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Title: Five Came Back

Subtitle: A Story of Hollywood and the Second World War

Author: Mark Harris

Narrator: Andrew Garman

Format: Unabridged

Length: 20 hrs and 1 min

Language: English

Release date: 02-27-14

Publisher: Recorded Books

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 216 votes

Genres: History, 20th Century

Publisher's Summary:

It was the best of times and the worst of times for Hollywood before the war. The box office was booming, and the studios control of talent and distribution was as airtight as could be hoped. But the industrys relationship with Washington was decidedly uneasy - hearings and investigations into allegations of corruption and racketeering were multiplying, and hanging in the air was the insinuation that the business was too foreign, too Jewish, too "un-American" in its values and causes. Could an industry this powerful in shaping Americas mind-set really be left in the hands of this crew? Following Pearl Harbor, Hollywood had the chance to prove its critics wrong and did so with vigor, turning its talents and its business over to the war effort to an unprecedented extent.

No industry professionals played a bigger role in the war than Americas most legendary directors: Ford, Wyler, Huston, Capra, and Stevens. Between them they were on the scene of almost every major moment of Americas war, and in every branch of service - army, navy, and air force; Atlantic and Pacific; from Midway to North Africa; from Normandy to the fall of Paris and the liberation of the Nazi death camps; to the shaping of the message out of Washington, D.C.

As it did for so many others, World War II divided the lives of these men into before and after, to an extent that has not been adequately understood. In a larger sense - even less well understood - the war divided the history of Hollywood into before and after as well. Harris reckons with that transformation on a human level - through five unforgettable lives - and on the level of the industry and the country as a whole. Like these five men, Hollywood too, and indeed all of America, came back from the war having grown up more than a little.

Members Reviews:

Had a lot of fun with this book!

Would you listen to Five Came Back again? Why?

Isn't the electronic world wonderful. I am 68 years old. Born in 1946, I grew up in the aftermath of WW II in a small rural community. Almost every one of the males over the age of 30 had participated in the war - yet they did not talk a lot about it or if they did discuss it the conversation was very superficial. I also did not have exposure to the prewar or even war movies produced by these five directors. Thus I enjoyed the opportunity to hear their stories and at the same time to view the documentaries produced for the war departments (You Tube) and the movies (YouTube or purchased/rented online), both before, during and after the war. I spent probably 75 hours over a several month period working my way through the book and the movies. It was a most enjoyable experience. I was particularly struck by the psychologic damage caused by war (highlighted in the unreleased Wilder film), most recently highlighted by the long-term studies of Vietnam veterans. I also enjoyed watching the color movies recently released from George Steven's personal collection (History Channel 2 over Memorial and D-day anniversary), but the impact on his health, both psychologic and physical, as he collected these images was sad.This was a good read, but to appreciate it fully you will have to do some work.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Five Came Back?

There were many. I did not realize John Ford was at the Battle of Midway.

Which character as performed by Andrew Garman was your favorite?

Billy Wilder.

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Title: William & Rosalie

Subtitle: A Holocaust Testimony (Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Series)

Author: William Schiff, Rosalie Schiff, Craig Hanley

Narrator: Michael Fischbein

Format: Unabridged

Length: 4 hrs and 39 mins

Language: English

Release date: 01-29-14

Publisher: University Press Audiobooks

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 93 votes

Genres: History, 20th Century

Publisher's Summary:

William & Rosalie is the gripping and heartfelt account of two young Jewish people from Poland who survive six different German slave and prison camps throughout the Holocaust. In 1941, newlyweds William and Rosalie Schiff are forcibly separated and sent on their individual odysseys through a surreal maze of hate. Terror in the Krakow ghetto, sadistic SS death games, cruel human medical experiments, eyewitness accounts of brutal murders of men, women, children, and even infants, and the menace of rape in occupied Poland make William & Rosalie an unusually explicit view of the chaos that World War II unleashed on the Jewish people. The lovers story begins in Krakows ancient neighborhood of Kazimierz, after the Germans occupy western Poland. A year later they marry in the ghetto; by 1942 deportations have wasted both families. After Rosalie is saved by Oskar Schindler, the husband and wife end up at the Plaszow work camp under Amon Goeth, the bestial commandant played by Ralph Fiennes in Schindlers List. While Rosalie is on heaven patrol removing bodies from the camp, William is working in the factories. But when Rosalie is shipped by train to a different factory camp, William sneaks into a boxcar to follow, and he ends up at Auschwitz instead. Craig Hanley powerfully narrates the struggle of the couple to stay alive and find each other at wars end. Now in their eighties, William and Rosalie come to terms in this book with the loss of their families and years of torture at the hands of Nazi captors. Unique among memoirs from this era, the book connects directly to the present day. The Schiffs ongoing and highly effective campaign against prejudice and discrimination is a heroic culmination of two lives scarred beyond belief by racism. William & Rosalie artfully combines biography with timely lessons on the nature of mass hate, a stubborn phenomenon that continues to endanger every life on Earth.

Critic Reviews:

"This is a riveting, harrowing, dramatic true story, the stuff of which blockbuster movies and television mini-series are made. William & Rosalie is particularly distinguished by an underlying message warning of the dangers of prejudice and ethnic hatred." (Midwest Book Review)

"Every Holocaust Survivor has stories that grip and amaze us. But together with that, William and Rosalie Schiff have a rare dedication and determination to share these with as many people as possible. Rosalie was a pampered young girl. Yet she endured years in ghastly concentration and slave labor camps to emerge a warm and loving mother and grandmother as well as a dedicated community volunteer full of optimism and hope. William survived fifteen months in Auschwitz, including a time in Dr. Mengele's medical lab, yet he retained his indomitable spirit for life and an unshakable belief that there is but one race, the human race. Reading them is to be inspired deeply." (Elliott Dlin, Director, Dallas Holocaust Museum/Center for Education and Tolerance)

"The richness of the Schiffs' memories and the sheer intensity of their experiences record for posterity the horrors of the Holocaust." (Booklist)

Members Reviews:

Speachless, I wont forget this book

I cant use the words that i enjoyed this book, surely no one could. But i can say it just left me so captivated.

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Title: A Call to Arms

Subtitle: Mobilizing America for World War II

Author: Maury Klein

Narrator: Ben Bartolone

Format: Unabridged

Length: 35 hrs and 17 mins

Language: English

Release date: 12-17-13

Publisher: Audible Studios for Bloomsbury

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 21 votes

Genres: History, 20th Century

Publisher's Summary:

The colossal scale of World War II required a mobilization effort greater than anything attempted in all of the world's history. The United States had to fight a war across two oceans and three continents - and to do so it had to build and equip a military that was all but nonexistent before the war began. Never in the nation's history did it have to create, outfit, transport, and supply huge armies, navies, and air forces on so many distant and disparate fronts.The Axis powers might have fielded better trained soldiers, better weapons, better tanks and aircraft. But they could not match American productivity. America buried its enemies in aircraft, ships, tanks, and guns; in this sense, American industry, and American workers, won World War II. The scale of effort was titanic, and the result historic. Not only did it determine the outcome of the war, but it transformed the American economy and society. Maury Klein's A Call to Arms is the first narrative history of this epic struggle, told by a master historian, and renders the transformation of America with a depth and detail never available before.

Members Reviews:

At times interesting, but quite a long haul.

Would you try another book from Maury Klein and/or Ben Bartolone?

If it were shorter

What was your reaction to the ending? (No spoilers please!)

would have been interested in hearing more about the aftermath - demobilization.

What aspect of Ben Bartolones performance would you have changed?

his cadence was half a beat to fast. It was as if he was rushing at times. The performance still clocks in over 34 hours. Narrator had at times some eye brow raising pronunciations and left me with the impression he had little familiarity with the subject matter or at least the time frame in which it was set. (I imagine that is not why he was hired) His voice is pleasant enough and I got use to the performance.

Do you think A Call to Arms needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?

a focus on demobilization would interest me.

Any additional comments?

The material is at times very dry. You have to be pretty wonky to want to listen to it. I did learn much from it and overall enjoyed it. However, at times it felt like work.

Very scholarly work.

If you're interested in the details of what went on in America during the war years, this is the book for you. the narrator doesn't know how to pronounce several names and places and that can be distracting. He also seems very disinterested in the topic at times, as if he is just reading a technical manual. Otherwise very good.

The Detail is Numbing

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

Cut half the material and get a different narrator.When I reached the part where the author talks about a town that "claimed to serve the Home of the Sweetest Strawberries..." or when he talks about "41,449 pounds of aluminum" or "25,605 pounds of aluminum scrap", it was just too much detail.

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Title: Reclaiming Parkland

Subtitle: Tom Hanks, Vincent Bugliosi, and the JFK Assassination in the New Hollywood

Author: James DiEugenio

Narrator: Brian Troxell

Format: Unabridged

Length: 19 hrs and 37 mins

Language: English

Release date: 11-13-13

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 54 votes

Genres: History, 20th Century

Publisher's Summary:

Reclaiming Parkland details the failed attempt of Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman - cofounder of the production company Playtone - to make Vincent Bugliosis mammoth book about the Kennedy assassination, Reclaiming History, into a miniseries. It exposes the questionable origins of Reclaiming History in a dubious mock trial for cable television, in which Bugliosi played the role of an attorney prosecuting Lee Harvey Oswald for murder, and how this formed the basis for the epic tome. Author James DiEugenio details the myriad problems with Bugliosis book, and explores the cooperation of the mainstream press in concealing these many faults during the publicity campaign for the book and how this lack of scrutiny led Hanks and Goetzman to purchase the film rights. DiEugenio then shows how the film eventually adapted from that book, entitled Parkland, does not even resemble Reclaiming History, though the script for that film displays the same imbalance that Reclaiming History does.

Reclaiming Parkland also includes extended looks at the little-known aspects of the lives and careers of Bugliosi, Hanks, and Goetzman - including Bugliosis three attempts at political office and a review of the Tate-LaBianca murders in the light of todays knowledge of that case. DiEugenio also looks at the connections between Washington and Hollywood, as well as the CIA influence in the film colony today. Reclaiming Parkland is a truly unique audiobook that delves into the Kennedy assassination, the New Hollywood, and the political influence on how films are made today.

Editorial Reviews:

In Reclaiming Parkland: Tom Hanks, Vincent Bugliosi, and the JFK Assassination in the New Hollywood, James DiEugenio looks at the John F. Kennedy assassination through the lens of Hollywood.

Voiced with urgency by Brian Troxell, Reclaiming Parkland is a takedown of Reclaiming History, Vincent Bugliosis defense of the Warren Commission report and Tom Hanks attempt to dramatize it as a feature film. In his polemic, he painstakingly attacks the claims made in Bugliosis volume.

Troxell uses a full voice and brusque delivery, particularly in passages of scene, for this book that will delight conspiracy seekers.

Members Reviews:

Truth and Accountability Come A Knocking

What did you love best about Reclaiming Parkland?

The depth of research and documentation.

What other book might you compare Reclaiming Parkland to and why?

Sylvia Meagher's book "Accessories After the Fact" because of the competent research and documentation.

What about Brian Troxells performance did you like?

Clear without preachy intonation. Good pronunciation and almost errorless.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

No- - -the book is full of astounding facts which refute Vincent Bugliosi's myopic quest to validate fraud.

Any additional comments?

This book effectively demonstrates that "Reclaiming History" was a fraudulent attempt to validate an earlier (Warren Commission) fraud. "Reclaiming Parkland" uses much of the information gained from 2-million new pages of evidence the Assassinations Record Review Board (ARRB) released, which previously had been obfuscated by "authorities" in an effort to seal the deal for Johnson, Dulles, Ford, McCLoy, Hoover and a host of others who benefitted by JFK (and Bobby) being neutralized.

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Title: CIA Rogues and the Killing of the Kennedys

Subtitle: How and Why US Agents Conspired to Assassinate JFK and RFK

Author: Patrick Nolan, Dr. Henry C. Lee (foreword)

Narrator: Stephen Bowlby

Format: Unabridged

Length: 14 hrs and 17 mins

Language: English

Release date: 11-06-13

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 45 votes

Genres: History, 20th Century

Publisher's Summary:

The US Central Intelligence Agency is no stranger to conspiracy and allegations of corruption. Across the globe, violent coups have been orchestrated, high-profile targets kidnapped, and world leaders dispatched at the hands of CIA agents. During the 1960's, on domestic soil, the methods used to protect their interests and themselves, at the expense of the American people, were no less ruthless.

In CIA Rogues and the Killing of the Kennedys, Patrick Nolan fearlessly investigates the CIAs involvement in the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and Senator Robert F. Kennedy - why the brothers needed to die and how rogue intelligence agents orchestrated historys most infamous conspiracy.

Nolan furthers the research of leading forensic scientists, historians, and scholars who agree that there remain serious unanswered questions regarding the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, fifty years ago, and Robert F. Kennedy in 1968. He revisits and refutes what is currently known about Lee Harvey Oswald and Sirhan Bishara Sirhan, and offers listeners a compelling profile of the CIAs Richard Helms, an amoral master of clandestine operations with a chip on his shoulder.

Bolstered by a foreword by Dr. Henry C. Lee, one of the worlds foremost forensic authorities, CIA Rogues and the Killing of the Kennedys is an unmatched effort in forensic research and detective work. As the 50th anniversary of the JFK assassination approaches, Nolan has made a significant contribution to the literature on that fateful day in Dallas, as well as shed light on that dark night at the Ambassador Hotel. Listeners interested in conspiracy, the Kennedy family, or American history will find this audiobook invaluable.

Editorial Reviews:

Fifty years have passed since the assassination of John F. Kennedy, but the details of what happened on that fateful day are still highly debated. Here is Patrick Nolan's welcome addition to that debate, gathering the research of many forensic scientists and investigations to paint a vivid picture of the assassination of JFK as well as his brother, Senator Robert F. Kennedy. The argument presented is fascinating and points directly and unapologetically at the CIA. Stephen Bowlby gives a balanced narration of this work, going between a stark journalistic tone and forceful emphasis on the hard-hitting information.

Members Reviews:

Where are we now?

The evidence in this book is well put together and compelling. I was not one to believe the jfk/rfk conspiracy but after hearing this audio book I have found that there are not just "theories" out there but hard evidence of a US govt coup. Great book, sobering and a bit frightening. The only thing missing from this book is an idea of what this group of rogues has been up to since the 60's? How far does it go? 1984 in real life? It would appear that is where we are.

Thought provoking

Very interesting read(listen). A lot of information on Sir Han Sir Han. Would definitely recommend.

enjoyed

actual writing is pretty bland but the content is very interesting. overall I enjoyed it.

Thirston Howell III's voice

The subject & detail offered in this book was concise and well written. The hardest part was listening to the narrator read it. At times, he sounded like the millionaire on Gilligan's Island...

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Title: The Warren Commission Report

Subtitle: The President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy

Author: Michael Beschloss (introduction), The Warren Commission

Narrator: Peter Ganim, James Lurie, Michael Beschloss (introduction)

Format: Unabridged

Length: 34 hrs and 19 mins

Language: English

Release date: 11-05-13

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 37 votes

Genres: History, 20th Century

Publisher's Summary:

From the Report's original 1964 Introduction:

"President Lyndon B. Johnson, by Executive Order No. 11130 dated November 29, 1963, created this Commission to investigate the assassination on November 22, 1963, of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States. The President directed the Commission to evaluate all the facts and circumstances surrounding the assassination and the subsequent killing of the alleged assassin and to report its findings and conclusions to him.

"The subject of the Commission's inquiry was a chain of events which saddened and shocked the people of the United States and of the world. The assassination of President Kennedy and the simultaneous wounding of John B. Connally, Jr., Governor of Texas, had been followed within an hour by the slaying of Patrolman J. D. Tippit of the Dallas Police Department. In the United States and abroad, these events evoked universal demands for an explanation....

"With this report the Commission is submitting the complete testimony of all the witnesses who appeared before the Commission or gave sworn depositions or affidavits, the accompanying documentary exhibits, and other investigative materials which are relied upon in this report."

Members Reviews:

Best place to start to study the assassination

Very good logical analysis of the assassination. It does gloss over some questionable areas of interest but in general is 10x more honest about what really happened than practically any conspiracy book you can pick up.

The right conclusion.

Would you listen to The Warren Commission Report again? Why?

I would in case I missed some parts of it I thought might be important.

Who was your favorite character and why?

They were all excellent.

Have you listened to any of the narratorss other performances before? How does this one compare?

The man doing the intro I have, in top form here. The other ones, I hadn't.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

I'd already heard versions of the report, so no big reaction really.

Any additional comments?

None.

Essentially the Truth!!!!

Doesn't matter what the subject matter is, whenever an investigation into an incident or accident is needed mistakes will always be made, when there are hundreds of not thousands of witnesses how can this not happen. Most have an opinion on who committed or did not commit the Kennedy Assassination, the report here based on evidence from the 26 volumes of the Warren Commission is no different, but I feel is essentially correct in its conclusions the only wrong conclusion being that the first shot missed and not the second as they thought at the time.

They found no evidence of a conspiracy and although over the years nearly all conspiracy theorists have tried to nonsense this report not one of them have come up with a satisfactory alternative that either makes sense.

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Title: Hanns and Rudolf

Subtitle: The True Story of the German Jew Who Tracked Down and Caught the Kommandant of Auschwitz

Author: Thomas Harding

Narrator: Mark Meadows

Format: Unabridged

Length: 8 hrs and 52 mins

Language: English

Release date: 09-25-13

Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 52 votes

Genres: History, 20th Century

Publisher's Summary:

The untold story of the man who brought a mastermind of the final solution to justice

May 1945: In the aftermath of the Second World War, the first British War Crimes Investigation Team is assembled to hunt down the senior Nazi officials responsible for the greatest atrocities the world has ever seen. One of the lead investigators is Lieutenant Hanns Alexander, a German Jew who is now serving in the British Army. Rudolf Höss is his most elusive target. As kommandant of Auschwitz, Höss not only oversaw the murder of more than one million men, women, and children, he was the man who perfected Hitler's program of mass extermination. Höss is on the run across a continent in ruins, the one man whose testimony can ensure justice at Nuremberg.

Hanns and Rudolf reveals for the very first time the full, exhilarating account of Höss' capture, an encounter with repercussions that echo to this day. Moving from the Middle Eastern campaigns of the First World War to bohemian Berlin in the 1920s to the horror of the concentration camps and the trials in Belsen and Nuremberg, it tells the story of two German men - one Jewish, one Catholic - whose lives diverged and intersected in an astonishing way.

Members Reviews:

I Read This Marvelous Book...

directly on the heels of Jack El-Hai's The Nazi And The Psychiatrist, and they are the perfect pair of books, and I highly recommend that they be read together. Not only do both books deal with a particular Nazi war criminal and his interaction with another man on the other side of the war effort, but both books do something that not many history narratives dare: that is, to view these participants in the early twentieth century's most turbulent drama not as heroes or villians, as stereotypes, but rather as very complex human beings, with characteristics like all of us, and like each other...and thus we realize that, placed in another time in history, we might have been very different people indeed. Hanns and Rudolf is the proper title for this book, as we see beyond the familiar stamp of the last names most history books have already emblazoned with their over-simplified judgments--into men, into minds more familiar than is sometimes comfortable--and, in the process, a little more into ourselves. I highly recommend both books for their literary, psychological and historical value! Take the time to read them correctly, and you will well get your money's worth in these two great works on personal drama in the WWII theatre.

A must-read for any modern citizen

Not only is Thomas Harding an excellent journalist, but he is an impeccable storyteller. While diligently tracing the threads of history down narrow passageways, he manages to find that perfect balance of writerly touch and scholarly truth. The result is a masterful narrative worthy of every literary accolade.

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Title: The Assassination of the Archduke

Subtitle: Sarajevo 1914 and the Romance That Changed the World

Author: Greg King, Sue Woolmans

Narrator: Malcolm Hillgartner

Format: Unabridged

Length: 11 hrs and 27 mins

Language: English

Release date: 09-03-13

Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 53 votes

Genres: History, 20th Century

Publisher's Summary:

Drawing on unpublished letters and rare primary sources, King and Woolmans tell the true story behind the tragic romance and brutal assassination that sparked World War I.

In the summer of 1914, three great empires dominated Europe: Germany, Russia, and Austria-Hungary. Four years later all had vanished in the chaos of World War I. One event precipitated the conflict, and at its heart was a tragic love story.

When Austrian heir Archduke Franz Ferdinand married for love against the wishes of the emperor, he and his wife, Sophie, were humiliated and shunned. Yet they remained devoted to each other and to their children. The two bullets fired in Sarajevo not only ended their love story but also led to war and a century of conflict.

Set against a backdrop of glittering privilege, The Assassination ofthe Archduke combines royal history, touching romance, and political murder in a moving portrait of the end of an era. One hundred years after the event, it offers the startling truth behind the Sarajevo assassinations, including Serbian complicity, and examines rumors of conspiracy and official negligence.

Events in Sarajevo also doomed the couple's children to lives of loss, exile, and the horrors of Nazi concentration camps, their plight echoing the horrors unleashed by their parents' deaths. Challenging a century of myth, The Assassination of the Archduke resonates as a very human story of love destroyed by murder, revolution, and war.

Members Reviews:

Sarajevo trip in riveting slow motion

This book is not perfect by any means, the first half is plodding and somewhat repetitive, but the second half more than makes up for it with its minute and absolutely riveting account of how the ill fated Sarajevo trip came to happen, as well as the actual trip and everything that happened on Sarajevo on June 28th. This is "Chronicle of a Death Foretold" , and you will read in shock as you see the events unfold and ask " Why did not someone stop the trip? Why did they decide to keep their schedule on June 28th when that same day they had already been attacked?". So this is basically two books: the first one is interesting but a missed opportunity; the story of Franz Ferdinand and his "forbidden" marriage too Sophie is very interesting and out of high class melodrama, however the lack of context on Austrian politics and society is a big hole. The emphasis on the romance is probably due to the fact that the authors had direct access to the descendants of the Archduke. However, the secon half is absolutely priceless, as you see in dramatic slow motion the event which would lead to catastrophe. Recommended to anyone interested in World War I and as far as I know the only book in English whose main subject is the Archduke.

Attention grabbing

An example of history told as a story, at its best! I couldn't wait to hear more

A tragic family

June 28, 1914 will mark the 100th anniversary of that fateful day in Sarajevo. Wellknown royalty historians King and Woolman bring us a detailed account of the life, times, and tragic deaths of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his Czech Countess Sophia Chotek, that helped touch off WWI, which still shapes the world. The early chapters concentrate on Franz Ferdinands family, birth, childhood, education and military career.

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Title: Titanic 1912: The Original News Reporting of the Sinking of the Titanic

Author: Ken Rossignol

Narrator: Barry Abrams

Format: Unabridged

Length: 2 hrs and 27 mins

Language: English

Release date: 08-13-13

Publisher: Kenneth C. Rossignol

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 15 votes

Genres: History, 20th Century

Publisher's Summary:

The original 1912 news accounts of the Titanic disaster include the first-hand accounts of survivors as told to reporters who met the ship bringing them from where they were saved from lifeboats. The surviving crew describes the crucial moments after the ship hit the iceberg. A crewman testifies just three days after the sinking that the ship had a fire in its coal bunkers from the time it set sail.

Members Reviews:

A very interesting perspective on the Titanic.

Where does Titanic 1912: The Original News Reporting of the Sinking of the Titanic rank among all the audiobooks youve listened to so far?

This is one of the best because it presents great, new information about a topic that I have always been interested in.

Who was your favorite character and why?

A lot of the characters in the whole Titanic story are quite familiar and it is hard to pick a favourite but it was great to learn more details about them.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

Some of the stories had very emotional parts that really touched a person and only by reading the original stories do you get that close to the actual story.

Any additional comments?

This is such an interesting perspective on the Titanic story that I have never come across before.

Iceberg did not jump out and attack theTitanic

What made the experience of listening to Titanic 1912: The Original News Reporting of the Sinking of the Titanic the most enjoyable?

Barry Abram's expression as he told the story

What was one of the most memorable moments of Titanic 1912: The Original News Reporting of the Sinking of the Titanic?

I found the fake news reports the most memorable

What about Barry Abramss performance did you like?

Again, his expression as he told the story

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

The iceberg did not jump out and attack the Titanic!!!

Any additional comments?

As I was rereading Titanic 1912, my husband had the news channel on TV. I irony was not lost on me as I read about the misunderstandings in the initial news coverage. Or the errors mixed with the conjured and fabricated news stories. Some things never change! Even armchair quarterbacks still believe the notion that somehow the rich were favored for escaping the sinking ship while the lower classes died. They must have seen the movie instead of reading the lists of those who went down with the ship. As usual, Ken Rossignol went to original sources to garner information for this book. Thank goodness he took H.L. Menckens advice that a cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin. Ken looks around and carefully checks out all of the coffins he finds. There is a lot of information in this book and I highly recommend it for those whose minds arent already made up. The iceberg did not jump out and attack the Titanic!!!

New and Interesting Details of the Titanic

This was an Audiobook that really brings the amount of misinformation and out and out fraudulent articles that occurred in the titanic news coverage.

The narration kept the reporting of these facts interesting and enjoyable. The reports were so varied that the people on shore waiting for their family members were put through the wringer in emotion.

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Title: My Father's War: Fighting with the Buffalo Soldiers in World War II

Author: Carolyn Ross Johnston

Narrator: Lillian Rathbun

Format: Unabridged

Length: 5 hrs and 17 mins

Language: English

Release date: 07-10-13

Publisher: University Press Audiobooks

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 4 votes

Genres: History, 20th Century

Publisher's Summary:

My Father's War tells the compelling story of a unit of black Buffalo Soldiers and their white commander fighting on the Italian front during World War II.

The 92nd Division of the Fifth Army was the only African American infantry division to see combat in Europe during 1944 and 1945, suffering more than 3,200 casualties. Members of this unit, known as Buffalo Soldiers, endured racial violence on the home front and experienced racism abroad. Engaged in combat for nine months, they were under the command of southern white infantry officers like their captain, Eugene E. Johnston.

Carolyn Ross Johnson draws on her father's account of the war and her extensive interviews with other veterans of the 92nd Division to describe the experiences of a naive, southern, white officer and his segregated unit on an intimate level. During the war, the protocol that required the assignment of southern white officers to command black units, both in Europe and in the Pacific theater, was often problematic, but Johnston seemed more successful than most, earning the trust and respect of his men at the same time that he learned to trust and respect them.

Gene Johnston and the African American soldiers were transformed by the war and upon their return helped transform the nation.

The book is published by The University of Alabama Press.

"You will not know the full scope of America's military role in World War II until you read this absorbing book by Carolyn Johnston. She describes the heroic black soldiers on the battlefields in stories too little known until now. Read it." (Elie Wiesel, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and author of Night)

"My Father's War captures the experiences of black soldiers in the famed Buffalo Soldiers unit of the 92nd Division who served with distinction - and controversy - in some of the most brutal fighting in the war. Johnston does an excellent job of allowing a handful of veterans (including her father) to tell their own story, skillfully weaving them into her narrative, and she has made use of wartime letters to augment their still-vivid memories." (Thomas Childers, author of Wings of Morning: The Story of the Last American Bomber Shot Down Over Germany in World War II)

"My Father's War offers a completely new perspective and covers much more in depth the grueling story of the Buffalo Soldiers' battles in Italy. This book breaks new ground in a most readable and fascinating way." (Maggi M. Morehouse, author of Fighting in the Jim Crow Army: Black Men and Women Remember World War II)

Members Reviews:

Black history lived by a family member.

My Dad served in Italy. I learned more about his experience through the research of Carolyn Ross Johnson, than I could get out of him. I also purchased a copy for him and he could not put the book down until he finished reading it. He simply declared that her chronicles were accurate and thanked me. I pray God's blessings on the author for preserving this history.

Great book! I enjoyed every minute of it

Great book! I enjoyed every minute of it.

Three Stars

The narrative was uneven but had a lot of good information. Do not regret buying and reading this book.

Five Stars

Outstanding tale.

Eyeopening (again)

Despite just having finished a Teaching Company course on the Civil War, and Anthony Lewis' wonderful book on Times v.