Reading - Revisited!

Remember back when I was going to read books? – I was going to read 20 books (Check out the post - Read 20 Books and the subsequent failure documented here - Read 20 Books: Abandoned) and didn't even get through one.

While it might have taken me about a year, but, I figured out why the whole thing wasn't working. I was listen to other people – that’s the WORST.

I was trying to read books people were telling me they liked – books that were on best seller lists and all that. There is nothing wrong with being on the best seller list and all of the books were great on their own, but, they weren't for me. I found them boring.

My fiance likes to comment how my brain is always working. Sure, I like to have a couple mental projects going at any time for my own amusement but I wouldn't say I’m always thinking up things. Anyhow, I had been digging into the 1972 Andes flight disaster which I learned about through the tail end of I Am Alive: Surviving the Andes Plane Crash directed by Brad Osborne.

I got out my tablet and downloaded the book Miracle in the Andes: 72 Days on the Mountain and My Long Trek Home by Nando Parrado and  Vince Rause. I read it in one sitting.

On a whim, I also downloaded Should You Be Laughing at This? By Hugleikur Dagsson which I enjoyed. I did laugh. I did share some of the images. 

Hahah. . .there’s a child in the parent’s butt. . haha.

I had also been watching some interviews and digging around in Nazi Germany. World War I and World War II were both brutal and fascinating times for me. I had been looking into the rise of the Gestapo and moreso on the reflections of German citizens who supported and then watched the rise and fall of the Third Reich. 

A lot of my teaching had focused only on Jewish experiences but I was curious about the German and non-Jewish experience. What would I have done if I was in Germany at the time? How did people cope and function and what was it like to be caught up in a movement that chose what was believed to be a savior. . . 

I am fascinating by the chain of events, the politics and, indeed, the PR surrounding the Third Reich which offered the humiliated and desperate German people a solution with legs. There were, of course, many people offering salvation to the Germans after WW1. The control Hitler was able to grasp and use was remarkable. The ability to turn citizens against citizens while giving those citizens something to blame for any hardship and the ruthlessness in which those who questioned were quietly and swiftly killed was almost unbelievable.

 Anyhow, I digress.

I read Hitler's Last Secretary: A Firsthand Account of Life with Hitler by Traudl Junge in one sitting – it was fascinating. I then read Inside the Gas Chambers: Eight Months in the Sonderkommando of Auschwitz by Shlomo Venezia. Then, Saved by the Enemy by Craig Ledbetter.

I just started The Hangman's Daughter series by Oliver Pötzsch to bring in some fiction. I’m not sure if I will like it or not, but, it seems to be something up my alley. I actually have a wish list of 12 other books that caught my eye. I even decided to give The Poisonwood Bible a shot because someone did recommend it to me.  

So, I have been reading a lot. I can normally average half a book in a day – normally I read them all in one sitting.

This means, I really need to get out biking.

Oh, sweet balance.