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History and the human heart
Fifty-three years after the end of World War II, Yasuo Saito lives in quiet retirement concealing his shameful past as a Japanese navy pilot. Margaret Roberts, a senior U.S. government official at the end of her pioneering career, confronts her mother's failing health while she juggles nagging ambition and her quest for happiness.
Saito and Roberts each take refuge in Hawaii, where they help the FBI solve a mysterious shooting in Pearl Harbor. As that murder investigation unfolds, hidden stories are revealed that link Saito and Roberts to December 7, 1941, a day of infamy that pushed the world into war and would prove pivotal to both of them.
Against the backdrop of a shocking crime in late 1998, Clouds Over Mountains moves between modern-day Hawaii, Japan, and Washington, D.C., weaving recollections of pre-war Japan with contemporary political intrigue. The novel examines themes of love and family, shame and redemption, truth and hope, and how historical events continue to shape people's lives six decades later.
book num 2.
Bobby Pendragon, the Traveler from Earth, has made his way to the territory of Ibara, the next territory that he must save from the demon Saint Dane. Ibara at first seems like a paradise: set on a tropical island, the people lead simple lives, but are contented and happy. There are some odd aspects of Ibara: there is electricity, but no signs of industrialization. There is a ruling council of sorts which appears to make all the decisions for the people. Bobby meets a group of young rebels who oppose the island's conformity and don't want to comply with the council's ban against leaving the island. Bobby and the group (which calls itself the Jakills) steal a ship and head for distant shores. What Bobby finds there is so horrifying that it could have devastating consequences for all of Halla. In the meantime, Courtney Courtney Chetwynde has traveled back in time to First Earth, to find Mark Dimond, who has been totally taken in by Saint Dane and whose actions in the past could destroy Earth's future for good.
D.J. MacHale really turns up the heat in this eighth installment of the Pendragon adventure series. With dual narratives, the story switches between Courtney's adventures on First Earth as she tries to find Mark with the help of Gunny's acolyte, Dodger. Courtney and Dodger have adventures aplenty in New York City, circa 1937, including a terrifying confrontation with Saint Dane. Bobby's journey leads him to some terrible revelations and the surprise ending will have long-time readers literally gasping with shock. D.J. clearly knows exactly where this series is headed, and the pacing is perfect.
--Claire E. White
last and probrobly best book
The Battle of the Bulge is one of the most celebrated victories in U.S. military history. Late in 1944, Hitler decided on one final, desperate gamble to reverse Germany's rapidly deteriorating position on the western front. The operation, which relied on surprise and bad weather, envisioned breaching Allied lines in the Ardennes region of Belgium, crossing the Meuse River, and capturing Antwerp. In weeks of bitter fighting in the coldest winter in memory, Allied lines bent (hence the bulge) but did not break. When the Allies lifted the German siege, they quickly overwhelmed the Siegfried Line - the heavily fortified border separating Germany and Belgium - and poured into Germany. The war in Europe was over in four months. The Battle of the Bulge, indeed, had proved decisive, but not in the way Hitler had hoped.
The traditional heroes of the Bulge are the paratroopers of the 101st Airborne who defended the key town of Bastogne despite being surrounded and vastly outnumbered and Patton's Third Army which raced to Bastogne to help lift the siege. Alex Kershaw celebrates a little-known but equally heroic group - the Intelligence and Reconnaissance Platoon, 394th Infantry Regiment, 99th Infantry Division - in The Longest Winter. The I&R Platoon's story is less known because its leader, Lt. Lyle Bouck, was so ill with hepatitis contracted in POW camps that he was unable to file an after action report. It wasn't until John Eisenhower and other writers began to reexamine the battle that the story was unearthed.
In the pre-dawn hours of December 16, 1944, as the Germans massed to launch their offensive, Bouck and his untested eighteen-man platoon found themselves in the hamlet of Lanzerath, less than a mile from the Siegfried Line, assigned temporarily to plug a strategic gap in the Allied lines. Neither trained nor equipped to fight as infantry, Bouck had been assured that they would soon be relieved by an infantry unit. As fate would have it, they stood squarely in the path of the main German assault. Ordered to hold their ground at all costs, the platoon withstood a series of German assaults throughout the day. Near dark and out of ammunition, they were finally overrun and captured. Against overwhelming odds, they held up the German advance for twelve hours and gave the remainder of the 99th Division time to regroup. In the following days, the Division would blunt the German offensive on the North shoulder of the Bulge.
The second half of the book follows the platoon's painful odyssey through the hell of a succession of German POW camps. Survival in this environment of scant food, primitive sanitary conditions, and harsh treatment required as much courage and discipline as combat. Dysentery, frostbite, gangrene, and hepatitis were constant companions, and platoon leader Bouck was near death with hepatitis when finally liberated on April 18 - ironically by the 99th Division.
It wasn't until their story became public that the Platoon received the recognition they were due. In 1980, platoon members were awarded four Distinguished Service Crosses (the Army's second-highest decoration for valor), five Silver Stars, and nine Bronze Stars with Valor Device. The unit also received a Presidential Unit Citation.
Kershaw recounts the story of the I&R Platoon in dramatic fashion. Drawing largely on interviews with surviving members of the platoon, he puts a personal face on the action: whether on the hillside at Lanzerath or mired in the abject misery of the POW hovels. These were young Americans - platoon leader Bouck turned twenty-one during his captivity - green and ill-equipped for their mission. Yet, as Kershaw ably demonstrates, it is a mistake to underestimate American soldiers. Then. Or, now.
Kershaw is the author of the best-selling The Bedford Boys, which tells the story of the Virginia National Guard unit that led the assault at Normandy on D-Day and paid a terrible price. He follows a similar pattern here: identifying a little-known unit with a compelling story that can serve as a template for a larger battle and telling that story with both passion and compassion. The Bedford Boys, a critical and popular success, showed that the formula works. The Longest Winter should reaffirm that success.
I DIDNT WRITE THESE REVIEWS
just wanted to give u somthing to do and i enjoi reading
Fifty-three years after the end of World War II, Yasuo Saito lives in quiet retirement concealing his shameful past as a Japanese navy pilot. Margaret Roberts, a senior U.S. government official at the end of her pioneering career, confronts her mother's failing health while she juggles nagging ambition and her quest for happiness.
Saito and Roberts each take refuge in Hawaii, where they help the FBI solve a mysterious shooting in Pearl Harbor. As that murder investigation unfolds, hidden stories are revealed that link Saito and Roberts to December 7, 1941, a day of infamy that pushed the world into war and would prove pivotal to both of them.
Against the backdrop of a shocking crime in late 1998, Clouds Over Mountains moves between modern-day Hawaii, Japan, and Washington, D.C., weaving recollections of pre-war Japan with contemporary political intrigue. The novel examines themes of love and family, shame and redemption, truth and hope, and how historical events continue to shape people's lives six decades later.
book num 2.
Bobby Pendragon, the Traveler from Earth, has made his way to the territory of Ibara, the next territory that he must save from the demon Saint Dane. Ibara at first seems like a paradise: set on a tropical island, the people lead simple lives, but are contented and happy. There are some odd aspects of Ibara: there is electricity, but no signs of industrialization. There is a ruling council of sorts which appears to make all the decisions for the people. Bobby meets a group of young rebels who oppose the island's conformity and don't want to comply with the council's ban against leaving the island. Bobby and the group (which calls itself the Jakills) steal a ship and head for distant shores. What Bobby finds there is so horrifying that it could have devastating consequences for all of Halla. In the meantime, Courtney Courtney Chetwynde has traveled back in time to First Earth, to find Mark Dimond, who has been totally taken in by Saint Dane and whose actions in the past could destroy Earth's future for good.
D.J. MacHale really turns up the heat in this eighth installment of the Pendragon adventure series. With dual narratives, the story switches between Courtney's adventures on First Earth as she tries to find Mark with the help of Gunny's acolyte, Dodger. Courtney and Dodger have adventures aplenty in New York City, circa 1937, including a terrifying confrontation with Saint Dane. Bobby's journey leads him to some terrible revelations and the surprise ending will have long-time readers literally gasping with shock. D.J. clearly knows exactly where this series is headed, and the pacing is perfect.
--Claire E. White
last and probrobly best book
The Battle of the Bulge is one of the most celebrated victories in U.S. military history. Late in 1944, Hitler decided on one final, desperate gamble to reverse Germany's rapidly deteriorating position on the western front. The operation, which relied on surprise and bad weather, envisioned breaching Allied lines in the Ardennes region of Belgium, crossing the Meuse River, and capturing Antwerp. In weeks of bitter fighting in the coldest winter in memory, Allied lines bent (hence the bulge) but did not break. When the Allies lifted the German siege, they quickly overwhelmed the Siegfried Line - the heavily fortified border separating Germany and Belgium - and poured into Germany. The war in Europe was over in four months. The Battle of the Bulge, indeed, had proved decisive, but not in the way Hitler had hoped.
The traditional heroes of the Bulge are the paratroopers of the 101st Airborne who defended the key town of Bastogne despite being surrounded and vastly outnumbered and Patton's Third Army which raced to Bastogne to help lift the siege. Alex Kershaw celebrates a little-known but equally heroic group - the Intelligence and Reconnaissance Platoon, 394th Infantry Regiment, 99th Infantry Division - in The Longest Winter. The I&R Platoon's story is less known because its leader, Lt. Lyle Bouck, was so ill with hepatitis contracted in POW camps that he was unable to file an after action report. It wasn't until John Eisenhower and other writers began to reexamine the battle that the story was unearthed.
In the pre-dawn hours of December 16, 1944, as the Germans massed to launch their offensive, Bouck and his untested eighteen-man platoon found themselves in the hamlet of Lanzerath, less than a mile from the Siegfried Line, assigned temporarily to plug a strategic gap in the Allied lines. Neither trained nor equipped to fight as infantry, Bouck had been assured that they would soon be relieved by an infantry unit. As fate would have it, they stood squarely in the path of the main German assault. Ordered to hold their ground at all costs, the platoon withstood a series of German assaults throughout the day. Near dark and out of ammunition, they were finally overrun and captured. Against overwhelming odds, they held up the German advance for twelve hours and gave the remainder of the 99th Division time to regroup. In the following days, the Division would blunt the German offensive on the North shoulder of the Bulge.
The second half of the book follows the platoon's painful odyssey through the hell of a succession of German POW camps. Survival in this environment of scant food, primitive sanitary conditions, and harsh treatment required as much courage and discipline as combat. Dysentery, frostbite, gangrene, and hepatitis were constant companions, and platoon leader Bouck was near death with hepatitis when finally liberated on April 18 - ironically by the 99th Division.
It wasn't until their story became public that the Platoon received the recognition they were due. In 1980, platoon members were awarded four Distinguished Service Crosses (the Army's second-highest decoration for valor), five Silver Stars, and nine Bronze Stars with Valor Device. The unit also received a Presidential Unit Citation.
Kershaw recounts the story of the I&R Platoon in dramatic fashion. Drawing largely on interviews with surviving members of the platoon, he puts a personal face on the action: whether on the hillside at Lanzerath or mired in the abject misery of the POW hovels. These were young Americans - platoon leader Bouck turned twenty-one during his captivity - green and ill-equipped for their mission. Yet, as Kershaw ably demonstrates, it is a mistake to underestimate American soldiers. Then. Or, now.
Kershaw is the author of the best-selling The Bedford Boys, which tells the story of the Virginia National Guard unit that led the assault at Normandy on D-Day and paid a terrible price. He follows a similar pattern here: identifying a little-known unit with a compelling story that can serve as a template for a larger battle and telling that story with both passion and compassion. The Bedford Boys, a critical and popular success, showed that the formula works. The Longest Winter should reaffirm that success.
I DIDNT WRITE THESE REVIEWS
just wanted to give u somthing to do and i enjoi reading
