I got back into reading by choosing books from the New York Times Best Seller List. The first title I read, In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin by Erik Larson, is based on the life of the American Ambassador William Dodd and his family during his assignment in Germany from 1933 to 1938, preceding United States’ declaration of war on Hitler. The author depicts what occurs when governments turn a blind eye to the evil actions of men in power, even when the people they ask to report call for a quick and drastic response. What was most interesting to me was the evolution of the characters, most of whom did not want to believe that such atrocities were occurring against the Jewish population. The book is based and supported by excerpts from the diaries and letters of correspondence of the people who lived in Hitler’s Germany including William Dodd, Martha Dodd and George Messersmith on the American front and Rudolph Diels and Ernst Hanfstaengl who were part of Germany security and armed forces. The author’s writing style is seamless. Larson does a wonderful job inserting the bits and pieces from different diaries and letters to create a fluid story filled with drama, suspense, danger and even more than a single love affair.
The second book I read, Lost in Shangri-La: A Story of Survival, Adventure and the Most Incredible Rescue Mission of WWII by Mitchell Zuckoff narrated the crash and rescue mission of the survivors of the Gremlin Special, a C-57 plane that went down in Dutch New Guinea in 1945, packed with soldiers and WACs who flew around the island to see an undiscovered village of natives which they had called Shangri-La. The crash took the lives of 25 individuals, leaving only three survivors, John McCollum, Kenneth Decker, and Margaret Hastings who make it in spite of grave injuries, hunger and atrocious weather conditions. The story is a detailed account of their journey from the plane to the valley where the “cannibalistic” natives live and the relationship that ensues between the survivors, rescue team and the Dutch New Guinea natives. It is an interesting and exciting read that includes pictures of the people that participated in such an incredible operation. The author’s writing style is very descriptive and clear, making it easy for an average reader to understand the inner workings of the United States armed forces, which I greatly appreciated.
The last book I’ve finished in the last couple of months was The Help by Kathryn Stockett, by far my favorite title of the three. The novel is narrated in three perspectives, first Aibileen Clark, a middle-aged African-American maid who spends her life raising white children, and who has recently lost her only son, Treelore; Minny Jackson, an African-American maid whose smart-talk towards her employers results in her having to frequently change jobs, exacerbating her desperate need for work as well as her family's struggle with money; and Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan, a young white woman and recent college graduate who, after moving back home, discovers that a maid that helped raise her since childhood has abruptly disappeared and her attempts to find her have come to naught. I found the book particularly interesting not only because it was flawlessly written, but also because of the parallels between the maids’ situation Jackson, Mississippi in the early 1960’s and Caracas, Venezuela today, even though people in Venezuela are not deprived of their rights. I enjoyed the author’s writing style and was very disappointed to find out it was her first novel and I could not read another book written by her right away.
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