses on living the Tao and concludes with a section called “Doing the Tao Now.”Wayne spent one entire year reading, researching, and meditating on Lao-tzu’s messages, practicing them each day and ultimately writing down these essays as he felt Lao-tzu wanted you to know them.This is a work to be read slowly, one essay a day. As Wayne says, “This is a book that will forever change the way you look at your life, and the result will be that you’ll live in a new world aligned with nature. Writing this book changed me forever, too. I now live in accord with the natural world and feel the greatest sense of peace I’ve ever experienced. I’m so proud to present this interpretation of the Tao Te Ching, and offer the same opportunity for change that it has brought me.”

Cry, the Beloved Country

by Alan Paton
5 Stars
Setting: South Africa
320 pages
Published 1944

Ellie's Review
I think this is my favorite novel I've read lately! This is a wonderful story that is beautifully written. The themes are universal, yet I also learned so much about South Africa. I listened to the audiobook, and the lady performing it has a beautiful voice and made the African words come alive (if I read it, I'm afraid I would have skipped over the foreign words and not heard their beauty).

Book Summary
Cry, the Beloved Country stands as a singularly important novel in twentieth-century South African literature. A work of searing beauty, Cry, the Beloved Country is the deeply moving story of the Zulu pastor Stephen Kumalo and his son Absalom, set against the background of South Africa and a people driven by racial injustice. Unforgettable for character and incident, it is a novel of love and hope, courage and endurance, born of the dignity of man.

The Help

by Kathryn Stockett
5 Stars
Historical Fiction
Setting: Mississippi
451 pages
Published 2009

Ellie's Review
This is a great novel set in Mississippi during segregation; the three narrators (two black maids and a white young lady) give a neat perspective of that time and place. I came away from it knowing I need to not judge people so quickly as I never know what they're going through or who they really are. I also had a sense of pride that some people will speak up against something they know is wrong even when the consequences can be very dreadful. While this book did have some very serious themes, quite a few light-hearted stories were threaded through.

Book Summary
Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till Skeeter has a ring on her finger. Skeeter would normally find solace with her beloved maid Constantine, the woman who raised her, but Constantine has disappeared and no one will tell Skeeter where she has gone.

Aibileen is a black maid, a wise, regal woman raising her seventeenth white child. Something has shifted inside her after the loss of her own son, who died while his bosses looked the other way. She is devoted to the little girl she looks after, though she knows both their hearts may be broken.

Minny, Aibileen's best friend, is short, fat, and perhaps the sassiest woman in Mississippi. She can cook like nobody's business, but she can't mind her tongue, so she's lost yet another job. Minny finally finds a position working for someone too new to town to know her reputation. But her new boss has secrets of her own.

Seemingly as different from one another as can be, these women will nonetheless come together for a clandestine project that will put them all at risk. And why? Because they are suffocating within the lines that define their town and their times. And sometimes lines are made to be crossed.

Bridget Jones's Diary (Bridget Jones #1)

by Helen Fielding
5 star
Setting: UK
271 pages
Published 1996

Ellie's Review
I laughed out loud so much in this book! This is a great fluffy, chick book, but I liked the heroine better than I did in the Shopaholic series. I could definitely relate to Bridget in so many of her ideas and wacky situations. I love the parallels to Pride and Prejudice throughout.

Book Summary
Helen Fielding's devastatingly self-aware, laugh-out-loud account of a year in the life of a thirty-something Singleton launched a genre and transcended the pages of fiction to become a cultural icon.

Rebecca

by Daphne du Maurier
5 Stars
Classic
Setting: England
441 pages
Published 1938

Ellie's Review
I absolutely love this book! It reminded me of Jane Eyre since it's a romantic suspense novel set in the past.

Book Summary
Working as a lady's companion, the heroine of Rebecca learns her place. Life begins to look very bleak until, on a trip to the South of France, she meets Maxim de Winter, a handsome widower whose sudden proposal of marriage takes her by surprise. She accepts, but whisked from glamorous Monte Carlo to the ominous and brooding Manderley, the new Mrs de Winter finds Max a changed man. And the memory of his dead wife Rebecca is forever kept alive by the forbidding Mrs Danvers.

Night (Night #1)

by Elie Wiesel, translated by Marion Wiesel
5 Stars
Nonfiction: Memoir
Classic, WWII, Jewish
Setting: Germany
120 pages
Published 1958

Ellie's Review
Wow, this is an incredible account of Elie Wiesel's time in concentration camps as a teenager. It's a must read. I haven't read the other books in his series (Dawn and Day), but I should.

Book SummaryA terrifying account of the Nazi death camp horror that turns a young Jewish boy into an agonized witness to the death of his family...the death of his innocence...and the death of his God. Penetrating and powerful, as personal as The Diary Of Anne Frank, Night awakens the shocking memory of evil at its absolute and carries with it the unforgettable message that this horror must never be allowed to happen again.

Hope's Boy

by Andrew Bridge
5 Stars
Nonfiction: Memoir
Setting: USA
320 pages
Published 2008

Ellie's Review
Wow, this book really opened my eyes to the foster care system. This memoir takes you through Andy's experience and is very open and honest. In the last few years I've been reading books about bad things that occur in other countries (Iran, Afghanistan), but this opened my eyes to bad things happening here in the US. Andy is a great author.

Book Summary
From a disastrous decade in foster care to Harvard Law School and beyond: this is the profoundly moving memoir of one boy who beat the system.

A Thousand Splendid Suns

by Khaled Hosseini
5 Stars
Setting: Afghanistan
448 pages
Published 2007

Ellie's Review
This was a fascinating book that helped me understand Afghanistan a little better. I love how it shows that each culture, country, and religion has good and bad people. I am very thankful for my life and my husband!

Book Summary
A Thousand Splendid Suns is a breathtaking story set against the volatile events of Afghanistan's last thirty years, from the Soviet invasion to the reign of the Taliban to post-Taliban rebuilding, that puts the violence, fear, hope and faith of this country in intimate, human terms. It is a tale of two generations of characters brought jarringly together by the tragic sweep of war, where personal lives, the struggle to survive, raise a family, find happiness, are inextricable from the history playing out around them.

I Capture the Castle

by Dodie Smith
5 Stars
Historical Fiction
Setting: England
352 Pages
Published in 1948

Ellie's Review
This is a wonderful romantic, chicklit book that is a bit like a more modern Pride & Prejudice. I love it every time I read it!

Book SummaryI Capture the Castle tells the story of seventeen-year-old Cassandra and her family, who live in not-so-genteel poverty in a ramshackle old English castle. Here she strives, over six turbulent months, to hone her writing skills. She fills three notebooks with sharply funny yet poignant entries. Her journals candidly chronicle the great changes that take place within the castle's walls, and her own first descent into love. By the time she pens her final entry, she has "captured the castle"— and the heart of the reader— in one of literature's most enchanting entertainments.

Author InformationDodie Smith's most famous book was 101 Dalmatians.
Book Club Questions

• How might readers have responded differently to the novel at the time it was first published? Why does the novel continue to appeal to readers today as it did in 1948?
• Why do you think Dodie Smith chose the form of the diary to tell the story of Cassandra and the Mortmain family?
• Beyond a few spare descriptions, Smith tells us little about Mortmain’s novel. What do you imagine Jacob Wrestling to be about?
• A voracious reader, Cassandra compares her situation to that of the Bennets in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. How would you compare the situation of the Mortmain sisters to that of the Bennet sisters?
• Why does Mortmain encourage Cassandra to be “brisk” with Stephen? What does this book have to say about class in mid-twentieth century England?
• What is the meaning of the book’s title?
• What does the book say about English preconceptions of Americans and America and vice versa?
• How does the book reflect society’s changing views toward women during the first half of the 20^th century? How do the women in this novel view the roles and opportunities open to them both in the family and in the world at large differently?
• Over the course of the novel, Cassandra comes to seem less a child “with a green little hand” and more a young woman. How is I Capture the Castle a story of Cassandra’s coming of age?
• The description of Rose on page 1 says she is “very bitter with life.” If Cassandra were to write another journal, do you think she would describe herself this way now?
• Page 11 reads, “I think it worthy of note that I never felt happier in my life—despite sorrow for father, pity for Rose, embarrassment about Stephen’s poetry and no justification for hope as regards our family’s general outlook.” How has Cassandra changed by the end of the book? Will she be able to feel happy and content again?

The Hunger Games

by Suzanne Collins
5 Stars
Young Adult, Science Fiction
374 Pages
Published in 2009

Ellie's Review
I absolutely loved this book! Yes, it's science fiction (and I normally am not a big fan of this genre), but I loved it. The plot was gripping and it was a page-turner. I actually listened to this audiobook in my car, and I drove around running errands to finish it. Then I brought the last CD inside to listen to it. That's how much I liked it. I liked that it wasn't a clear good verses evil. There's no Lord Voldemort who is pure evil. Instead, it has a variety, and the main character works hard at being good (as many other characters do also). Where does a person draw the moral line? Can't wait to read the second book!

Book Summary
(I know the summary sounds odd, but trust me on this book!)
In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV.

Book Club Information
We loved learning some background information and discussing the questions found on the Scholastic website. This was one of our best meetings of the year!

Author Information
Suzanne Collins previously wrote a children's fantasy series called The Underland Chronicles - see Ellie's review of the first in the series: Gregor the Overlander.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

by Jonathan Safran Foer
5 Stars
Setting: United States
326 Pages
Published 2006


Ellie's Review
Wow, this was an incredible novel. Foer did a wonderful job of combining a very moving story with humor and quirkiness. This really touched me having lost my dad a couple years ago and having lived in Manhattan after 9/11.

Plot Summary
Nine-year-old Oskar Schell has embarked on an urgent, secret mission that will take him through the five boroughs of New York. His goal is to find the lock that matches a mysterious key that belonged to his father, who died in the World Trade Center on the morning of September 11. This seemingly impossible task will bring Oskar into contact with survivors of all sorts on an exhilarating, affecting, often hilarious, and ultimately healing journey.