Fenland Chronicle - Sybil Marshall

A reference from the book "Fields".
A lovely chronicle of life in another time - a small village and farming community on the fens at the end of the 19th C and the beginning of the 20th C.  The original manuscript was started by the author's father in the wonderful voice of a man of little education of the time - lovely vocabulary and turns of phrases.  It reads more as spoken word than as writing.  The author finished off the book after her father's death and then went on to collect her mother's story.

A great evocation of life in another time before so much of what has shaped our life in the course of the 20th century, when people's worlds were much smaller.

Bruno - Martin Walker

A mystery/detective novel.  Well-written, evocative of place (Dordogne region, small village) with a nicely maintained building tension.  This part I really enjoyed, like a Louise Penny on steroids.  But the end of the book is very American - irresistible sexual attraction between two main gun-toting characters,  bit shoot out with a paramilitary flair.  Reads well at the time, but after the tension wears off, it seems a bit stereotyped in structure.
Will try a couple more before finally deciding.

Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin - Timothy Snyder

A history of Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, Baltic States and Western Russia from the late 20's (Stalin's takeover) to the end of WWII.  An account of the upheaval, planned murder, mass relocations and the effects of war in this area that was occupied three times over that period - first by Russia and Germany, then by Germany and finally by Russia.
The history of this time period is not well-presented in the West's version of WWII.
Some facts:
In this period, Germany and Russia killed roughly the same number of people.
Most Jews who were killed in the war came from Poland - Western European Jews represented a small percentage.
As many Poles were killed by the Russians and the Germans as Jews.
Belarus lost half of it's population at that time.
Jews represented less than 1% of the German population at the start of the war.
More Jews were killed in one day by a bullet to the head than all the people who died in Hiroshima when the bomb was dropped.
The Allies actually did not see any of the German death camps - they were all liberated by the Russians.  The Allies saw the work or concentration camps, and more people survived in those than died.
The Russian's system of concentration camps was far larger than what was established by the Nazis.

There is also some discussion of why Hitler and the Nazis developed the war plans they did, and also why Stalin was involved in so much ethnic and political cleansing (or Terrors).

A good read for a revision of our picture of WWII and where the action really was.

The Zone of Interest - Martin Amis

"Zone of Interest"  seems to be a Nazi term referring to death camps in general or perhaps specifically to Auschwitz.
The various characters present different lives within the camp as well as different views and reactions to both the Nazis and the camp itself.  There are hardcore Nazis, SS officers who support the war but see the Jewish death camps as pointless and unnecessary, there is an SS officer who works behind the scenes to slow and sabotage the Nazi war effort, there is the wife and family of the head of Auschwitz who also live at the camp, there is a Sonderkomando prisoner also.
It is a fairly heavy book, though not as much as you might expect.  The focus is not on the details of the exterminations and living conditions, but on the lives and minds of the people surrounding the camps.
There is also an exploration of the Nazi idealism - views on women, patriarchy, sexuality (male) - and some hints of the crazy ideas they came up with such as a extraterrestrial origin of Aryans.  Amis captures the strangeness, the craziness and the essential incomprehensibility of the whole period.

There is an excellent bibliography in the back of the book:

To Find:
- Primo Levi's books about his time in Auschwitz, If this is a Man & The Truce
- Explaining Hitler; Ron Rosenbaum
- Defying Hitler & The Meaning of Hitler, both by Sebastian Haffner
- The Journey Back from Hell, Anton Gill ( survivor accounts)
- book on Hitler by Alan Bullock
- Doctor 117641, Louis Micheels
- I Shall Bear Witness. Victor Klemperer
- Diary of a Man in Despair, Friedrick Reck
- (others there to pull out too)

Sogni di sogni - Antonia Tabucchi

A clever idea.  Tabucchi imagines one dream for a number of important historical artistic figures from Roman times to the 20th century - Villon, Rabelais, Leopardi, Robert Louis Stevenson, Rimbaud, Chekov, Debussy, Fernando Pessoa.
The dreams can be amusing if you know anything about the work and lives of the people chosen.

Not as gripping as Sostiene Pereira, but an amusing short read.

Armenian Golgotha - Grigoris Balakian

An account of Grigoris' life in Turkey during the Armenian genocide.  It traces his experiences from his arrest in Istanbul in 1915 until his departure after the war in 1918.  He also looks at many of the specific methods of deporting and killing the Armenians.  One thing that struck me was the similarity to some of the methods Nazis would adopt later when eliminating the Jews.
It seems a balanced account.  Their are monsters and morally reprehensible deeds on all sides - Turkish, German and Armenian.  There is also kindness, help and critical voices on all sides
Balakian also criticizes the Armenian leadership early on in the book for being so outspoken in their support of the Allies and the Russians at the beginning of the war, and so critical of the Germans and their allies.  He points out the folly of this when living amidst the enemy.
One definite purpose of this genocide was wealth transfer.  Leadership and officials often seem to have grabbed the best part of the wealth from the abandoned homes and also from the caravans as they slowly abandoned what they had brought.  The poorer Turks were left with taking the clothing and the last few personal belongings.  One effect of warning the Armenians before they were to be exiled was that they would pack up their most valuable items and hide gold in their clothes and in their baggage.  It was much easier to confiscate it once the deportation caravans were on route as the victims has gathered it all up beforehand.
Local villagers seem to have also played a willing role in the massacres and inhumane treatment not only for money but also for religious reasons.
The German military does not come off well at all, though the German civilians working on the Baghdad railroad seem to have done what they could to help and protect both Armenian employees and passing caravans.  This experience may have provided some critical insights used by the military and Nazis later.
I come away wondering why the Turkish government had such a fixation on eliminating the Armenians - they continued trying to eliminate every last one right up until the end of the war.  They also continued to chase the leadership arrested in Istanbul in 1915 right up until the end.  After all, this was wartime - to waste so much energy and manpower on chasing down the last few Armenians seems strange, a psychological affliction of some kind.  Similar questions could be asked about the Germans and the Jews.  It went far beyond breaking power and grabbing wealth; almost a bizarre crusade of some kind.

L'amour humain - Andrei Makine

Makine a une façon magique d'évoquer les lieux, les atmosphères, la vie intérieure de ses personnages.
L'histoire de rencontres à travers les années entre un journaliste russe et un africain révolutionnaire professionnel.  D'une façon c'est une critique de cette période des années 60, 70 et leur politique de libération et post-colonialisme.  D'un autre part c'est un lament pour le manque de sincérité, les masques, la corruption, le conflit entre la personne sociale et le coeur intérieur d'une vie.

J'ai déjà lu un livre de Makine, mais en traduction.  Peut-être Le Testament Français.  J'aimerais le relire dans l'original.