Lost in Shangri-La

Lost in Shangri-La. Mitchell Zuckoff. 2011. HarperCollins. 384 pages. [Source: Library]

After reading Frozen in Time, I knew I wanted to read another by Mitchell Zuckoff. Lost In Shangri-La: A True Story of Survival, Adventure, and the Most Incredible Rescue Mission of World War II did not disappoint. The two books are similar in that both books are about plane crashes, survivors, and rescue attempts. Also, obviously, both books are set during World War II.

Lost In Shangri-La tells the story of Margaret Hastings, John McCollom, and Kenneth Decker. These three were the survivors of the plane crash. All three were stationed in Dutch New Guinea, all three were taking part in a little sight-seeing holiday. All hoped to see "Shangri-La" safely from above. Twenty-four were on the plane, but after the crash, after the first twenty-four hours, only three remained alive. The three are able to leave the crash site and make their way to a better place, they are hoping to get to where a passing plane, a search plane, can see them.

The book goes on to tell of the men involved in the rescuing. Hastings and Decker were suffering severe injuries and in need of immediate medical attention. A rescue could not be accomplished quickly, in just a day or two. No, it would take time and careful planning...

Survivors. Rescuers. Natives. The book is very interesting. I definitely recommend it!

© 2014 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

Duke's Children (1880)

The Duke's Children. Anthony Trollope. 1880. 560 pages. [Source: Book I Bought]

It is always bittersweet for me as a reader to come to the end of a series. There is always a sense of satisfaction, but, also usually some sadness to say goodbye as well. The Palliser series by Anthony Trollope has been interesting. I've loved some books very much, others not quite as much. But overall, it's just been a joy to spend so much of this year with Trollope. Previous titles include Can You Forgive Her?, Phineas Finn, The Eustace Diamonds, Phineas Redux, and The Prime Minister.

The Duke's Children is essentially a novel about relationships, about falling in and out of love, about accepting loved one's choices.

Plantagenet Palliser, current Duke of Omnium, has three grown--or nearly grown--children. His oldest son (Lord Silverbridge) and his oldest daughter (Lady Mary) are proving to be difficult to handle.

Lady Mary has fallen madly in love with a man whom her father judges to be unworthy or unacceptable. His name is Frank Tregear. He happens, of course, to be good, good friends with Lord Silverbridge.

Lord Silverbridge was courting a cousin of Tregear's, a young woman, Lady Mabel Grex. He told his father that he was planning on proposing to her very soon. She was expecting his proposal, and she was going to say yes. But that was before Lord Silverbridge met the American heiress, Isabel Boncassen, of course, she was oh-so-beautiful. After that, it was Mabel, who? Does the reader pity Mabel? Should the reader pity Mabel? I haven't decided WHAT Trollope really intended us all to think...if anything.

Mabel's heart belongs not to Lord Silverbridge, though, she knows they'd be pleasant enough companions and suit together well. No, Mabel's heart belongs to Frank Tregear. She loved him; he loved her. They both knew that being together was insensible. Both being poor and all. But she NEVER expected him to turn around and fall madly in love with someone else so very, very soon. She was so sure that he felt just as strongly about her. How could he stop loving her and start loving someone else so quickly?! And when Lord Silverbridge seems to do the exact same, well, let's just say that Mabel gets VERY VERY angry.

Will the Duke give his approval to his daughter, Lady Mary? Will he try to make her marry someone more suitable? Who has the stronger will? Will he persuade her that Frank is not the one and that, of course, she should marry someone with a title and lots of money? Or will she persuade him that Frank is the ONLY one who could ever make her happy?

Will the Duke give his approval to his son, Lord Silverbridge? Will he cover all his son's debts and forgive him all his foolish mistakes? Will he accept his son's choice of bride? Or will he argue the case for Mabel?

I definitely loved this one. I never find Trollope boring. Sometimes I find him more interesting than other times. But I care about the characters and always want to know how things will turn out.

© 2014 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

Week in Review: July 13-19

Hidden Like Anne Frank. Marcel Prins. Peter Henk Steenhuis. Translated by Laura Watkinson. Scholastic. 256 pages. [Source: Review copy] 
The Merry Monarch's Wife. (A Queens of England Novel). Jean Plaidy. 1991/2008. Crown. 352 pages. [Source: Bought]
The Railway Children. E. Nesbit. 1906/2011. Penguin. 304 pages.  [Source: Bought]
You'll Like It Here (Everybody Does). Ruth White. 2011/2012. Random House. 272 pages. [Source: Review copy]
The Dust Girl (American Fairy #1) Sarah Zettel. Random House. 304 pages. [Source: Review copy]
Mission at Nuremberg. Tim Townsend. 2014. HarperCollins. 400 pages. [Source: Library]
Seeing the Unseen. Randy Alcorn. 2013. Eternal Perspective Ministries. 120 pages. [Source: Bought]
Luminary. Krista McGee. 2014. Thomas Nelson. 311 pages. [Source: Library]
Here Is Our God. Kathleen Buswell Nielson and D.A. Carson, editors. 2014. Crossway. 221 pages. [Source: Review copy]

This week's favorite:

The choice was easy this week, but, not as easy as you might think. I loved both Hidden Like Anne Frank and Mission at Nuremberg. Both books are nonfiction focused on World War II. If you haven't noticed, well, I can't resist reading books about that time period. Hidden Like Anne Frank was a collection of survivor stories. Each chapter was written by a different survivor. Overall, the stories were compelling but dark. I appreciated the honesty.

Mission at Nuremberg is about the Nuremberg trials. This was my first time to read about the Nuremberg trials, and, I found the book fascinating and thought-provoking. Again, I appreciated the honesty. I also appreciated the perspective. One of the main characters is an army chaplain, Henry Gerecke.

Religion was something the Allies were also going to have to contend with, specifically, whether to supply the architects of the Holocaust with a Christian minister to comfort their spirits as they explained to the world the murder of six million Jews. The decision for adding this provision had come late and was possibly more controversial even than putting the Nazis on trial. (135)

It was the victorious Allies who were judging the crimes of the Nazi leaders at Nuremberg, but it would be a pastor of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod who would try and convince those criminals that it was really God's judgment that they should fear. (8)

© 2014 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

Library Loot: Third Trip in July

New Loot:

• The Lost by Sarah Beth Durst
• The Kiss of Deception by Mary E. Pearson
• Useful Enemies: John Demjanjuk and America's Open-Door Policy for Nazi War Criminals by Richard Rashke
• Full Steam Ahead by Karen Witemeyer
• Absolutely Almost by Lisa Graff
• Blue Plate Special by Michelle D. Kwasney
• Recovering Redemption: A Gospel Saturated Perspective On How to Change by Matt Chandler and Michael Snetzer
• Now Eat This: 150 of America's Favorite Comfort Foods, all under 350 Calories by Rocco DiSpirito
• Now Eat This! 100 Quick Calorie Cuts at home and on the go by Rocco DiSpirito
• Simply Satisfying Over 200 Vegetarian Recipes You'll Want to Make Again and Again by Jeanne Lemlin
• The Pound a Day Diet: Lose up to 5 Pounds in 5 Days by Eating the Foods You Love by Rocco DiSpirito

Leftover Loot:

• Bridge to Haven by Francine Rivers
• Simple Faith by Anna Schmidt
• The Rise and Fall of Mount Majestic by Professor Barnabas Quill, Historian of the Island at the Center of Everything, Washed, Dusted, Translated, Edited, and Greatly Shortened for the Rest of the World by Jennifer Trafton
• Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand
• The Microbiome Diet by Raphael Kellman, MD
• Out of the Depths by Edgar Harrell, USMC with David Harrell
• The Family Romanov by Candace Fleming
•  Tudors versus Stewarts the Fatal Inheritance of Mary, Queen of Scots by Linda Porter
• Burning Sky by Lori Benton
• The Geography of You and Me by Jennifer E. Smith
• The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler by James Cross Giblin
• The Little Girl Who Fought the Great Depression: Shirley Temple and 1930s America by John F. Kasson
• A Sorcerer's Treason by Sarah Zettel
• Palace of Spies by Sarah Zettel

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire from The Captive Reader and Linda from Silly Little Mischief that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library. If you’d like to participate, just write up your post-feel free to steal the button-and link it using the Mr. Linky any time during the week. And of course check out what other participants are getting from their libraries.   


© 2014 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

Reread #29 Railway Children

The Railway Children. E. Nesbit. 1906/2011. Penguin. 304 pages.  [Source: Bought]

I found The Railway Children to be a very pleasant read. I can't say that I loved, loved, loved it. Or that it is my favorite Nesbit read of all time. It isn't. But it was quite enjoyable. The Railway Children is not a children's fantasy book. Plenty of Nesbit's books are, but this one isn't. It is realistic fiction. Three siblings: Roberta, Peter, Phyllis star in this one. The family is having some hard times. Their father has been put into jail. (He's innocent, of course.) The mother is supporting the family by writing stories. She's a very good writer, but, she's kept very busy and very worried. The children may feel pressure to be strong and good, to do nothing that might in any way worry their mother, but, reality is that they are kids and they act like kids. They have their good days and bad days. And sometimes things just happen, adventures just happen. The children meet a LOT of people. This one has a strong community feel. It's just a lovely read.

I first reviewed this one in August 2011.

Favorite quotes:

“I suppose I shall HAVE to be married some day,” said Peter, “but it will be an awful bother having her round all the time. I’d like to marry a lady who had trances, and only woke up once or twice a year.”
“Just to say you were the light of her life and then go to sleep again. Yes. That wouldn’t be bad,” said Bobbie. “When I get married,” said Phyllis, “I shall want him to want me to be awake all the time, so that I can hear him say how nice I am.”

Peter sowed vegetable seeds in his — carrots and onions and turnips. The seed was given to him by the farmer who lived in the nice black-and-white, wood-and-plaster house just beyond the bridge. He kept turkeys and guinea fowls, and was a most amiable man. But Peter’s vegetables never had much of a chance, because he liked to use the earth of his garden for digging canals, and making forts and earthworks for his toy soldiers. And the seeds of vegetables rarely come to much in a soil that is constantly disturbed for the purposes of war and irrigation.

“There’s no end to this tunnel,” said Phyllis — and indeed it did seem very very long. “Stick to it,” said Peter; “everything has an end, and you get to it if you only keep all on.” Which is quite true, if you come to think of it, and a useful thing to remember in seasons of trouble — such as measles, arithmetic, impositions, and those times when you are in disgrace, and feel as though no one would ever love you again, and you could never — never again — love anybody.

© 2014 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews