Books Set in Asia; Israel

10/7, by Lee Yaron (2024)

This book recounts 100 human stories about horror of the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel.  On that traumatic day, 1,200 people were killed and 251 were taken hostage.  Yaron provides a human portrait of many of those killed.

On Shabbat October 7, 2023, which was also the last day of Sukkot and the beginning of Simhat Torah, Hamas launched an unprecedented attack on southern Israel.  Hamas indiscriminately massacred civilians in what became one of the worst terror attacks in recent history, and the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.

Read:  September 25, 2025

5 Stars

Books Set in Asia and North America; Vietnam and California

The Women, by Kristin Hannah (2024)

Read: January 31, 2025

3 Stars

Books Set in Europe: England and France

The Armor of Light, by Ken Follett (2023)

The Armor of Light covers the life of villagers in Kingsbridge from 1792 to 1824 during the Napoleonic Wars.  The novel touches upon political events in England and Europe, as well as the beginning of the industrial revolution.

The novel opens when Sally Clitheroe’s husband is killed while working for the Earl.  The Earl is hard-hearted and refused to compensate Sally for her loss.  Sally, known as Sal, and her young son must come to terms with losing their main breadmaker

The mill in the village is known for its clothmaking and the Spinning Jenny is a new invention that slowly is making its way into Kingsbridge.  The mill workers, however, fear that this new contraption will put them all out of work and fight the new technology.  In 1799, the aristocrat’s pass the Combination Act, which makes it a crime for workers to criticize their employers.  If they revolt, they are subject to criminal penalty, including the prospect of hanging.

Meanwhile, the French Revolution has disposed of the monarchy, and English ruling class fears revolution may come to England.  The Napoleonic Wars are erupting in Europe.  The English working class who violate the Combination Act can avoid penalty by joining the army as it fights against Napoleon’s advancements throughout the Continent.

The book is long – over 700 pages, but it is a fast read.  The characters are well developed, and the reader becomes involved in their lives and loves.  This novel by Ken Follett did not disappoint.

Read: January 1, 2024

4.5 Stars

Books Set in Asia: Cambodia

First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers, by Loung Ung (2000)

 

Loung Ung was 5 years old when her world was upended by the Khmer Rouge.  She had been living a care-free childhood in an upper-middle class family in Phnom Penh, Cambodia with her parents and six siblings.  Her father was a government official, but when the Khmer Rouge overthrew the government, his life was in jeopardy if his work status was discovered.  In April 1975, the family had to leave Phnom Penh, hide their identity, and live as peasant farmers.  Eventually, they were captured and sent to forced-labor camps where they were given very little food.

 

This memoir is told through the eyes of Loung Ung, who was a child during this period of Cambodian history.  She describes the horrors of being separated from her family, how the Khmer soldiers can for her father, and he was never seen again.  She describes how starvation and malnutrition stole the life of her younger sister.  She describes how she, as a 7-year-old, was recruited into the Khmer as a child soldier.  She lived through the horrors of the Khmer Rouge regime, and in 1979, was finally able to reunite with what remained of her family.  It is harrowing to imaging young children living through and being exposed to such hatred and horror.

 

Read: January 21, 2023

 

4 Stars

 

 

 

Books Sent in Asia: Middle East: Israel and Lebanon

Pumpkinflowers: A Soldier’s Story of a Forgotten War, by Matti Friedman (2016)

In the Israeli military language, casualties in war are called flowers, and deaths are known as oleanders.  These euphemisms are deemed to take away some of the ugliness of war.

Pumpkinflowers describes the author’s involvement in Israel’s military presence in southern Lebanon during the late 1990s.  Pumpkin was the name of the Israeli outpost in the Lebanon Security Zone.  During the period that Israel maintained these outposts to protect the communities in northern Israel from Hezbollah’s growing presence in the area.

In the late 1990s, the author was drafted into the Israeli army and sent to Outpost Pumpkin (it was never referred to as The Pumpkin).  Shortly before the author was sent to Pumpkin, two Israel helicopters, filled with young soldiers, collided on their way to Pumpkin.  There were 73 oleanders.  Israel’s support for continuing these outpost began to wane after this event.  It was about this time that Friedman arrived at Pumpkin.  Brief skirmishes continued unto 2000, when Israel withdrew from the security zone.

The soldiers could look down on the Lebanese village of Nabatieh.  In particular, they observed a small restaurant.  They would joke about how they would like to have a meal at the restaurant someday.

The First section of the book focuses on a young soldier, Avi, who was a bit of a rebel.  He was also a talented writer, who served at Pumpkin before the author’s arrival.  The Second section describes Friedman’s days at Pumpkin.

The final sections of the book describe life after Pumpkin.  Years later, Friedman traveled to Lebanon as a tourist.  After traveling throughout the country, he hired a cab to take him to the southern part of the country.  He stopped at the restaurant he had observed as a young soldier from the Pumpkin and enjoyed a meal.  He convinced his driver to take him up the hill where the outpost had been, ostensibly to take photos, but to feel the place again where he has spent 3 years in a forgotten military command.

Read:  August 6, 2020

4 Stars

Books Set in Europe: Paris, France

The Room on Rue Amélie, by Kristin Harmel (2018)

The Room on Rue Amélie reads like a young adult sanitized version of Nazi occupation of Paris during World War II.

The novel focuses on Ruby Henderson Benoit, a young American woman who meets the French Marcel Benoit in a coffee shop in New York and marries him 6 months later.  They move to Paris in the late 1930s against her parent’s objections.  She is determined to become a true Parisian.  (She had learned French in school and can apparently speak a passable version of the language, albeit with an accent.)

Her marriage soon sours.  Marcel spends long hours away from their apartment and never explains his absences.  Since his character was not developed, we don’t know why Ruby fell for him in the first place, other than he was very handsome.  We do learn, however, that he is involved in the French resistance and has been hiding downed Allied pilots in a secret room in the hallway of their apartment building.  Marcel doesn’t want his wife to be involved in the Resistance, she wants to feel useful in the War effort.  She learns of the secret room and becomes involved in the escape line for downed pilots.

When the RAF pilot, Thomas, appears at her door, she falls head-over-heels in love.  The author doesn’t explain the attraction.  Why this pilot?  She harbors numerous downed soldiers.  We learn as much of some of the other soldiers as we do Thomas.

A Jewish family lives in the apartment next door.  Young Charlotte befriends Ruby.  When the French police round up Jewish families, Ruby promises Charlotte’s parents she will take care of her should anything happen.  Soon young Charlotte, who is forced to grow up very quickly, becomes involved in the resistance as well.

This was a very quick read, and something that I could see myself enjoying when I was about 12 years old.  The characters were not fully developed and the book did not depict the actual horrors and fears of living in Paris during the Nazi occupation.

Read:  July 6, 2020

3 Stars

Books Set in Europe: Sarajevo

The Cellist of Sarajevo, by Steven Galloway (2008)

The novel takes place during Siege of Sarajevo in 1992.

4 Stars

Read: February 11, 2014