Reading on a Rainy Day

  Published in : 2019   ||    Format : ebook   ||    Location : US One line review : Decades before George Takei would grace our screens as the very capable Sulu, his family was one of several thousands to be interned in a camp right after the Pearl Harbor bombing. ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ Thoughts : George Takei is best known for his portrayal of Sulu in The Original Series of Star Trek. However he has a different (real-life) story to share in They Called Us Enemy . On December 7, 1941, when he was four years old, Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, and that set in motion a series of events, many of which were going to directly impact him and his family. A few months later, President Roosevelt issued an executive order, giving regional military commanders the right to designate military areas from which any or all persons could be excluded. This order was used primarily along the West Coast states to forcibly remove persons of Japanese origin from their homes ...

But here was a woman taken without her own consent from the free world to an asylum and there given no chance to prove her sanity. Confined most probably for life behind asylum bars, without even being told in her language the why and wherefore. Compare this with a criminal, who is given every chance to prove his innocence. Who would not rather be a murderer and take the chance for life than be declared insane, without hope of escape? I can't remember where I first heard of this book - it was probably in an article discussing the 2015 movie based on this book. But when I heard that this book features a woman reporter going undercover, pretending to be "mad" (which means so many things in this book) in 1887 , I knew I had to read it. While Nellie Bly's investigative effort was remarkable to read about, her opinions about how women were treated in those days by men (aka feminism) were also very interesting to read. When Bly's employer, Joseph Pulitzer, asked ...

"Siberia," historically, has been less a geographical designation than a state of mind, a looming threat—the frozen hell on earth to which czarist and Communist Russias sent their political undesirables. In 1959, nine highly experienced hikers ventured to hike the Ural Mountains. All except one were students at the Ural Polytechnical Institute and were highly skilled mountain climbers. Part of the reason they were making this particular trip was due to their passion for this activity but the other reason was because they got credits at school for completing such treks. Despite being lauded as some of the most experienced hikers ever, none of them (except one) were going to return from this hiking trip. The lone survivor had turned back much earlier due to a severe back injury that only threatened to get worse. When the rescue party came across their campsite weeks later, they were puzzled by what they saw. The contents of the camp looked undisturbed, as if ...

In every immediate way, the natives had the upper hand. They outnumbered the survivors by more than ten to one. They were healthy and well fed. None suffered burns, head injuries, or gangrene. Towards the end of World War 2, a transport plane takes off from a base in Hollandia, New Guinea, with 24 passengers, on a sightseeing trip to the Shangri-La valley, where an isolated and primitive tribe was said to live. Unfortunately for them, the plane crashed, killing 19 instantly. Of the remaining 5, 2 succumbed to their injuries almost soon. The last remaining survivors, suffering  from rib fractures and gangrenes, trek through the treacherous mountains, hoping to find some sanctuary but soon come across the natives, who are as fascinated at these strangely attired white people as they are at the near-naked natives. Once the news of the missing plane reaches their base, a search plane and later a rescue party is dispatched. But rescuing three wounded people from the thick unmapp...

I learned after the war the fate of those who had stayed behind in the hospital. They were quite simply liberated by the Russians two days after the evacuation. Elie Wiesel is not a new name in the book world. I don't remember when I first heard of him - all I know is that as soon as I started following the social world of books, everyone thrust Night at me. When I heard words like moving, amazing, profound, associated with this book, I imagined a hefty volume filled with lots of sad notes. When my copy arrived at home by mail (few years back), the size raised my eyebrows - this book is real slim! And finally, when I got to it early this year, I was even more surprised that although this book is sad, it is not in the written-to-make-you-cry manner. Every time I read a Nazi concentration camp book like this one, I end up wondering how I would have fared, had I been born Jewish in Nazi Europe during WWII. It's a hard pill to swallow - every book I read amplifies the ima...

Though all three men faced the same hardship, their differing perceptions of it appeared to be shaping their fates. Louie and Phil's hope displaced their fear and inspired them to work toward their survival, and each success renewed their physical and emotional vigor. Mac's resignation seemed to paralyze him and the less he participated in their efforts to survive, the more he slipped. Though he did the least, as the days passed, it was he who faded the most. Louie and Phil's optimism, and Mac's hopelessness, were becoming self-fulfilling. By now, Laura Hillenbrand's Unbroken has been on countless award lists and reader best-of lists. It has even won quite a few awards and after reading Unbroken , it isn't hard to see why. I waited a good three years before trying to read Unbroken because of the tremendous hype that followed this book (for good reason). I listened to the first quarter of this book in the car by myself and caught up with the rest of it w...

There were worse punishments: when Tommy failed a class, Jones sentenced him to fifty whacks with the board of education, and Brian got fifty whacks for refusing to attend services in Los Angeles. It was humiliating, as a macho-posturing teenager, to be spanked in front of the entire congregation, to have a whimper of pain escape your mouth as a microphone was held to it. In 1954, a pastor named Jim Jones opened a new church in Indianapolis called the Peoples Temple. Being charismatic and fully aware of how to influence people, he began preaching his idealistic beliefs and managed to quickly gather a good number of followers. Over the next twenty years, as the church moved from Indiana to California, and ultimately to its deathbed, Guyana, Jones would amass a huge number of followers, many willing to follow him to the ends of the earth, in the hopes of making the world take heed to their socialistic beliefs.  Their temple did make history in 1978, but for its role in the la...

Anne Frank is no stranger to us. We all know about how she hid with her family and four others in a secret annex in Netherlands during the infamous Holocaust, for two years. Whether or not we have actually read or loved her diary, none of us would deny that she went through a harrowing experience - just as million other Jews, victimized simply because of their faith. But in so many ways, Anne has become a symbol of that period chiefly because she was just fifteen when she died (murdered is what I like to say, even if it was disease that eventually claimed her), and also because she recorded her stay in the annex in her diary, which has already been read by millions. That said, when I first read and loved  Anne Frank's Diary two years back, the most common sentiment I heard expressed among those who didn't rate it highly was that the book felt too "immature". In other words, it read like any fifteen year old's diary - with all the typical squabbles, compl...

The Depression is one of the periods of this century that I know very little about. Other than reading about it in passing in some books and coming across the tons of references and side-jokes when the current recession hit, I knew almost nothing about it. Sure it was a hard time, a lot of people lost their jobs, but that's probably the limit of my knowledge. Ted Gup's book, A Secret Gift , is a memorial to his grandfather, Sam Stone, whose simple act of reaching out monetarily to a few families during the Christmas of 1933, made Christmas so much more merry for most of them. Ted Gup accidentally came across a briefcase of letters, when his mother was clearing out a cupboard. Inside it, he found letters upon letters, and 150 canceled checks, in addition to other memorabilia. Reading these letters took him back seventy-five years to an unsolved mystery when a certain B. Virdot promised to send money to 50-75 families. His only condition was that they write to him about their ...