Eyes All Over the Sky: Aerial Reconnaissance in the First World War
Book
After the first successful flight by the Wright brothers in 1903, the age of aviation was born, and...
Goddess: Primal Chaos - SEA
Games
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War is coming! Are you ready for an epic combat? Join now with your friends in Goddess: Primal...
Walkaway: A Novel
7.0
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From New York Times bestselling author Cory Doctorow, an epic tale of revolution, love,...
Science fiction fiction
Hazel (2934 KP) rated Sing, Memory in Books
May 21, 2023
Focussing on the life of Aleksander Kulisiewicz, a non-Jewish Pole, this tells the story of his life before, during and after World War 2. He was imprisoned in the notorious concentration camp Sachsenhausen and paints a disturbing and vivid picture of the horrors he and other prisoners had to endure from being forced to take part in 'sport', to back-breaking work and endless hours of roll call.
In Sachsenhausen, music and singing were forbidden unless used as a form of punishment however, this didn't stop a secret choir being formed and led by conductor Rosebery d’Arguto, a Polish Jew. Aleksander became friends with Rosebery and as a result of Aleksander's amazing ability to memorise songs, Rosebery asked him to memorise his songs and ensure they are shared with the world after the war.
This became Aleksander's mission - to meticulously memorise songs from all the camp inmates and ensure that he survived so they would not be forgotten. After 6 long years of captivity, Aleksander was free however, his promise to those that did not survive was to become his life's work but also an obsession which, along with the horrendous experiences he endured, affected him and those around him deeply.
Sing, Memory is a detailed story written from meticulous research undertaken by the author with the help of a lot of other people and is a remarkable story of one man's mission to ensure a part of history is told and not forgotten.
Thank you to W.W. Norton & Company and NetGalley for enabling me to read and share my thoughts of Sing, Memory.
Running for My Life: One Lost Boy's Journey from the Killing Fields of Sudan to the Olympic Games
Book
Running for My Life is not a story about Africa or track and field athletics. It is about outrunning...
The Fall of Heaven
Book
In this remarkably human portrait of one of the twentieth century's most complicated personalities,...
Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey
Book
Lady Fiona Carnarvon became the chatelaine of Highclere Castle - the setting of the hit series...
The Court of Broken Knives
9.0
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Perfect for fans of Mark Lawrence and R Scott Bakker, The Court of Broken Knives is the explosive...
David McK (3576 KP) rated World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie Wars in Books
May 14, 2023
I think it all depends on the skill of the narrator, and how close they are to how the character 'sounds' in your head when you're reading a book: in audio (and televisual) form, after all, you are relying on someone else's characterisation.
That is where a unique - at least, I've never come across one quite like this before - hook comes in. Sure, I've listened to a few Graphic Audio's (essentially, a dramatization for the listeners) with a wide cast of characters (each performed by a different actor) before but I don't think I've ever come across one presented like this: essentially, as interviews with survivors of a global apocalypse, the World War Z(ed, not Zee - I'm British) of the title.
Forget the Brad Pitt starring movie of the same name: while it does take the occasional pointer from this, it's a very different beast indeed.
Instead, this is presented as Max Brooks - a survivor of the War - interviewing notable, key and even sometimes seemingly normal, mundane survivors of the fictional outbreak, in chronological order from the earliest inkling that something was wrong, through to the outbreak proper, the fall of society, the fight back against the hordes and the eventual reclamation of society.
I do have to say, however, that I felt that more than a few of the chapters 'sounded' the same (and I mean that in the style and tone of language used, not so much in the verbal intonation - although there is also an element of that in the audiobook), and that I did find myself 'zoning out' for periods of time. As I listened to the audiobook version, it also didn't help that one section would sound like a character was whispering (=sounds up full), and then the very next I would have to hurriedly turn the volume down if I didn't want to be deafened ...
Barren Island
Book
How does one remember a world that literally no longer exists? How do the moral imperatives to do so...
Fiction