Rated of 5
by Nikki M. (Fort Wayne, IN) Good book club book!
After a rather slow start, I found myself finding this book harder to put down as the story progressed! I think this would be a great book club pick - I think I'll suggest it for my own.
P.S. I do think this would best be read in one sitting or a couple of large "chunks". Enjoy!
Rated of 5
by Iliana P. (Austin, TX) Gifts of War
While I found this novel had a wonderful premise, I was never convinced this was set in the WWI time frame. The events were there and the action but there was a certain mood lacking.
I found the narrator's first person use took away from the narrative especially when he would break out and say something like "you have to remember that in 1914 in the British army we had no helmets." Interesting fact but I didn't see how he addresses the reader. This happened often enough and it's just something I don't particularly care for as it takes me away from the story.
Rated of 5
by Molly F. (Atlanta, GA) The Truth Shall Set You Free
I found myself drawn into this story gently but surely. The story builds, layer upon layer and you want things to work out, but everyone keeps bumping into the truth.
It is at once a wonderful story about telling the truth and a candid view of the cost of first world war, about which I knew little.
Read it.
Rated of 5
by Ocia B. (Nevada, TX) Touched
This book touched me on many levels. As a recent widow I was touched by the characters and how they draw you into their lives and their story. As an historian I found it vivid and accurate. I would gladly recommend it.
Rated of 5
by Margaret H. (Springfield, VA) Gifts of War
Starting with the Christmas Truce in 1914 and continuing through World War I until it's end in 1919, this book uses the life of Hal Montgomery to illustrate the effects of war on participants as well as those left behind. Hal meets a German soldier during the truce and, charged with giving his photograph to his fiancee in England, he instead falls in love with Sam and her son and hides his knowledge of her past. Hal and Sam and their families are examples of all the joys and sadness of war. The reader can come to his own conclusion about the ironic title, Gifts of War. This is a good addition to the recent books on World War, although the reader may become a bit bogged down in some of the information about intrigue.
Rated of 5
by Talya M. (Medical Lake, WA) A beautiful story set in the turbulent times of WWI
During the Christmas Truce in WWII, a moment when enemies stopped fighting to celebrate life and Christmas, two men shared a moment that would change their lives forever. A British soldier made a promise to find the German soldier's girlfriend and tell her that he was thinking of her. After getting hurt on the battlefield the British soldier, Hal, went to keep his promise. He didn't expect to fall in love with the girl himself. The novel is not just a love story, but is a mix of espionage, adventure, families, and the "moral cost of war." This has been one of my best reads this year.
A bold, mesmerizing novel about the woman known as "Typhoid Mary," the first known healthy carrier of typhoid fever in the burgeoning metropolis of early twentieth century New York.
Stranger than fiction, blending tragedy and farce, How to Create the Perfect Wife is an engrossing tale of the radicalism, and deep contradictions, at the heart of the Enlightenment.
Z, the novel about the life of Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald is at points charming and; like another reviewer, I kept thinking of the movie, "Midnight...
read more
Although heavy on the scientific details, which slowed down the story for me (OK, I admit, I was one of those liberal arts majors who skipped out on...
read more
Loved this book. Magical, quirky, enchanting I could go on. All books do not have to be literary fiction, sometimes it is just so comforting to read...
read more
British Parliament asks Amazon to clarify why it pays $9 million in income tax on $23 billion of UK sales.(May 20 2013) Amazon will be called back to give further evidence to members of the British Parliament "to clarify how its activities in the U.K. justify its low corporate...
Full Story
of 5
by Nikki M. (Fort Wayne, IN) 
of 5
by Iliana P. (Austin, TX) 
of 5
by Ocia B. (Nevada, TX) 
