The Silence of the Girls, Pat Barker

 

The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker

Started: February 23, 2025
Completed: February 25, 2025
Recommendation: Mild recommendation
Recommended By: The Booker Prize folks

Review:

You cannot get a Booker Prize unless there is some horror in your book.  That is just the truth.  This book is about the horror of women surviving the sack of their city (in this case in and around Troy).  It is pretty horrible.  Lots and lots of blood and gore as well as serial rape.  Not a fun read.  Well written

The Strategists, Phillips Payson O'Brien

 

The Strategists:  Churchill, Stalin, Roosevelt, and Hitler how war made them and how they made war by Phillips Payson O'Brien

Started: January 24, 2025
Completed: February 2, 2025
Recommendation: Recommended
Recommended By:  This probably came to me through The Atlantic magazine where O'Brien is a frequent contributor

Review:

This book is neither history nor biography.  It looks at the development of strategic thinking of the major leaders during World War II.  To some extent it is amazing what we now know of how they thought.  It was also interesting to see what drove their thinking.  I cannot say that this will change my thinking (I don't operate on a global scale), but it was interesting to see how failure functioned and how success required deference.