Books I read in March.............

 "They Left Us Everything, by Plum Johnson"

After almost twenty years of caring for elderly parents--first for their senile father, and then for their cantankerous ninety-three-year old mother--author Plum Johnson and her three younger brothers have finally fallen to their knees with conflicted feelings of grief and relief. Now they must empty and sell the beloved family home, 23 rooms bulging with history, antiques, and oxygen tanks. Plum thought: How tough will that be? I know how to buy garbage bags.

But the task turns out to be much harder and more rewarding than she ever imagined. Items from childhood trigger difficult memories of her eccentric family growing up in the 1950s and '60s, but unearthing new facts about her parents helps her reconcile those relationships, with a more accepting perspective about who they were and what they valued.

They Left Us Everything is a funny, touching memoir about the importance of preserving family history to make sense of the past, and nurturing family bonds to safeguard the future.

I don't remember where I saw this book advertised as it was originally published in 2014, but I knew it was going to be well worth reading.  I rarely do this, but I went to Indigo and bought it, luckily I had a 20% coupon and so paid just under $20 for it.

I have been going through a "phase" recently trying to declutter the house so that our kids aren't stuck having to clean out the house when my husband and I die.  One thing though the author says, "is that we should leave everything for our children to clear out, so they can get to know us better?"  I will say I am not convinced this is a good idea.

This book was a well worth read though and a book every adult child, however old you are, should read.  Added bonus it was a written by a Canadian author.  Also I love the name Plum, very different....LOL     

"Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen"    

When ten-year-old Fanny Price is plucked from squalor to be raised in comfort among her well-to-do relatives at the elegant Mansfield Park, only her cousin Edmund notices her homesickness and distress. Bolstered by Edmund’s kindness, Fanny begins to thrive as a useful and happy member of the household, and her natural feelings of gratitude and respect for Edmund start to grow into something deeper. But when sophisticated Londoners Henry and Mary Crawford arrive at Mansfield Park, trouble arrives with them, and Fanny’s hard-won peace is threatened by the chaos the Crawfords leave in their wake.

I feel bad for not enjoying these classic Jane Austen books, but they are just so "wordy," and written for a different time in a different English language.

I found the first third of this book hard going.  The second third was a little better, but until I got to last third did I begin to want to know what was going to happen next.  However, the language used was too much for me to thoroughly understand and English is my first language.

One thing I will say is how things have changed over the past few hundred years.  What is appropriate now was so inappropriate then.  However, some things haven't changed and that is the selfishness of some people and the havoc it can wreak on everyone around them.

Now onto Emma, half way through the six Jane Austen books!

"Cradles of the Reich by Jennifer Coburn"

For fans of The Nightingale and The Handmaid's Tale, Cradles of the Reich uncovers a topic rarely explored in fiction: the Lebensborn project, a Nazi breeding program to create a so-called master race. Through thorough research and with deep empathy, this chilling historical novel goes inside one of the Lebensborn Society maternity homes that existed in several countries during World War II, where thousands of "racially fit" babies were bred and taken from their mothers to be raised as part of the new Germany.

At the Heim Hochland maternity home in Bavaria, three women's lives coverage as they find themselves there under very different circumstances. Gundi is a pregnant university student from Berlin. An Aryan beauty, she's secretly a member of a resistance group. Hilde, only eighteen, is a true believer in the cause and is thrilled to carry a Nazi official's child. And Irma, a 44-year-old nurse, is desperate to build a new life for herself after personal devastation. Despite their opposing beliefs, all three have everything to lose as they begin to realize they are trapped within Hitler's terrifying scheme to build a Nazi-Aryan nation. 

A cautionary tale for modern times told in stunning detail, Cradles of the Reich uncovers a little-known Nazi atrocity but also carries an uplifting reminder of the power of women to set aside differences and work together in solidarity in the face of oppression.

This book is a must read, as it's both quite scary but fascinating at the same time with how the Nazi propaganda worked.  I have read a book recently (can't remember it's name) that mentioned the Lebensborn Society.  This book goes more in depth with the subject.

I read this book over two days as it was a page turner.  When reading the author's notes at the back I was interested to discover that Anni-Frid Lyngstad (Frida) from the music group Abba was a person born from the Lebensborn Society.

The author has written a follow up book featuring Hilde a character in this book, called "The Girls of the Glimmer Factory."  I need to look for that one as that too sounds interesting.

"The Woman with Two Shadows, by Sarah James"

For fans of Atomic City Girls and Marie Benedict, a fascinating historical debut of one of the most closely held secrets of World War II and a woman caught up in it when she follows her missing sister to the mysterious city of Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

Lillian Kaufman hasn't heard from her twin sister since Eleanor left for a mysterious job at an Army base somewhere in Tennessee. When she learns, on an unexpected phone call, that Eleanor is missing, Lillian takes a train from New York down to Oak Ridge to clear up the matter.

It turns out that the only way into Oak Ridge is to assume Eleanor's identity, which Lillian plans to do swiftly and perfectly. But Eleanor has vanished without a trace—and she's not the only one. And how do you find someone in a town so dangerous it doesn't officially exist, when technically you don't exist either?

Lillian is thrust into the epicenter of the gravest scientific undertaking of all time, with no idea who she can trust. And the more she pretends to be Eleanor, the more she loses her grip on herself.

Great book, very interesting and actually quite scary.  I read it in a day as I needed to know what was going to happen next.

The one thing I will say though it left me wondering, 

"although the people who invented these weapons of mass destruction are very clever, did they actually envision what they were doing to the rest of mankind?"

"Children of the Dustbowl, The True Story of the School at Weedpatch Camp, by Jerry Stanley"

This is the compelling story of the "Okie" migration to California and of the construction and life of a remarkable school at a farm workers' camp. This memorable book provides a glimpse of a neglected period of American history and tells a story of prejudice being transformed into acceptance and despair into hope.

This is a non fiction book and only 80+ pages with lots of photographs.  I found it when I was sorting some books out downstairs.  I knew very little about the Great Depression and the droughts in the Great Plain States in the 1930's.  

I have not read John Steinbecks, "Grapes of Wrath," which caused a huge kerfuffle back when it was written and it did mention the school written about it in this book.  

Very educational and both books should be read.