When Books Went to War

By -
When Books Went to War: The Stories That Helped Us Win World War II, by Molly Guptill Manning

I enjoyed this book so much!  I hadn't heard of it, but luckily Maphead reviewed it a few weeks ago, and it turned out to be at my library.  I promptly devoured it, but I didn't get around to reviewing it right away.

Manning starts off by describing Nazi Germany's hatred of books that didn't espouse the proper ideas.  I had known that there were book burnings, but I had not realized that they were quite as popular as all that.  Anti-Nazi German writers even collected the disapproved books to save them, sending them to a library in France.

Meanwhile, the American government was preparing for the expected eventual entrance into the war.   They needed recreational materials for the soldiers, who universally found books to be an uplifting and relaxing escape and reminder of normal life, and so the military asked for book donations.  The American Library Association got involved, and massive book drives helped to get reading material to soldiers in training camps.  As hard as the volunteers worked, it was nowhere near enough, and the books were mostly heavy hardcovers and often not suitable in subject.

The military soon contracted with publishers to produce special editions of books for soldiers.  These were compact, light, durable paperbacks (stapled instead of glued, since tropical insects liked the glue).  Every month, a new set of books was published: novels, history and culture, practical subjects, and classics.  They were distributed and traded around as more precious than candy.  The soldiers couldn't get enough; far from home, living rough, and frequently stuck for long periods of time with nothing much to do, books gave them solace, education, and often healing. Men who had never read much before became avid readers, which helped them take advantage of GI Bill education after the war.

The entire story is fascinating!  There are all these different sides to it and Manning gives some time to them all.  It was just so great.  Thanks, Maphead!

The most popular title of them all



Comments

  1. Ruth @ with freedom and booksJanuary 19, 2017 at 11:54 AM

    I'm reading A Tree Grows in Brooklyn right now. Is that one the soldiers were reading? I wouldn't think that would be a popular book a young male soldier would want to read.

    ReplyDelete
  2. JeanJanuary 19, 2017 at 12:30 PM

    Me either, but it was the most popular title. They had to reprint it. Soldiers wrote to Betty Smith, telling her about how it reminded them of their own homes or helped them heal from the awful things they had seen. They loved it.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Kristen M.January 19, 2017 at 10:19 PM

    This is the second time this book has come onto my radar. I need to remember it when I don't already have half a dozen library books at home!

    ReplyDelete
  4. LoryFebruary 7, 2017 at 5:58 PM

    Hurrah for books! They can truly save lives and souls.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

I'd love to know what you think, so please comment!

Popular posts from this blog

The Four Ages of Poetry

By -
Image
  "The Four Ages of Poetry," by Thomas Love Peacock I am becoming fond of Thomas Love Peacock.  Besides his unbeatable name, he was a lot of fun.  Peacock was a minor literary figure of the early 19th century; he tried his hand at poetry but mainly succeeded in satire.  I read his short novel Nightmare Abbey last year, but at the time I didn't know that the young hero of the story, Scythrop, was modeled on Peacock's good friend Percy Shelley.  He and Shelley were quite close and Peacock was the executor of Shelley's will. Thomas Love Peacock Percy Bysshe Shelley "The Four Ages of Poetry," a tongue-in-cheek essay on the history and development of poetry, was published in 1820 in a new magazine called Literary Miscellany , which promptly died.  It would probably have been completely obscure and unknown--it nearly is anyway--but for Shelley.  Peacock sent a copy to his friend, who I guess didn't really have much of a sense of
Read more

A few short stories in Urdu

By -
Image
 Back in August, I got hold of a book of Urdu short stories translated into English.  It's a large book, so I wanted to read just the women authors for WIT, and that would still be a good amount.  August got away from me, and I only read one or two stories back then, but I've continued reading them since.  I've now finished all the short stories in the book that were written by women (luckily for me, there are short biographies in an appendix, since I could only tell from the name about half the time).  I'll just highlight a couple: "The Wagon," by Khalida Asghar, is a hallucinatory, apocalyptic story.  The narrator meets three strange men who are watching the evening sky and point out that it has become red.  No one had noticed until they said so, but the sky is now strangely red.  Then a smell arrives, so offensive and sickening that it causes real pain -- but only once it's pointed out.  And finally, a mysterious wagon, which may be the source of the s
Read more

Faerie Queen Readalong I: Redcrosse, the Knight of Holiness

By -
Image
I did it, I read all of Book I!  My minimum requirement was two cantos a day, but I managed three a couple of times.  I'm hoping to read ahead, because I'll be gone for two weeks in the middle of this event and I'd like to be able to prep a post ahead of time...but the schedule is already pretty demanding.  The reading is not terribly difficult, but it is slow.  I keep thinking that I've read a large chunk, only to look back and realize that in fact I have read six verses.  So here we go with analysis... Each book in the Faerie Queene features a knight, and a story, about a particular virtue.  The Redcrosse Knight, to be known as St. George after he accomplishes his feats, is all about Holinesse .  This does not mean that Redcrosse already exemplifies holiness; he doesn't.  Holiness is what he's working towards and struggling with.  His foes symbolize various forms of unholiness, and he falls into their clutches at least as often as he defeats or avoids th
Read more