Home Front Girl

A couple of weekends ago–in between baking ham, slicing sweet potatoes, chopping cranberries and rolling out biscuit dough– I gave myself the treat of reading Home Front Girl: A Diary of Love, Literature and Growing Up in Wartime America. And a treat it was. Born in 1922, Joan Wehlen, later Joan Wehlen Morrison, grew up…

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Road Trip Through History: Portsmouth

My Own True Love and I went to Portsmouth primarily to visit the Historic Dockyards. Restored historic ships, the story of the Tudor warship the Mary Rose, the history of the dockyards themselves–it sounded right up our alley. And in fact it was. The quality of the exhibits ranged from the fabulous to the dated…

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Antony Beevor’s The Second World War

When Antony Beevor’s The Second World War arrived in the mail*, I was intimidated. I read and write about war-related topics a lot, but I wasn’t sure I was up to almost 800 pages of pure military history. I didn’t need to worry. Beevor begins his broad-sweeping history with the story of a single Korean…

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