Blue sky, green trees
Somehow I had the idea that this book would be more of a portrait of a selection of books that American soldiers were reading during WWII, with anecdotes and information and quotes from soldiers about each selected book. I had planned to use it as a curated reading list, to be honest. Well that's not what this book is about at all, thankfully, because what it actually talks about is something that I would never have imagined: a program for getting books into the hands of every soldier, books of all types and all across the globe. It talks about how this program was seen as vital to the war effort, and the obstacles that had to be overcome to make it a success (and it was a runaway success).
This book was a real eye-opener for me on multiple facets of WWII, both for the soldiers and for those back home. And thanks to the handy appendix listing every single book that was part of this program, and the anecdotes about individual titles sprinkled throughout the book, I do have quite a nice reading list to dig into.
Somehow I had the idea that this book would be more of a portrait of a selection of books that American soldiers were reading during WWII, with anecdotes and information and quotes from soldiers about each selected book. I had planned to use it as a curated reading list, to be honest. Well that's not what this book is about at all, thankfully, because what it actually talks about is something that I would never have imagined: a program for getting books into the hands of every soldier, books of all types and all across the globe. It talks about how this program was seen as vital to the war effort, and the obstacles that had to be overcome to make it a success (and it was a runaway success).
This book was a real eye-opener for me on multiple facets of WWII, both for the soldiers and for those back home. And thanks to the handy appendix listing every single book that was part of this program, and the anecdotes about individual titles sprinkled throughout the book, I do have quite a nice reading list to dig into.