August 2018 Between the Wars

This time period has always fascinated me, not just about the politics of what led up to WWII, but of the cultural and social aspects. I'd include here the Spanish Civil War, Japan, China, North Africa, Italy, Australia- any where that was affected by or had an affect on the road leading from one great war to another over a generation. Also interested in translated books from other countries. A few ideas

Between the Wars

To Serve Them All My Days

Time of Gifts

Between the Woods and the Water

The Broken Road: From the Iron Gates to Mount Athos

Paris 1919

Homage to Catalonia

Stillwell and the American Experience in China

Japan's War: The Great Pacific Conflict

Europe Between the Wars

Women Between the Wars

List of novels from Goodreads

List of novels from Historical Novels.info

Still interesting for the months in Europe (especially Western) before the U.S. and U.S.S.R. were in the war, is
John Guntherʻs -"Inside Europe."

I am planning on reading The Italian Wife by Kate Furnivall. This book takes place in Italy during the early 1930's.

I'm going to read one of the Wizard of Oz books (2 were published post the Great War) or one of the original Tarzan books. (about 10 in the time period. I have had these anthologies on my Kindle for sometime. Glad to get started on them!

Just released:

THE DEATH OF DEMOCRACY
Hitler’s Rise to Power and the Downfall of the Weimar Republic

Looking at the list of novels linked above, found Carter Beats The Devil about a magician in the 20s. Excellent writing, brings you right into the time and place. Had hoped for a sequel...

It sounds like this one both leads up to and includes WWII, but I wonder if there's enough lead up to count for this:
Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin by Timothy Snyder

Hmmm, maybe it's too much WWII...

If I want to go with fiction, this would fit:
A Royal Pain / Rhys Bowen

Oh! This is 1933:
In the Garden of Beasts / Erik Larson

I'm going to do a reread of Ulysses accompanied by a first-listen to the unabridged audiobook narrated by Donal Donnelly and Miriam Healy-Louie {IMDb}, which seems to be more a "dramatization" than just a "reading."

I've got loads else that fits this period and I'll see what I else I get time for.

I will probably continue with a couple of series which will fit, and read the next (#6) in the Inspector Rutledge series, A Fearsome Doubt, set in 1920s England, or the next Maisie Dobbs (#11), A Dangerous Place, set in 1930s England.

I just remembered that my cousins husband was Martin Gilbert, the English historian and author who wrote a biography of Churchill and many histories of WWI and WWII. He passed away a few years back. His wife kindly sent me some links to his books that might be pertanent here

http://www.martingilbert.com/book/first-world-war-a-complete-history/

http://www.martingilbert.com/book/the-second-world-wara-complete-history/,

http://www.martingilbert.com/book/the-routledge-atlas-of-the-first-world-war-thi...

http://www.martingilbert.com/book/routledge-atlas-of-the-second-world-war-second...

Actually my first read is going to be A History of US: War, Peace, and All That Jazz: 1918-1945 A History of US…. I received this copy for free several years ago to preview and have not done. It's just a very mild review of the U.S. history during this time.

A History of US: War, Peace, and All That Jazz: 1918-1945 A History of US Book Nine by Joy Hakim. This is a series of books, intended for high schoolers, about U.S history. It was a very very general book and imho not suitable for any college prep courses but more for remedial students or students whose reading or reading comprehension may not be the best. I did learn a few new things though! 200 pages 3 stars

The quarterly discussion in 2015 included one on between the wars. Not sure if there is another way of transferring these, but here is the list of books read during that time:

Al Capone Does My Shirts (1935) - Gennifer Choldenko - countrylife (April) - April- June 2015

Among the Mad (1931-1932) - Jacqueline Winspear - countrylife (June) - April- June 2015

The Berlin Stories by Christopher Isherwood - CurrerBell - April- June 2015
Cane (Second Edition) (Norton Critical Editions) by Jean Toomer - CurrerBell - April- June 2015

Diary of a Provincial Lady (1930s) - E.M. Delafield - DeltaQueen - April- June 2015

Dollface, A Novel of the Roaring Twenties by Renee Rosen - Roro8 - April- June 2015

Ghost of the Ozarks (1929) - Brooks Blevins - countrylife (June) - April- June 2015

An Incomplete Revenge (1930s) - Jacqueline Winspear - countrylife (April) - April- June 2015

Look To The Lady (1930's) - Margery Allingham - DeltaQueen - April- June 2015

A Royal Pain (1930s) by Rhys Bowen - DeltaQueen - April- June 2015

To Kill a Mockingbird (1935) by Harper Lee - countrylife (April) - April- June 2015

Wise Children (1920s) - Angela Carter - countrylife (Apri) - April- June 2015

Whose Body? (Lord Peter Wimsey (1) by Dorothy L. Sayers - CurrerBell - April- June 2015

I've had to change my mind about the book I was going to read for this theme. I lent The Italian Wife to my mother and she hasn't finished with it yet, so I have decided to read Cause For Alarm by Eric Ambler, a 1930's thriller. This will "kill two birds" as it will also be one more book from the 1001 Books List.

I have recently been reading a lot about this period between the wars. A few of them are: The Death of Democracy by Benjamin Carter Hett, Hitler: The Memoir of the Nazi Insider Who Turned Against the Fuhrer" by Erst Hanfstaengl, "The Six: The Lives of the Mitford Sisters" and "They Thought They Were Free 1933-45" by Milton Mayer. I can recommend all of them except the Mitford book which I found to be terribly written.

I'd been planning to do a Ulysses reread, treeware and audio combined (>9 CurrerBell:) but I'm scheduled for surgery for prostate cancer on August 17 and it's going to be too complicated doing this inpatient, so I'll wait until I get home and then see about it.

I may just do Lewis: Main Street and Babbitt (Library of America). That'll also be worth a Big Fat Book and a ROOT just like Ulysses would and all I've ever read by Lewis (decades ago) is It Can't Happen Here. Anyway, I've got loads else for that period – and OH! I just remembered, I do want to get around to Before the Devil Breaks You, the most recent in Libba Bray's "Diviners" series (trilogy?).

>17 CurrerBell: hope your surgery goes well, I have been trying to recover myself from cancer surgery in June.

>17 CurrerBell:>18 best wishes to you both, and hope your are able to heal quickly!

>17 CurrerBell: >18 Tess_W: Best wishes to both of you!

>20 MissWatson: ty Brigitte! I just found out today no chemo, so I'm good to go!

>21 Tess_W: Glad to hear it. I hope the good news will continue!

>17 CurrerBell: & >18 Tess_W: Wishing you both all the best and a very speedy recovery.

I just finished Muriel Spark's Curriculum Vitae, which I read for a Spark centenary challenge, and then I realized that it fits this month's RTT theme. The first half, or a little more than half, of this autobiography covers Spark's childhood and school years along with her short-lived marriage and stay in Africa (mainly Rhodesia), all of which take in the interwar years. (The autobiography ends in the mid-50s with Spark's beginning success as a novelist.)

Edna St Vincent Millay, Conversation at Midnight, a closet drama in verse dealing with interwar intellectual and political issues. While it might have been of interest in its own day, it doesn't hold up well.

>17 CurrerBell: Best of luck on the surgery >18 Tess_W: and recovery for you both.

I picked up Design for Dying because of an LT recommendation. It wasn't until I was almost finished the story that I realized it was set in the right time period for this month's challenge. There was mention of on of the characters training for the 1940 Olympics in Tokyo (wouldn't that have been interesting) that firmed up the time period.

This was a fun mystery set in Hollywood when the studios ran it. The amateur sleuths were Edith Head and Lillian Frost, the famous designer and a shopgirl (at least in the beginning of the series.) There were star appearances and a look at the seamier underside of Hollywood. I am looking forward to the next book in the series.

In the Garden of Beasts / Erik Larson
3.5 stars

This book follows the American Dodd family in Berlin in the 1930s, with the focus being 1933 and 1934. William Dodd, a history professor, was the US ambassador to Germany at the time, and his entire family, including his adult children in their 20s, moved to Berlin at this time, so they all experienced life in the German city during the rise of Hitler. The book primarily follows William and his 20-something year old (very promiscuous) daughter, Martha.

The setting is certainly an interesting time and place, but I didn’t like it as much as the other books I’ve read by Larson. I found the descriptions of what was going on in Germany interesting, but there was a lot of politics that I didn’t find as engaging. Overall, though, I still thought the book was good, just not as good as his others, at least for me.

I just finished Charles Todd's "The Gate Keeper;' always well written, though often painful to read.

Inspector Ian Rutledge survived WW I with a bad case of shell shock, the ghost of his Sergeant and too many sleepless nights. One such night finds him on a long empty road suddenly faced with a woman standing over the dead body of her escort. Before the journey ends, there will be three dead men who, having survived a long and bloody way, will be murdered close to home less than two years after the war's end.

The series consistently follows the struggles of those who suffer from shell shock, also known as cowardliness, and or those trying to fit back into a normal life after the horrors of the trenches, the loss of limbs and the damages of the gas attacks.

High Rising (1933), the first of Angela Thirkell's Barsetshire Books set in Trollope's Barsetshire. A humorous look at the English upper-middle class set contemporaneously with (or a few years earlier than) its publication date. I'll be doing a fairly extensive Thirkell read for this month's Virago Modern Classic monthly author read, with the next one (Wild Strawberries, the second in the series) also qualifying for this month's RTT theme, although the other books I have in this series are set in the WW2 era or later.

Decent enough, 3***, but a rather contrived plot. Still, though, it was designed for humor, not for "literary immortality."

In the Garden of Beasts was my fourth Erik Larson read, and I agree with >28 LibraryCin: Cindy that is was not his best, though interesting for insight as to time and place. (1930s)

I also read
A Fearsome Doubt by Charles Todd, an Inspector Ian Rutledge mystery, of a shell-shocked WWI veteran solving cases in England. (1920s)
A Star for Mrs. Blake by April Smith, about the Gold Star Mothers pilgrimages to their sons' graves in France. (1930s)

I always forget how many Cindys' (Cindies?) there are in this place :)

>32 cindydavid4: LOL! I know, right!?

I'm a little newer to this group, so you only just started seeing me this year!

Another by Angela Thirkell, Wild Strawberries, which fits this group's monthly theme and also satisfies the Virago monthly author read.

I have several of her books, given to me by an aunt. Never cared for the writing, but I keep them for the original covers - just lovely!

I just finished "An Incomplete Revenge" by Jacqueline Winspear. Her books are always carefully plotted and even many of the lesser characters are well fleshed out. This one was set in 1931 in Kent during the hop picking season--considered a bit of a vacation for the working class of London, even though they were working, ie, a change of scenery being in the sunshine in the country.

As always, this part of the series blends the wounds of the past (WW I) with the stories of the present. In this instance, a wartime bombing in a Zeppelin raid lies at the root of random fires set on the anniversary of that bombing each year and the air of guilt woven through the village.

Well done!****

I read Cause For Alarm by Eric Ambler for this month's theme. Set in 1938 Fascist Italy, it gives a good picture of the political tensions that were arising in Europe at that time.

I have finished Remarque's Der Weg zurück where he follows a group of young veterans from the Armistice through the first post-war years.

I didn't realize he wrote another book. Do you know if its translated in English?

>39 cindydavid4: Yes, it was translated, it's called The Road Back. According to the editor's note, it was made available in several languages immediately after the German publication, because of the sensational success of All quiet on the Western front. There's also Three comrades which forms a loose trilogy with the other books.

ok great - I don't know why I never thought of looking, because Western Front was probably the first WWI book I read and after all this time is one of my top favs. Thanks for that.

I think The remains of the day also fits here, because the glory days of Darlington Hall which butler Stevens reminisces about were in the twenties and thirties. Somehow I didn't remember that from the movie...

Before the Devil Breaks You by award-winning and best-selling author Libba Bray, the third installment in her projected four-volume "The Diviners" series. YA paranormal thriller and romance set in New York City in the Roaring 20s.

ETA: {sigh} Given the health problems I've had this month (surgery for prostate cancer), I haven't gotten to my ambition of rereading Ulysses accompanied by the highly acclaimed and unabridged audiobook interpretation. I'm sure there will be some other "challenge" opportunity for this one next year – in fact, next year's second quarter will also be "Between the Wars."

Wishing you health and a better year! Hang in there

Thanks to all of you for participating this month. I have a list a mile long of books I need to read, and loved the discussion!