…and then to nearly weeping as I read Erik Larson’s narrative nonfiction book about the American ambassador to Germany during the lead up to WWII. This was a powerful read, especially knowing what we know now. There were people, like Ambassador Dodd, who knew what was coming. Sadly, there were many more people around the world who thought Hitler’s reign would be short and uneventful. This book isn’t to be missed by anyone who enjoys history.

Description:
The time is 1933, the place, Berlin, when William E. Dodd becomes America’s first ambassador to Hitler’s Germany in a year that proved to be a turning point in history.
 
A mild-mannered professor from Chicago, Dodd brings along his wife, son, and flamboyant daughter, Martha. At first Martha is entranced by the parties and pomp, and the handsome young men of the Third Reich with their infectious enthusiasm for restoring Germany to a position of world prominence. Enamored of the “New Germany,” she has one affair after another, including with the suprisingly honorable first chief of the Gestapo, Rudolf Diels. But as evidence of Jewish persecution mounts, confirmed by chilling first-person testimony, her father telegraphs his concerns to a largely indifferent State Department back home. Dodd watches with alarm as Jews are attacked, the press is censored, and drafts of frightening new laws begin to circulate. As that first year unfolds and the shadows deepen, the Dodds experience days full of excitement, intrigue, romance—and ultimately, horror, when a climactic spasm of violence and murder reveals Hitler’s true character and ruthless ambition.
 
Suffused with the tense atmosphere of the period, and with unforgettable portraits of the bizarre Göring and the expectedly charming–yet wholly sinister–Goebbels, In the Garden of Beasts lends a stunning, eyewitness perspective on events as they unfold in real time, revealing an era of surprising nuance and complexity. The result is a dazzling, addictively readable work that speaks volumes about why the world did not recognize the grave threat posed by Hitler until Berlin, and Europe, were awash in blood and terror.

Have you read either of these? Do you plan on it? As always, I’d love to hear what you think!

You are about to read an extraordinary story. It will take you to the very depths of despair and show you unspeakable horrors. It will reveal a gorgeously rich culture struggling to survive through a furtive bow, a hidden ankle bracelet, fragments of remembered poetry. It will ensure that the world never forgets the atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia between 1975 and 1979, when an estimated two million people lost their lives. It will give you hope, and it will confirm the power of storytelling to lift us up and help us not only survive but transcend suffering, cruelty, and loss.

For seven-year-old Raami, the shattering end of childhood begins with the footsteps of her father returning home in the early dawn hours, bringing details of the civil war that has overwhelmed the streets of Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capital. Soon the family’s world of carefully guarded royal privilege is swept up in the chaos of revolution and forced exodus. Over the next four years, as the Khmer Rouge attempts to strip the population of every shred of individual identity, Raami clings to the only remaining vestige of her childhood— the mythical legends and poems told to her by her father. In a climate of systematic violence where memory is sickness and justification for execution, Raami fights for her improbable survival. Displaying the author’s extraordinary gift for language, In the Shadow of the Banyan is a brilliantly wrought tale of human resilience.

I hadn’t read much about this time period in Cambodia and I was very much looking forward to learning about it. Maybe I should have read some nonfiction about this subject first.

I wanted to like this book and I was nearly sure that I would. Sadly, I was mistaken. I did enjoy parts, but as a whole it didn’t speak to me. The language felt a bit too flowery and there wasn’t enough solid information about what was going on.

The author’s note at the end was where I finally felt a connection to the book. She talked about her own experiences as a young girl in Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge’s regime. That was when I felt myself choking up, thinking of what she and her family went through.Vaddey Ratner’s personal story is amazing. I can’t imagine how painful it was for her to write this book.

 I so wish she had written a memoir instead of a fictional account. She does talk about why she didn’t, and her reasons make absolute sense.