Listen Now

During the busy Winter Holidays don't forget our book to review on January 3.. It is shorter than some.. If you can't finish it suggest reading Chapters 9 through 11. 10, Our reading suggestion for January (FALLING IDOLS: TWELVE STATUES THAT MADE HISTORY is a short 9 hour 10 minutes. The Author states that this book is "about how we make history ". selecting Statues which have been in the news yet preserves our \ "memories in stone ." The author selects historically significant personages from the last 350 years spending considerable time on the controversial statues of personages such as Robert E. Lee and Jeff Davis related to The Civil War and reconstruction.

David Faucheux will be presenting the following book on December sixth The storyteller of Casablanca DB107192 NLS ANNOTATION: Morocco 1941, Twelve year-old Josie and her family fled Nazi occupied France for Casablanca where they awaited safe passage to America. Seventy years later, Zoey is a wife and mother living as an ex-pat in an unfamiliar place. But when she discovers Josie's diary from the 1940's beneath the floorboards of her daughter’s bedroom, Zoe enters the inner world of young Josie. 2021

Brad Snyder and Alan Lemly co-hosted the October session discussing the book ISAAC STORM by Erik Larson. Everyone seemed to like it. There were no challengers with the Erik Larson Best Sellers we had reviewed. On Tuesday, November 1st we will leave the familiar Trumpian, Anglo-American literary venue for Hitler's Germany and some incredibly courageous dissidents. Defying Hitler: the Germans who resisted Nazi rule DB94884 Thomas, Gordon; Lewis, Greg NLS ANNOTATION: An account of the many Germans who actively resisted Hitler. Describes and profiles individuals who passed industrial secrets to Allied spies, forged passports for escaping Jews, denounced Nazi law, distributed anti-Nazi fliers, spied on the SS, and more. Unrated. Commercial audiobook. 2019.

On October 4 we will be reviewing Isaac Storm: a Man, a Time, and the deadliest Hurricane in History by Erik Larson(db48811). This was published more than a hundred years after the Galveston Flood and was this author six best selling books four of which we have discussed. Name them if you can. NLS ANNOTATION Galveston Texas, September 8, 1900, a massive hurricane approaches the city. Isaac Kline, head of the Weather Bureau’s Galveston Station fails to receive advance warning due to bureaucratic blundering and scientific snobbery. No evacuation is ordered and more than eight thousand citizens are subsequently lost including Kline’s wife. Best Seller 1999.

On September 6 we will review our second World War Two Churchill book, The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson, covering WWII from May 1940 to May 1941. It focuses on how Winston Churchill and his Family coped with the Blitz which killed over forty-thousand Londoners and led England to foil Hitler and his plans to conquer all of Europe. Similar to Lincoln and Napoleon, there are already many books on Churchill. The author’s access to the detailed diary of Churchill’s youngest daughter, Mary Churchill, gave the author a unique view of the family during the Blitz.

As usual, we will skip July and meet on August 2 when David Faucheux present his historic fiction but is a realistic history of the 1937 NAZI invasion of the Ukraine. A real page-turner with realistic character description. The title is The Diamond Eye by Kate Quinn, db107522. Again, except for July, Journey Through History meets on the first Tuesday of the month at eight P.M. Eastern Time.

On Tuesday, June 7, your History Group will discuss the consequences of WWII after Yalta and the expanded roles of the privileged daughters of the three powerful leaders. Here’s the NLS annotation: The daughters of Yalta: the Churchills, Roosevelts, and Harrimans : a story of love and war DB102417 Katz, Catherine Grace Reading time: 14 hours, 57 minutes. Christine Rendel Biography World History and Affairs An account of the "daughter diplomacy" of Anna Roosevelt, Sarah Churchill, and Kathleen Harriman, who accompanied their powerful fathers to the Yalta Conference with Joseph Stalin in the final days of World War II. Unrated. Commercial audiobook. 2020. Don Queen

the Journey Through History Group will review The Taking of Jemima Boone: Colonial settlers , Tribal Nations and the kidnap that shaped America by Matthew Pearl( Db106571). Reading time: six hours fifty seconds. Synopsis from Bookshare.org. The Taking of Jemima Boone: Colonial Settlers, Tribal Nations, and the Kidnap That Shaped America by Matthew Pearl “A rousing tale of frontier daring and ingenuity, better than legend on every front.” — Pulitzer Prize–winning author Stacy SchiffA Goodreads Most Anticipated Book In his first work of narrative nonfiction, Matthew Pearl, bestselling author of acclaimed novel The Dante Club, explores the little-known true story of the kidnapping of legendary pioneer Daniel Boone’s daughter and the dramatic aftermath that rippled across the nation. On a quiet midsummer day in 1776, weeks after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, thirteen-year-old Jemima Boone and her friends Betsy and Fanny Callaway disappear near the Kentucky settlement of Boonesboro, the echoes of their faraway screams lingering on the air. A Cherokee-Shawnee raiding party has taken the girls as the latest salvo in the blood feud between American Indians and the colonial settlers who have decimated native lands and resources. Hanging Maw, the raiders’ leader, recognizes one of the captives as Jemima Boone, daughter of Kentucky's most influential pioneers, and realizes she could be a valuable pawn in the battle to drive the colonists out of the contested Kentucky territory for good. With Daniel Boone and his posse in pursuit, Hanging Maw devises a plan that could ultimately bring greater peace both to the tribes and the colonists. But after the girls find clever ways to create a trail of clues, the raiding party is ambushed by Boone and the rescuers in a battle with reverberations that nobody could predict. As Matthew Pearl reveals, the exciting story of Jemima Boone’s kidnapping vividly illuminates the early days of America’s westward expansion, and the violent and tragic clashes across cultural lines that ensue. In this enthralling narrative in the tradition of Candice Millard and David Grann, Matthew Pearl unearths a forgotten and dramatic series of events from early in the Revolutionary War that opens a window into America’s transition from colony to nation, with the heavy moral costs incurred amid shocking new alliances and betrayals. Copyright: 2021 ISBN: 9780062937810

The Engineers Wife by Tracey Enerson Wood She built a monument for all time. Then she was lost in its shadow. Emily Warren Roebling refuses to live conventionally—she knows who she is and what she wants, and she's determined to make change. But then her husband Wash asks the unthinkable: give up her dreams to make his possible. Emily’s fight for women's suffrage is put on hold, and her life transformed when Wash, the Chief Engineer of the Brooklyn Bridge, is injured on the job. Untrained for the task, but under his guidance, she assumes his role, despite stern resistance and overwhelming obstacles. Lines blur as Wash's vision becomes her own, and when he is unable to return to the job, Emily is consumed by it. But as the project takes shape under Emily's direction, she wonders whose legacy she is building—hers, or her husband's. As the monument rises, Emily's marriage, principles, and identity threaten to collapse. When the bridge finally stands finished, will she recognize the woman who built it? Based on the true story of the Brooklyn Bridge, The Engineer's Wife delivers an emotional portrait of a woman transformed by a project of unfathomable scale, which takes her into the bowels of the East River, suffragette riots, the halls of Manhattan's elite, and the heady, freewheeling temptations of P.T. Barnum. It's the story of a husband and wife determined to build something that lasts—even at the risk of losing each other. by Tracey Enerson Wood

In March, (finally after fifty years) the real people behind Roe V. Wade are revealed. Families were afflicted by alcohol and drugs. There was never an abortion. The opposition to Roe V. Wade is rising and faces a conservative Supreme court. FROM BOOKSHARE.ORG A masterpiece of reporting on the Supreme Court’s most divisive case, Roe v. Wade, and the unknown lives at its heart. Despite her famous pseudonym, “Jane Roe,” no one knows the truth about Norma McCorvey (1947–2017), whose unwanted pregnancy in 1969 opened a great fracture in American life. Journalist Joshua Prager spent hundreds of hours with Norma, discovered her personal papers—a previously unseen trove—and witnessed her final moments. The Family Roe presents her life in full. Propelled by the crosscurrents of sex and religion, gender and class, it is a life that tells the story of abortion in America. Prager begins that story on the banks of Louisiana’s Atchafalaya River where Norma was born, and where unplanned pregnancies upended generations of her forebears. A pregnancy then upended Norma’s life too, and the Dallas waitress became Jane Roe. Drawing on a decade of research, Prager reveals the woman behind the pseudonym, writing in novelistic detail of her unknown life from her time as a sex worker in Dallas, to her private thoughts on family and abortion, to her dealings with feminist and Christian leaders, to the three daughters she placed for adoption. Prager found those women, including the youngest—Baby Roe—now fifty years old. She shares her story in The Family Roe for the first time, from her tortured interactions with her birth mother, to her emotional first meeting with her sisters, to the burden that was uniquely hers from conception. The Family Roe abounds in such revelations—not only about Norma and her children but about the broader “family” connected to the case. Prager tells the stories of activists and bystanders alike whose lives intertwined with Roe. In particular, he introduces three figures as important as they are unknown: feminist lawyer Linda Coffee, who filed the original Texas lawsuit yet now lives in obscurity; Curtis Boyd, a former fundamentalist Christian, today a leading provider of third-trimester abortions; and Mildred Jefferson, the first black female Harvard Medical School graduate, who became a pro-life leader with great secrets. An epic work spanning fifty years of American history, The Family Roe will change the way you think about our enduring American divide: the right to choose or the right to life.

Our next month’s title ‘PERIL’ by Bob Woodward. Was there really a “PERIL”? Last March 5, 1919, we reviewed Fields of Blood: Violence in congress and the road to Civil War by Jane Freeman where Congressmen from slave states carried and used clubs and guns to intimidate beat and even kill (at least one) fellow Congressman to prevent their submission of anti-slavery petitions. While the January 6 insurrection lasted only one day it cost several lives and nearly brought the American Democracy to a standstill. Also, it nearly upset Nuclear China enough to making a preventative first strike. Author Bob Woodward says we may have to repeat this peril again in four years. We will review the new bestseller “Peril DB 104817” by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, 13 hours thirty-six minutes.

The doctors Blackwell: how two pioneering sisters brought medicine to women and women to medicine DB 104506 Nimura, Janice P. Reading time 11 hours, 27 minutes. Read by Laural Merlington. A production of National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled, Library of Congress. Subjects: Biography; Health and Medicine Description: Biography of Doctor Elizabeth Blackwell, the first licensed female physician in the United States, and her sister, Doctor Emily Blackwell. Discusses their early years, their founding of the New York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children, and the challenges they faced in their chosen profession. Unrated. Commercial audiobook. 2021.

In December we move from the grim tenements of Belfast to the glittering mansions of the 1900’s New York rich and powerful although living alongside the despised minorities. THE PERSONAL LIBRARIAN IS WRITTEN BY Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray who are both attorneys as well as successful writers. NLS ANNOTATION: The personal librarian DB103929 Benedict, Marie; Murray, Victoria Christopher Reading time: 12 hours, 25 minutes. Robin Miles Historical Fiction In 1906, Belle da Costa Greene was hired by J. P. Morgan to curate a collection of rare manuscripts, books, and artwork for his newly built Pierpont Morgan Library. Belle becomes a fixture in New York City society, but she is African American passing as white. Unrated. Commercial audiobook. 2021.

We will review a fourteen hour true crime story, its history and long-term consequences. Was it war or just plain murder? It occurs in the slums of Belfast Northern Ireland during the Troubles (1968-1998). It delves into the lives of the participants at all levels providing insight of the causes and consequences. The book title is SAY NOTHING: A TRUE STORY OF MURDER AND MEMORY IN NORTHERN IRELAND by Patrick Raddin Keefe 14 hours and 40 minutes. db9439. WARNING: For those using BOOKSHARE, there is also a book with the same name “Say NOTHING” dealing with the same facts I almost read the wrong book.

In October we return to more familiar ground with a biography by a Pulitzer Prize-winning author.Edison DB 96904 Morris, Edmund. Reading time 25 hours, 7 minutes. Read by Arthur Morey. A production of National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled, Library of Congress. Subjects: Science and Technology ; Biography Description: A Pulitzer Prize-winning author provides an account of the life and work of the near-deaf Thomas Alva Edison, best known for his invention of the first practical incandescent lamp and advances in sound recording technology. Draws on original documents from Edison's lab, family papers, and more. Unrated. Commercial audiobook. 2019.

We will review The Men Who Lost America: British Leadership and the Fate of the Empire, DB78621. Join us for some historic analysis of the causes of England’s longest war. BOOKSHARE SYNOPSIS Andrew Jackson O'Shaughnessy The loss of America was a stunning and unexpected defeat for the powerful British Empire. Common wisdom has held that incompetent military commanders and political leaders in Britain must have been to blame, but were they? This intriguing book makes a different argument. Weaving together the personal stories of ten prominent men who directed the British dimension of the war, historian Andrew O’Shaughnessy dispels the incompetence myth and uncovers the real reasons that rebellious colonials were able to achieve their surprising victory. In interlinked biographical chapters, the author follows the course of the war from the perspectives of King George III, Prime Minister Lord North, military leaders including General Burgoyne, the Earl of Sandwich, and others who, for the most part, led ably and even brilliantly. Victories were frequent, and in fact the British conquered every American city at some stage of the Revolutionary War. Yet roiling political complexities at home, combined with the fervency of the fighting Americans, proved fatal to the British war effort. The book concludes with a penetrating assessment of the years after Yorktown, when the British achieved victories against the French and Spanish, thereby keeping intact what remained of the British Empire. Copyright: 2013

SYNOPSIS In Julia Kelly’s The Light over London, we enter two timelines: one during World War II and the other in the present. A diary and photograph send antiques dealer Cara Hargraves on a journey to discover the identity of the smiling woman in uniform. Louise Keene leaves her Cornish village and puts her mathematical abilities to work by becoming a gunner girl. Romance is in the cards for at least one of these heroines. Join us on Tuesday, August 3 for Kelly_ Julia the light over London DB93702 Don Queen

On June 1, 2021 we will read a book by MSNBC commentator Joe Scarborough Saving Freedom: Truman, the Cold War, and the Fight for Western Civilization DB102486 8 hours 5 minutes Read by author. BOOKSHARE SYNOPSIS History called on Harry Truman to unite the Western world against Soviet communism, but first he had to rally Republicans and Democrats behind America’s most dramatic foreign policy shift since George Washington delivered his farewell address. How did one of the least prepared presidents to walk into the Oval Office become one of its most successful? The year was 1947. The Soviet Union had moved from being America’s uneasy ally in the Second World War to its most feared enemy. With Joseph Stalin’s ambitions pushing westward, Turkey was pressured from the east while communist revolutionaries overran Greece. The British Empire was battered from its war with Hitler and suddenly teetering on the brink of financial ruin. Only America could afford to defend freedom in the West, and the effort was spearheaded by a president who hadn’t even been elected to that office. But Truman would wage a domestic political battle that carried with it the highest of stakes.

ON May 4, 2021 we will discuss Dreams from my father, db43877. BOOKSHARE SYNOPSIS: Dreams from my father: A Story of Race and Inheritance by Barack Obama Before Barack Obama became a politician he was, among other things, a writer. Dreams from My Father is a refreshing, revealing portrait of a young man asking the big questions about identity and belonging. The son of a black African father and a white American mother, Obama describes his search for meaning in his life as a black American and recounts an emotional odyssey. First to a small town in Kansas, from which he retraces the migration of his mother's family to Hawaii; then to his childhood home in Indonesia; finally, to Kenya, where he confronts the bitter truth of his father's life and at last reconciles his divided inheritance. Copyright: 2008

ANNOUNCEMENT: David Faucheux will Co Host and present his quarterly non-fiction history selection on April 6, 2021. Last Tuesday, Sherry Wells selection for March was read and liked by most participants. Two members objected to war subject matter. Some members complained about wordiness or detail in a book written by this professional editor. NLS ANNATATION for April’s book The night watchman Erdrich, Louise. Reading time: 13 hours, 34 minutes. Read by Louise Erdrich. Historical Fiction Bestsellers 1953. Chippewa Council member Thomas Wazhashk tries to balance the demands of his job as a night watchman at the new jewel bearing plant outside the Turtle Mountain reservation and monitoring the consequences of the bill purporting emancipation for Native American tribes wending its way through Congress. Unrated. Commercial audiobook. Bestseller. 2020. Don Queen