THE BLOOD OF FREE MEN: The Liberation of Paris, 1944
By Michael Neiberg. Basic Books. 352 pages. $28.99

The liberation of Paris was an important symbolic event during the end game in World War II. Author Michael Neiberg’s account of that liberation, “The Blood of Free Men,” explores the importance of Paris to the French and Americans, not the strategic value that other sites would have during World War II, but the emotional connection most Allied combatants felt toward the City of Light.

The title of the book is derived from the words of Algerian-born existentialist Albert Camus who was writing for an underground newspaper, Combat.

Camus said that Paris had traditionally and historically filled a role of purging tyranny with “the blood of free men,” Neiberg writes:

“The liberty that the city was buying with its own blood,” Camus argued, “was the liberty not just of Paris and not just of France, but of mankind itself.”

Neiberg shows how Free French Forces leader Gen. Charles de Gaulle staged the liberation to cement his political dominance in post-war France, and how his masterful political maneuvering prevented what French democrats do best — kill one other, although there was a fair amount of that, too.

The book is not just about de Gaulle, or the American-British coalition that allowed him to liberate his country’s capital city. It is about all the factions that worked together to drive the Germans from Paris. Some of those partisans were cast aside after the liberation, but they are acknowledged here as partners in an important symbolic Allied victory and Axis defeat.

— Michael L. Ramsey is president of the Roanoke Public Library Foundation.

ALLISON HEWITT IS TRAPPED: A Zombie Novel
By Madeleine Roux. St. Martin’s Griffin. 352 pages. $14.99

By Suzanne Wardle
suzanne.wardle@roanoke.com

It should have been a regular Friday at the bookstore, but instead graduate student Allison Hewitt and her colleagues were holed in the break room, living on potato chips, cookies and soda and arguing about when to make a break from their quarters to possibly — but not definitely — safer ground.

The figures wandering the aisles aren’t customers, not anymore. They’re zombies. Their origins are uncertain, but their motives are clear. Allison knows they want to pick her brains, and not for book recommendations.

There’s no boring beginning in “Allison Hewitt is Trapped.” Author Madeleine Roux introduces the eponymous heroine in the thick of action, the first in a long string of conflicts.

Allison’s only way to communicate with the outside world (or what’s left of it) is through her blog. She updates on her laptop when she finds pockets of wireless, and thus her story unfolds. Her priority is to find her mother and make it to the enclave Liberty Village in Colorado. Armed with an ax and a German shepherd mix — what’s a post-apocalyptic story without a canine sidekick? — Allison treks through the Midwest. Her journey will reveal not just what it takes for her to remain human, but also to retain her humanity. Read more »

MEASURE OF THE EARTH: The Enlightenment Expedition That Reshaped Our World

By Larrie D. Ferreiro. Basic Books. 350 pages, $28

Ship navigation in earlier centuries was by star sightings and luck. Better information on the shape and size of the Earth was critical for commerce and battle plans. French philosopher Rene Descartes argued that the Earth was elongated at the poles like an egg. British philosopher Isaac Newton suggested it had a bulge in the equator and flattened at the poles.

In 1734, the French, in cooperation with Spain, funded a scientific expedition called the Geodesic Mission. Eighteen scientists were to go to South America and, at the equator, measure the distance between one angle of the latitude. The author describes the incredible adversities encountered by the team: the jungles and highlands of equatorial Peru, attacks by local inhabitants, near-mutiny, war, siege and other trials.

In following the work in their project, it is most impressive to see the intellectual skills people possessed by that generation, particularly in mathematics and astronomy.

When the project was over, the author describes the return journey of each individual team member. Some took a direct route back to France, while others lingered for years before returning. One went by a tributary of the Amazon to a port on the Pacific.

The last section of the book is most interesting — describing the impact of this one scientific expedition on future expeditions in determining the size and shape of the Earth, with the goal of improving navigation.

Larrie Ferreiro spent years researching all over the world for information for this book. His fine writing skills give a very accurate technical and historical account of the Geodesic Mission.

Which was right: Descartes’ theory that the Earth was elongated or Newton’s theory that the Earth had a bulge at the equator? Sorry, you will have to read the book to find out.

 – William Mashburn Sr. is professor emeritus of mechanical engineering at Virginia Tech and is executive director of the Institute of Energy Professionals.

On Dec. 29, 1890, near Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota, 153 Sioux men, women and children were massacred, and 51 others wounded. A regiment of the 7th Cavalry, led by Col. John Forsyth, did the killing. However, it was the policies forged in Washington, D.C., that led directly to what occurred that momentous day.

Through the use of extensive documentation, this is the core premise author Heather Cox Richardson provocatively probes in “Wounded Knee: Party Politics and the Road to an American Massacre” (Basic Books, 392 pages, $28.95)

Republican President Benjamin Harrison’s administration followed the concept that what was good for big business was also good for the country. Like-minded members of the press were eager to point to the lavish homes and lifestyles of the country’s richest Americans as proof that this philosophy worked.

Contrary to that opinion, Democrats pointed to urban poverty, child labor, low wages and high prices on foreign commodities because of exorbitant tariff fees. While the battle over these issues raged, Harrison was focused westward with a vision of acquiring new states to join the union to gain more political power. The frontier also offered expansion of the railroad lines and an abundance of natural resources.

The biggest obstacle to these plans was Americans Indians’ attachment to the land. By 1890, Sitting Bull and many other chiefs and their people were confined to reservations.  Tribes were stripped of their dignity, forced to work as farmers on arid land without the proper tools. Denied the sufficient supply of food, clothing and blankets allotted them in the most recent treaty they had signed, they were starving and freezing to death that harsh winter.

Richardson meticulously recounts the Wounded Knee Massacre in vivid detail based on numerous eyewitness accounts made by Sioux survivors, soldiers, newsmen and citizens.

— Charles Shea Lemone is a writer in Ferrum.

FOLLOWING THE YELLOW ARROW: Younger Pilgrims On The Camino Edited by Lynn K. Talbot and Andrew Talbot Squires. Wingspan Press. 246 pages. $14.95

The 21 essays in this delightful collection, most of them by college students, offer the reader many pleasures.
The yellow arrow of the title indicates the path to follow on the 500-mile trail called the Camino de Santiago.

This leads travelers across the northern part of Spain to Compostela, the burial place of St. James, according to Christian legend. This trek is featured in the film “The Way,” which was screened at Virginia Tech this month.

During the Middle Ages, pilgrims walked for religious reasons, such as seeking favor or earning forgiveness of sins, and thousands flocked to the shrine. However, their numbers waned even before the Reconquest in Spain and the Protestant Reformation.

Recently there has been a resurgence of pilgrims, frequently for academic purposes. The mother-and-son team that edited this book have hiked several times, together and with others. Like all of the contributors, they have been permanently touched by the experience. These accounts differ, of course, but they all tell about the feeling of adventure, the physical challenges, the vagaries of weather, and the variety of food and accommodations.

Though there are encounters with fellow travelers along the way, these modern-day pilgrims also had time to be alone and to reflect. Each learned about himself and found answers about how to live, proving that after many centuries the Camino still works miracles.

— Lynn Eckman is a retired Roanoke College professor and a former colleague of Lynn Talbot.

AVATAR MEHER BABA AND THE TRAIL OF TEARS: A Pilgrim’s Guide to the Journey
By Julia Ross. Multicultural Educational Publishing.
456 pages. $30

While reading “Avatar Meher Baba and The Trail of Tears,” by Julia Ross, I was surprised I did not get writer’s cramp from underlining so many passages.

It is difficult to imagine how much research time went into this accessible and informative book, covering spiritual beliefs, quotes, historical articles and data, and the author’s own narrative as she and a friend traveled, as closely as possible, the same route used in 1838 to forcibly march thousands of Cherokees from their homeland to Oklahoma. It’s the same trail Avatar Meher Baba traced in the early 1950s with many of his spiritual followers.

Meticulously and scrupulously, Ross points out how the Cherokee social structure, customs and spiritual beliefs coincided with Baba’s teachings. For example, I learned the Cherokee Nation had gotten rid of its priest class, accorded its women equal rights and was multiracial.
Sadly, I was also reminded of how our forefathers broke treaty after treaty to rob American Indians of their land and culture.

This is a must-read for anyone interested in American history, from a nation-building perspective, and in learning about the spiritual teachings of Avatar Meher Baba.

— Charles Shea LeMone

“A VISIT FROM THE GOON SQUAD” By Jennifer Egan.

Alfred Knopf. 288 pages in hardcover.

Disjointed and yet intertwined. Vignettes that collide over the course of 40 years into a long, complex narrative.

Multiple protagonists orbiting directly and indirectly over space and time around one teenager who loves punk rock music.

Unique and insightful storytelling in the first, second and third persons.

All of this describes Jennifer Egan’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, “A Visit from the Goon Squad” (2010).
At the top of the novel’s organizational chart of characters (I was tempted to make one while reading this book) is Bennie Salazar, a mediocre bass guitar player turned struggling record executive.

Through Bennie, in a complex game of six-degrees-of-separation, readers meet generations of characters and become immersed in their stories of sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll.

The chapters are, in various combinations, harrowing, touching and darkly funny. As disconnected as the individual characters may seem, their stories play together like tracks on an album, and by the last cut, they make a cohesive artistic statement.

A word of advice: One chapter is told entirely in PowerPoint with flow charts and Venn diagrams (weird, yes, but it works brilliantly), and I found it is difficult to read on an e-reader. For the best experience, kick it old school and get the print version.

— Nona Nelson

THE KOREAN WAR: A History  By Bruce Cumings. Modern Library. $24

If you think you know all you need to about America’s “forgotten war,” this book will expand your knowledge greatly, but not comfortingly.

The Korean War (1950-53) was not simply a “naked aggression,” with bad guys and good guys conveniently separated by an arbitrary post-World War II border.

The North was led by those — including the infamous Kim Il Sung — who had stoutly resisted the prolonged occupation of Korea by militaristic Japan.

The South was thick with people who had collaborated with Japan, even taken up arms alongside them.
Both sides had committed prewar raids on the other.

Syngman Rhee, handpicked by the United States to head the South, killed thousands of his countrymen who opposed  his policies or dared protest their abysmal living conditions.

As for the Americans, most of their soldiers fought bravely, while some others committed or allowed atrocities that officials first tried to hush up, then blame on the North. Read more »

THE ART OF RACING IN THE RAIN: A Novel, by Garth Stein. Harper Paperbacks. 336 pages. $14.99

We’ve all done it: stared at our dogs’ cryptic faces and wondered what in the world they’re thinking.

Author Garth Stein took such curiosity a step further. His 2008 novel, “The Art of Racing in the Rain,” imagines life through the watchful eyes of a fiercely loyal and delightfully philosophical canine named Enzo.

The beloved companion of race car driver Denny Swift, Enzo learns life lessons (patience, focus, persistence) from watching racing videos on TV. But he learns love lessons (trust, faith, forgiveness) from seeing his own family grow as Denny takes a wife, and the couple have a daughter.

The tale of this dog offers charming insight into canine motivations, but it becomes a gripping page-turner when unforeseen crises threaten the family’s bonds like obstacles on a wet and slippery racetrack.

An exploration of all kinds of love, from interspecies friendship to human romance and parenthood, the novel is a sweet and satisfying story that will have readers chuckling, sniffling and gasping — but will ultimately leave them wagging.

— Starshine Roshell.  Her column on family life runs twice a month in Monday’s Extra.

“TURNING THE TIDE. How a Small Band of Allied Sailors Defeated the U-Boats and Won the Battle of the Atlantic,” By Ed Offley. Basic Books. 480 pages. $27.99.

University of Virginia alumnus Ed Offley tells about the Allies’ hard-fought battle for supremacy at sea in the Atlantic Ocean during the spring of 1943.

The merchant fleet built to supply allied forces in Europe was being stalked and harassed by “wolf packs” of German U-boats. The U.S. merchant fleet traveled in convoy from America to Great Britain and to Russia to arm and resupply our principal allies during World War II.
Offley re-creates the perilous journeys during the Battle of the Atlantic — journeys that cost the lives of tens of thousands of sailors — merchant seamen, U.S. Navy personnel and the crews of German U-boats.

Offley also explores the bureaucratic side of war and recounts efforts to decipher the German Enigma codes.
George Washington learned that keeping an army supplied was a key to success on the battlefield. His favorite general, Nathanael Greene, proved to be genius at the logistics of supply.

This book and “Neptune’s Inferno” show how the supply needs of an army at war have not changed over time.

— Michael L. Ramsey