This is the story of the inmate revolt at Sobibor during World War II. This happened in October 1943. Six hundred inmates turned against their SS guards, ultimately killing a dozen. Three hundred of those managed to make it out of the camp, and around fifty lived through to the end of the war. The conditions and treatment of these people in these camps was absolutely disgusting, and I am glad that they revolted. I wish more of them would have made it out. This was a good book, and I would recommend it. 

 This is the personal account of life inside the FLDS, as experienced by Carolyn Jessop. She was born into the cult, into a plural family. At the age of eighteen, she entered into an arranged marriage with a much older man that already had three wives. She was spied on by the other wives, who disliked her and wanted her to be in trouble with her husband. She wound up having eight children with this man. She put up with years of psychological and emotional abuse at the hands of this man and his other wives. She eventually got fed up with that life and absconded with her children. At least one of her children wound up going back to the FLDS, which I was disheartened to see. I thought this book was emotional and candid. I cannot imagine having to endure the things that Carolyn and so many other people go through being in the FLDS. 

 I had been looking forward to this book after reading a review in a magazine. We are all interested in space in this household, and I have tried to get as many space related books as I happen across. I have seen a few reviews that say they wish they would have known this was a biography that encompassed the entire life of Scott Kelly, but it says right in the title it is a lifetime of discovery, so I am not sure how that was missed? I love biographies in general, and this one was interesting. It was interesting to see how Scott Kelly began his journey to space. I was very interested in the parts of the book that spoke about the effects of being in space on the human body, especially for an extended period of time. Overall, it was a great book, and I am glad I finally sat down to read it. 

 I really enjoyed this book. I think it didn't really occur to me that there were prison camps and work camps that people were still confined to. That seems so entirely primitive to me. The backbreaking labor and the starvation that so many people are forced into is distressing, to say the least. The fact that people are tortured and people look the other way and walk on by is equally distressing. At this point in the history of the world, humanity should be a little more civilized, but we simply aren't. I hope that more people are able to get out of these situations and tell their stories so that a change could possibly occur. 

This book is about Srebrenica and the genocide of the Muslims there. The Bosnian War was in the mid 1990s, and the genocide at Srebrenica was a direct result of that. This book was an honest account of the events that happened in Srebrenica, and it may not be for the faint of heart. It is truly despicable the way that human beings treat each other for things like ethnicity and religion. This is absolutely horrible. I had never heard about this event, and it was actually shelved in the Nazi Holocaust section at the used bookstore. I learned so much, and then learned some more after I searched the internet. I hope more people learn about this and learn from it.

 This book features one longer case segment, and then some shorter ones. I prefer the main focus to be on particular case, which I think I say every time I review one of these anthologies. The writing is decent, the cases are interesting enough, and I think these will be great ones for an introductory into true crime. There are a lot of books in this Crime Files collection. 

 Each of these compilations consist of one longer case story and then a couple of shorter ones. I get pretty into the longer one, and wish they had more detail. The author is a very capable writer, especially in her single case books. She is always very knowledgeable about police procedure, forensics, and court. This is one of my favorite crime authors, for sure. 

 Quanah Parker was born in Oklahoma in the late 1840s or early 1950s, but the date is debated. He was part of the Antelope band of Comanche. His mother was a white woman who had been captured by Comanche warriors during the raid of Fort Parker in Texas. She was nine years old at the time of her capture. She eventually married to a Kwahadi warrior, who was a direct descendant of Iron Jacket. Quanah's mother and sister were captured by the United States military, and his father was killed. He was a skilled and well respected leader, even on the reservation. He was part of a raiding party that resulted in the Red River War. I will not go into detail about what happened to the Comanche people in my little summary here so that I do not ruin the book. Eventually, Quanah Parker married, learned some English, and white farming techniques. He also was key in founding the Native American Church movement. He died at age 66.

I have a few thoughts about Quanah Parker before I get into my thoughts about the book. There are several critics in the Comanche community towards Quanah Parker. They accuse him of bowing to the White Man and the government of the colonizers. Perhaps he did, because he stopped warring and adopted a lot of white things. His farming, his manner of dress, and his use of English are a few of the things he adopted. However, he did not abide by US marriage laws at had several wives at home. He also continued to keep the custom of having long hair in braids, which is apparently a really spiritual thing to Native people. I think he was a man who adapted to his circumstances in the best way that he could. I cannot imagine how difficult that must have been for him to do, and for all Native people to encounter and live through. This is just one footnote in a long story of genocide, but it is just as sad as all the others. First, I want to mention that I learned so much from this book about the Comanche. I personally live in East Tennessee, so all we ever learned about in school were the Cherokee, and that was scare information at that. I did not know anything about the Red River War or anything surrounding those events, so this book was very educational to me. I also feel that the book was very well researched. I always google things after the fact, sometimes during, because I like maps and pictures to supplement my reading, and I was able to match up a lot of the facts with outside sources and images. If you are interested in Native history, you should really make sure this book is included on your list. 

 Thomas Hamill was captured by Iraqi insurgents in April 2004. He was a civilian truck driver, who was delivering fuel to the United States military in Iraq. He was in a convoy near Baghdad International Airport when the convoy was ambushed. He was injured and taken prisoner by the insurgents, while his coworkers were killed. The military escort also had two soldiers killed. He was very concerned after the news of United States abuses in Abu Ghraib hit the world while he was held captive. He was convinced they were going to make an example out of him. He escaped after 24 days in captivity. He ran into the National Guard from New York and let them know he was an American Prisoner of War.

This was a really dramatic retelling of a horrifying and dramatic experience. I appreciated this personal account. I do not remember ever hearing about this, but then again I was just a Sophomore in high school at the time. I highly recommend this book. It's a great lesson in staying positive and motivated, even in dire circumstances. 

 This book was suggested to be from Goodreads, as I had previously read a book about Granite Mountain and The Thirty Mile Fire. I got this particular book on Audible with my credits, and listened it fairly quickly. The Esperanza Fire started on October 26, 2006 via arson. It was also fueled by the Santa Ana winds, making the spread of fire extremely rapid. This fire took the lives of five firemen, burned something like 50+ structures, damaged the paved highway, and burned over 40,000 acres. There were an additional number of fire personnel who were injured in various ways, but recovered. I was highly irritated with how everyone wanted to place blame on the firemen. Perhaps they made good decisions and the conditions rapidly changed, perhaps they made poor decisions. The fact that they lost their lives is more than enough punishment for whatever decisions that were made that were unfortunate. The fact remains that this fire was intentionally set by a louse, and none of them would have been there to make any decisions if the fire was not set on purpose. Oyler had some previous run ins with the legal system, and had plenty of red flag, creepy qualities. I had to Google the images of the fire and people involved while I was listening to this book, and I have to say that he looks similar to the imagine my mind conjured up. During the book it said he had an ICP poster on his wall that, as stereotypical as this sounds, told me basically all I needed to know about his personality. I hate to say a book like this is good, because of the subject matter, but it was interesting, engaging, well written and researched, and I learned quite a bit about this event that I did not know. I would highly recommend for anyone interested in disasters, crime, or firefighting.