Military Writers Society of America Reviews Angel of Bataan

Title: Marcia Gates: Angel of Bataan
Author: Melissa Bowersock
Web: www.newmoonrising.net
Genre: non-fiction, biography, historical
ISBN: 1460973194
Book Trailer:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ym4AmLynvfo&feature=g-upl

Reviewed by Edward Kelly for Military Writers Society of America's Dispatches E-Zine


Author's SummaryMarcia Gates was an Army nurse and prisoner of war during WWll. As an "Angel of Bataan," she spent three years in a Japanese internment camp in the Philippines. This is her story, told through her letters and the newspaper clippings, photos and letters collected by her mother. Melissa Bowersock is the niece of Marcia Gates.

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MWSA ReviewThis is the true story of a nurse, Marcia Gates, during World War II and her experiences during the battle of Bataan and three years as a prisoner of war. But it is more than that because this story also relates how the families at home were feeling- frustrated and concerned about their lack of information about Marcia and her safety.

This book is easy to read and many will find it difficult to put down as one wants to know- does Marcia make it home? The format is also augmented by actual letters written by Marcia, other nurses and from family members to Marcia. It may be difficult for some who are so used to the modern e-mail system to even imagine the problems of letters not arriving home for months and how that effected the family who used every resource they could to get any information they could of their daughter. The author uses these letters to carefully weave a true account of what was happening on both sides of the world.

I found the story excited, surprised by some of the descriptions of conditions and wondered why I hadn’t heard this story before. The author has brought out one of the untold stories of World War II- about a nurse. I believe this book will have wide appeal to many audiences including: medical personnel, historians, veterans and anyone interested in good story with a happening ending.


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The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor. As a courtesy to the author, please tweet and retweet this post using this little green retweet widget :

Military Nonfiction Reviewed by Military Writer

Title: Humble Heroes, How The USS Nashville CL43 Fought WWII

Author: Steven George Bustin
Publisher: CreateSpace (Amazon)
Author Websites: www.ussnashville.org, www.bustinmedia.com
Author Blog: www.humbleheroeswwii.blogspot.com
Genre: Historial Non-Fiction

 

Originally Reviewed by Donald J. Farinacci for Amazon.

 

The USS Nashville began its epic journey across the turbulant waters of World War II in February 1941 when it transported a contingent of U.S. Marines to Wake Island. When she finally sailed into San Francisco Harbor in January of 1946 on her return to the United States, she carried an incredible legacy to her native shores of pain, loss, horror, grief and death combined with heroism, devotion, selflessness, loyalty, skill and great distinction. If she could tell her own tale, it would no doubt be with the same humility shown by the humble heroes who served with such dedication upon her blood-stained and fire-scarred decks.

But, the job of telling that engrossing tale has fallen to Steven George Bustin, a writer of great clarity and instinctive empathy for the individuals whose exploits and travails he so lovingly depicts on the pages of this inspiring work. And the story of The Nashville and its intrepid crew is in good hands. "Humble Heroes" is meticulously crafted--both as a fond and poignant remembrance and a breathtaking tale of adventure in the perilous waters of the Pacific during WWII.

 

The Nashville seemed to be everywhere: on Lend Lease missions in the North Atlantic, as part of Doolittle's daring raid on Tokyo, at Midway, Hollandia, New Guinia, the Battle of Leyte Gulf and as MacArthur's flagship on his triumphant return to the Phillipines. Full of intriguing first-hand vignettes from former crew members, it is also a history of the War in the Pacific in micrcosm. "Humble Heroes" is masterful in its thoroughness and truly a great read, especially for World War II buffs and history buffs in general.

~The reviewer is Donald J. Farinacci, author of Truman and MacArthur,

  Adversaries For A Common Cause (Merriam Press) as well as three other  books.

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The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor. As a courtesy to the author, please tweet and retweet this post using this little green retweet widget :

America's Film Vault: A Reference to READ

Below is a special review in a new series I'll be doing to honor those books that won the Military Writers Society of America's Silver award. I have a special place in my heart for them because my Tracings (Finishing Line Press) won that same award. So this is just a way to pass it forward, especiall for my fellows. (-:

AMERICA'S FILM VAULT: A Reference Guide to the Motion Pictures Held by the U.S. National Archives
ISBN 978-0-9793243-0-7
$39.95, trade paper, pms press, 2009
Series: Third book in The Historic Footage Project
By Phil Stewart


Reviewed by Ron Standerfer for Reader Views in April 09

Whatever happened to all those news reels we used to watch in the movie theaters when we were kids? Or those training films they made us watch when we were drafted or enlisted in the military? How about those carefully crafted films depicting life in America during the Twentieth Century; some dating back to early 1900s? I’m sure many of us would like to see them again just to see what life was like in those days. The good news is that many of those films are alive and well, tucked safely away in the care of the federal government. The bad news is that finding a specific film can be a difficult and frustrating task. Until now.

In one fell swoop, America’s Film Vault: A Reference Guide to the Motion Pictures Held by the U.S. National Archives, by award-winning author and film-sleuth Phillip W. Stewart has leveled the playing field for historians, film buffs, and curiosity seekers. How significant is his new book? Consider this: for the first time ever, the whereabouts of over 360,000 film reels that document a century of American and world history have been assembled in book form. As a matter of fact, it is safe to say that some of the best kept history secrets are buried deep within Stewart’s book.

Considering the scope of America’s Film Vault I expected the review copy to arrive on a hand truck bearing a book somewhere in size between the Manhattan telephone directory and the oldfashion dictionaries that sit perched on large walnut stands in the libraries. To my surprise, it was quite modest in size; about 280 pages. But what it lacks in size, it more than makes up for it in sheer volume of information it contains between the covers.

Finding a specific title amongst the 360,000 or so films listed is relatively simple. For ease of search, the book is divided into five sections: Civilian Films; Military Films, Donated Films, Title Index, and Subject Index. Each film section begins with an overview which provides general information concerning what type of films the searcher can expect to find there. Of the three film sections I found the Donated Film section to be the most fascinating, mainly because it contains a treasure trove of newsreels. The subjects of these newsreels vary from the mundane to stories of epic proportions. Here’s an example of the former that was filmed by Universal Newspaper Newsreel: “Runaway Train Plunges Down Mountain: New Castle, PA - 210,000 tons of coal spilled, 32 cars wrecked, but nobody is hurt. Some of the derailed cars hung on the edge of a steep embankment.”
Can’t you just picture this?

So far American Film Vault has been warmly received by those in the know. For example, according to William T. Murphy, former Chief of the Motion Picture, Sound, and Video Branch of the National Archives, America’s Film Vault is, “...a convenient overview of National Archives and Records Administration's motion picture holdings, one difficult to obtain from any other source.”

American Film Vault is the third book Phillip Stewart has written as part of The Historic Footage Project. You can learn more about this project by visiting his website. Meanwhile, I am prepared to accept the challenge he laid down on the cover of his book; namely, “If you’re ready to play detective, take a crack at the combination, and investigate the bowels of the vault, you need a guide map...and this is it! Discover “reel” treasures with “America’s Film Vault.” I can’t wait to get started.
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Phillip is also author of:
BATTLEFILM: U.S. Army Signal Corps Motion Pictures of the Great War
WAR WINGS: Films of the First Air War
PROJECTED HISTORY: A Catalog of the U.S. National Stories Released by Universal Newsreel, Volume One, 1929-1930
AMERICA'S FILM VAULT: A Reference Guide to the Motion Pictures Held Within the U.S. National Archives
PROJECTED HISTORY: A Catalog of the U.S. National Stories Released by Universal Newsreel, Volume Two, 1931-1932

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The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've loved. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by author names, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the index handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor.

History and A Great Story Rolled Into One

In the Shadow of Suribachi
By Joyce Faulkner
Red Engine Press
Trade Paperback
ISBN: 9780974565202
Adult/Creative Nonfiction
Author's Site: http://home.comcast.net/~joycefaulkner/suribachi.htm
Contact Reviewer: HojoNews@aol.com
Rating: 5 of 5








Emerging Author Joyce Faulkner
Designs New Kind of Literature

If reviewing were a different sort of animal I could probably pen three lines of 17 syllables, wind up with haiku that would remain with the reader and call it day. I could describe In the Shadow of Suribachi by Joyce Faulkner with words like "heartfelt, consummate skill, emotional and bloody," fool a bit with the caesuras and stresses and--perhaps--give readers a better sense of the soul of the book.

Having said that, there is more to this work than its essence and prose will work better to explain that. Here the author assembles disparate events like the 1935 Labor Day Hurricane in Islmorada, Fl, the infamous kristallnacht, the 1942 circus fire in Cleveland. Each real-life event is told from the point of view of a character and may--at first--feel as if they are separate stories. If the reader listens carefully, however, she will hear the intimations in each of how these young men's futures will connect, how what has gone before will affect them later as Marines fighting and suffering in Iwo Jima in 1945.

This book is neither beast nor fowl. The stories (and story) are based on interviews and careful research so it is nonfiction. They are told with all the craft of a fiction writer; that makes it creative nonfiction. They are assembled in a way that would qualify it as a literary novel. A literary novel, after all, tells of the human condition. Characters in literary novels must be carefully drawn and readers should draw something from one that lives long after the last page is turned. This book, published by a new traditional press called the Red Engine Press, qualifies.
Readers should know that, though they may well be mesmerized by this story (stories), it is not easy reading. Endorsed by professionals from the Army's 101st Airborne Division to history teachers, it captures what Lt. Col. Dave Grossman calls "the reality of human aggression and combat." This is a time when we, as a nation, need to fully understand what we are sending our young men and women to do. To understand it may behoove us to visit--or revisit--Suribachi.

It won a Military Writers' Society of America gold meda.
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Carolyn Howard-Johnson’s first novel, This is the Place, has won eight awards. Harkening, a collection of stories, has won three and her how-to book for authors, THE FRUGAL BOOK PROMOTER: HOW TO DO WHAT YOUR PUBLISHER WON'T, is USA Book News' "Best Professional Book 2004." Her new chapbook of poetry, Tracings, to be includes her own childhood memories of WWII. It is also a Militar Writers' Society Award-Winner. She wrote a foreword for another Support Our Troops, published by Andrews McMeel. Learn more about her at: http://carolynhoward-johnson.com or www.HowToDoItFrugally.com.)