Band of Brothers

Book Challenge: Pirates, Paratroopers, and me

What's On the Bookshelf?

Nearly done! Finally. So glad that I’m just answering these three at a time.

Twenty-five: Favorite book you read in school

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson. I read this in the seventh grade. It was the book that made me love Stevenson’s work, and search out more of it (I’ve read most of his novels now, I think I’ve just ignored the Master of Ballantrae, which I own, I just haven’t read yet, and one or two others).

Part of what made this a great in school read was my teacher’s plan to get us to learn. He passed out print outs of a ship’s interior, so we could understand what Stevenson was writing about.

Also, Long John Silver is just a great character. One of my favorites.
Twenty-six: Favorite nonfiction book

Band of Brothers by Stephen Ambrose. I encourage all of my friends to read it, particularly those who have seen the miniseries. Well written, researched…I want to reread it now that I think more about it…

Twenty-seven: Favorite fiction book

You can’t do this to me. Besides, I don’t have a favorite book. I think I’ve already mentioned this a fair few times. Particularly answering question one.

Attachments

General Geekiness

It’s interesting how one can form attachments based on a book read or topic researched.

I read a newspaper article today about the wife of a paratrooper in the 101st Airborne. While I don’t believe he was in Easy Company (the company Band of Brothers by Stephen E. Ambrose focuses on), I still felt a rush reading the article, as though I were reading about someone I knew peripherally.

I guess that just says how good a writer Ambrose is.

Language problem: SOLVED. At least temporarily.

The Twirl and Swirl of Letters

As my library has minimal resources on the RAF (or the British part of WWII at all), I decided to do some reading about WWII from the American point of view.

What did I learn from Band of Brothers?

A lot of Dutch people spoke English. HAH. Problem solved!

I also learned that the British army had daily rum rations and horrible food.

And in the US Army, only paratroopers could blouse their trousers (stick ’em in the tops of boots). Ah, the minor details that add so much color.