This book is written from the perspective of David Talbot, who has set out to chronicle the lives of some of the other Vampires who had not previously had a strong feature. I really liked this book and enjoyed learning about Pandora and her history. This is an essential book for those who love the Vampire Chronicles series. 

 I got this book because I watched the miniseries. I loved the series, and the book was, of course, even better. It goes into much more detail about the experiences of the men who were in the Pacific. I cannot imagine what that was truly like to endure. This book was great, and I would suggest both the series and the book. 

 Lucie Aubrac was a Catholic girl who married a Jewish engineer. They were living in Vichy France at the outset of World War II, and they joined the underground resistance movement. This is her personal account of her activities in the resistance movement. This was a very good book, and I loved learning about what it was like in the movement. It was hard living during the War, especially when you were part of the targeted population. It is really inspiring to see how many brave people were around to stand up against something horrible. 

 I really enjoyed this book. It really gave a more personal perspective on the things that people I knew went through in Afghanistan. I cannot imagine being a person who lives there and endures the conditions and treatment that they have encountered over the years. I also cannot imagine the hardships in trying to fight in those conditions either. It really gives one a sense of empathy and a deeper respect for the experiences and aftermath that so many veterans that we know have gone through. 

 This is story of Eliezer Urbach, who traveled all over the world, experiencing all manner of things. He was under extreme struggle during the war years. There were experiences in South America that were formative and interesting. His eventual arrival in Israel was also very interesting. This was a good book. Also, I got it for a dollar, which was nice. 

 I cannot say that I am a fan of George W. Bush. He was president for my entire young adult life, and it was kind of a sad thing to see him go for that reason. Regardless of my political affiliation, I do acknowledge that President Bush had some good policies. He did really make efforts on a lot of things. Everyone comments, somewhat negatively, on his response to 9/11 and the war years that have followed, but I do believe that he cared about the people he sent over there. I do believe he cared about people in general. It is hard to be a President, because whatever you do will be wrong to someone. You cannot please everyone and every choice you make will impact people in one way or another. At any rate, he is certainly a talented artist. I wouldn't have thought about him being a painter until I saw an article about this book and his paintings of military members. I was really impressed by his work and his skill level. This was a neat thing to see. 

 Reserve Police Battalion 101 was founded on May 6, 1940. During World War II, paramilitary organizations were formed under the leadership of the SS. The 101 was mainly comprised of men in their 30's, who were considered too old to join the regular Army. To begin with, 101's assignment was to guard Polish prisoners of war behind German lines. They also participated in the expulsion of Polish residents from occupied areas, and the kidnapping of Polish children for "Germanization". Later on, in March and April 1942, 101 transported Jewish people from Lublin to concentration camps. The mass murders that they committed were simply atrocious. They were provided with alcohol and extra ammunition. They rounded up Jewish people, spent seventeen hours shooting them at point blank range while they begged/screamed/cried/tried to escape. They left the bodies laying where they fell, looted. Their uniforms were bloody and full of body tissue. This scene was repeated over and over. Estimates suggest that they were responsible for the murders of 83,000 Jewish people. Just their Battalion...there were others just like it. That is a massive amount of people.

I think that it is important to look at these events from all sides. People voluntarily join military organizations all over the world. People are drafted or conscripted into military service in times of war. Some countries even have a mandatory minimum service requirement. People generally find this reasonable and acceptable. The men of 101 fit into these generally reasonable and acceptable categories. What separates them from most other military organizations is the wide scale of their war crimes and the documentation of them. There is a saying about what is done in the dark, rises to the light...but they did their dark in the middle of the day. It was seen. It was photographed. It was documented. I do not think that most of these men were inherently evil people, and I am certain they were plagued by images and flashbacks for the rest of their lives about things they had done and experienced. (As they should have been.) A few times in the book, it was mentioned that they voluntarily let them switch out or sent those who could not continue back to the trucks, so I know it affected at least some of them. I doubt seriously that you could be party to the execution of 83,000 people and it not stay in your mind. I think that it is really interesting to consider how and why these men found themselves in this position to begin with, how they managed to carry out this gruesome and murderous work, and how some of them found themselves enjoying it. I find it interesting to consider the implications of an uprising to protest or refuse to do these crimes. Were they afraid they would be murdered? Likely. Were they born and raised into obedience without question? Likely. Were they anti-Semitic and thought this was really the best way to rid German society from the plague of people that were targeted demographics? Probably. The entire Holocaust is fascinating because of these multifaceted questions and how groups of people let themselves believe nonsense and follow orders and do horrible things to human beings. This is just a drop in the bucket of that, and a great topic for a discussion on human nature.

I thought the book itself was quite well written and researched. Reading material like this is not for the faint of heart, because it was really grim. It is an important book and important topic for several reasons. The people who were murdered deserve to have their stories known. Knowing how and why this type of action came to be carried out and accepted is important so that society may not travel down that path again. It is important to the discussion of human nature and the willingness to follow leaders. For those reasons, it was a great book, despite the subject matter being horrific. 

 This book was on a list that I looked up about wildfire disasters. It is clearly not about that, but I suppose it made it on the list because it was written by a fireman and covers the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, which, by all rights, was certainly a disaster. I have read a couple of books about the WTC attacks, however none were written from the perspective of anyone who was inside the buildings. I grew up in a fire fighting family, so I understand how heavy the gear was. I cannot imagine dragging all that stuff up all those flights of stairs. I cannot imagine the absolute chaos inside those buildings and in the city itself. This was a very good book, and I really liked seeing this from the perspective of an emergency response person. I would very much suggest picking this book up if you are interested in September 11 or firefighting in general. 

 I bought this book because I had started watching the Netflix show with my cousin. I can see that the show takes plenty of dramatic license with the goings on, as opposed to the book. It was interesting to read about the experience of prison. I always watch shows about people that are incarcerated and I am interested in true crime. I thought this book would be great, but it was not nearly as good as I had hoped. Maybe having watched the show with the annoying character of Piper ruined the book for me. I'm unsure. 

 Michael Hastings detailed his travels around the desert with General Stanley McChrystal during the Afghanistan War. This book exposed the negative feelings of military personnel towards those in charge back in Washington. When those comments were made public, former President Obama stripped McChrystal of his command. It also lifts the veil on the machinations behind the war in Afghanistan. It left me with some negative feelings about the administration of Obama, as well as the war. I have seen what involvement in that war has done to people that I know personally, that I love, and it is hard to reconcile what they believed in and what other people get up to behind the scenes. It is also interesting to note that the author met an interesting and untimely end, and it is widely believed that his death was related to this book. It wasn't the best book I read all year, but it was interesting, and necessary.