Book picks similar to
Can I Come Home, Please? by Phil Robins


non-fiction
history
paper-books
historical-fiction

Unfinished Symphony


Bernard Hellreich Ingram - 2012
    This is not a book about survival in a concentration camp. It is a book about "ordinary" people, maybe like you & me, on the peripheries of the Holocaust. It is a book about an ordinary man who is a young Polish Jewish doctor & it tells of the discrimination he faced leading up to WWII. It tells how his comfortable Polish middle class life is shattered first by the 1939 Soviet invasion showing the real face of the Stalinist regime & then by the Nazis in 1941 who are bent on exterminating a people merely because of their religious background. What to do? I ask myself how I would have reacted & I asked my father how he had the courage to choose to walk the line of a Jew hiding as a Christian. How brave was he? "Not brave at all" was his reply, "I just did what I had to do". It is also the story of two brave Christians, the doctor's girlfriend & a friend of hers, & how they chose to risk their lives & those of their families to prevent the unjust murder of another human being whose only crime was his ethnic background. I ask myself could I now do the same if this situation arose. The book is priced as low as possible to encourage people to read about an amazing account of survival through the love & selflessness of others in a very dark time of man's recent history. Two of the central figures of this book, Marian Golebiowski & Irena Szumska-Ingram have been honored by Jerusalem’s Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum with the Righteous Among the Nations award. See the Yom Ha’atzmaut 2010 speech by Dor Shapira of the Israeli Embassy to the Sydney NSWJBD in relation to Irena Sumska's award: http://www.google.com.hk/url?sa=t&... It is a story of love, adventure & human values, the fugitive "Jew in a Christian skin", under constant threat of exposure, precariously maintaining his false identity in a tiny rural community. finally we see Hellreich the penniless refugee, still supported by his faithful Irena, rebuilding his shattered career in Australia - a chapter of heartbreaking difficulties & heartwarming satisfaction. "...as gripping and human a story as any told about this tragic period in the history of man's inhumanity to man. I couldn't put it down. That it is told without bitterness and rancour makes it all the more powerful ... simply yet eloquently written." - Barry Cohen (former Australian Minister for the Arts, Heritage and the Environment) "... incredible faith and courage ... one of the most amazing stories to emerge from the wreckage and despair of the Holocaust." - L E Freeman in The Newcastle Herald Publisher's Note: My father, the author, passed from this world of natural causes in 2008 after what he described as a very interesting life. My hope in publishing his story is to document what happened to one man during these dark times & let him tell his story to all of you & not let it die with him. My father did not speak of his war years until I was 8, after many requests. It took him a lot longer to agree to write his story for the public. He was a modest man & did not think his story on the Holocaust's edges would be of interest, as per his Preface. All the Holocaust books I have read are valuable not for their literary merit but for the story they tell of barbarism, heroism, selfless help by others while endangering their own lives, & the wonderful strength & purity of th

Somewhere There Is Still a Sun: A Memoir of the Holocaust


Michael Gruenbaum - 2015
    All of that changed forever when the Nazis invaded Prague. The Gruenbaum family was forced to move into the Jewish Ghetto in Prague. Then, after a devastating loss, Michael, his mother and sister were deported to the Terezin concentration camp.At Terezin, Misha roomed with forty other boys who became like brothers to him. Life in Terezin was a bizarre, surreal balance - some days were filled with friendship and soccer matches, while others brought mortal terror as the boys waited to hear the names on each new list of who was being sent 'to the East.'Those trains were going to Auschwitz. When the day came that his family's name appeared on a transport list, their survival called for a miracle - one that tied Michael's fate to a carefully sewn teddy bear, and to his mother's unshakeable determination to keep her children safe.Collaborating with acclaimed author Todd Hasak-Lowy, Michael Gruenbaum shares his inspiring story of hope in an unforgettable memoir that recreates his experiences with stunning immediacy. Michael's story, and the many original documents and photos included alongside it, offer an essential contribution to Holocaust literature.The book is now available in 12 languages: English (Simon and Schuster), German (Rowohlt), French (Didier Jeunesse), Spanish (Edelvives) , Greek (Papadopoulos Publishing), Russian (Samokat), Turkish, Ukrainian, Slovenian, Czech, Burmese (Myanmar) and Sinhala (Sri Lanka); Bulgarian and Khmer (Cambodia) are scheduled later this year. Publishers in China, Israel, The Netherland, Brazil, Italy, Tanzania (Swahili and Kinyarwanda), Romania, Japan and others are also close to signing up. Our goal is still the same - to have the book be added to the curricula of all middle schools around the world.. Simon and Schuster, together with Scholastic, sold 75,000 copies of the book in the USA last year.

Submariner Sinclair


John Wingate - 1959
    Submarine Rugged are on a high-stakes, high seas mission.Mediterranean, 1942Britain is at war with Germany.Responsible for protecting British convoys in the Channel in a small Chaser, young Peter Sinclair, R.N., is thrown head-first into the horrors of war.Sent to serve in H.M. Submarine Rugged, defending convoys delivering food and supplies to the besieged island of Malta, Sub-Lieutenant Sinclair finds himself 120 feet beneath the sea, surrounded by deadly mines and just three miles from the enemy’s doorstep.In a bold night raid on a small harbour on the north African coast, the famous ‘Fighting Tenth’ Submarine Flotilla comes under attack by enemy E-boats, whose relentless depth-charging threaten to sink Rugged to the bottom of the ocean.When the Captain of a British submarine is captured, Sinclair, Able Seaman Bill Hawkins and a crack team of Commandos undertake a deadly mission to rescue the officer from a German-controlled prison on an Italian island.But can they outwit a lethal enemy? Or will Sinclair’s first taste of submarine warfare be his last?SUBMARINER SINCLAIR is the first book in the Submariner Sinclair naval thriller series: rip-roaring authentic historical adventures following a British submarine crew during World War II.

An Unbroken Chain: My Journey Through the Nazi Holocaust


Henry A. Oertelt - 2000
    A Holocaust survivor chronicles the chain of events that kept him alive, providing first-hand accounts of Hitler's rise to power, Kristallnacht, and confinement in various concentration camps.

Mary, Queen of Scots: Queen Without a Country, France, 1553


Kathryn Lasky - 2002
    Mary, the young Scottish queen, is sent a diary from her mother in which she records her experiences living at the court of France's King Henry II as she awaits her marriage to Henry's son, Francis.

How to Lose WWII: Bad Mistakes of the Good War


Bill Fawcett - 2010
    In the vein of his other phenomenal compendiums of amazing battlefield blunders, How to Lose a Battle and How to Lose a War, Fawcett focuses on some amazing catastrophic missteps of Axis and Allies alike.

Manhunter: Frank Hamer, Texas Ranger


Gene Shelton - 2017
     There is more to Hamer’s story than the ambush of the two outlaws. His career spanned the times of western law enforcement from horseback and Winchester days to the invention of the telephone and automobile. During that time, he built a reputation as an incorruptible lawman, fearless, a good man with a gun whether on horseback or behind the wheel of a Ford V8, or facing a violent mob. He survived 52 gunfights and 23 bullet wounds.

If I Should Die Before I Wake


Han Nolan - 1994
    As part of a neo-Nazi gang in her town, she's finally found a sense of belonging. But when she's critically injured in an accident, everything changes.Somehow, in her mind, she has become Chana, a Jewish girl fighting for her own life in the ghettos and concentration camps of World War II.Han Nolan offers powerful insight into one young woman's survival through the Holocaust and another's journey out of hatred and self-loathing.Reader's guide and an interview with the author included.

Hiding Edith: A True Story


Kathy Kacer - 2006
    Edith's story is remarkable not only for her own bravery, but for the bravery of those that helped her: an entire village, including its mayor and citizenry, heroically conspired to conceal the presence of hundreds of Jewish children who lived in the safe house. The children went to the local school, roamed the streets and ate good food, all withot having to worry about concealing their Jewish identity. And during Nazi raids, the children camped out until the coast was clear. Intensively researched and sensitively written, this book, illustrated with photographs and maps, both comforts and challenges a young reader's spirit, skillfully addressing both the horrors and hope that children experienced during the Holocaust.

The Messenger Bird


Ruth Eastham - 2012
    He works for the Ministry of Defence and is accused of leaking top secret information. But as he is dragged into a police car, he gives Nathan a message. It leads to a riddle, but it's not from Dad. It's from Lily Wilson, and was written in 1940.

The Lost City of the Monkey God--Extended Free Preview (first 6 chapters): A True Story


Douglas Preston - 2016
    #1 New York Times bestselling author Douglas Preston takes readers on an adventure deep into the Honduran jungle in this riveting, danger-filled true story about the discovery of an ancient lost civilization.

Bone Snow


David Haynes - 2019
    The strangers in hisbasement – the young girl and her baby.From the folk tales of Japanese myths, something insatiable has come to stalk the modernworld. The freezing snow rising inside Leo’s store is far hungrier and deadlier than anythingout in the dark.

Archie's War


Marcia Williams - 2007
    The year is 1914, and as the Great War begins, Archie’s scrapbook reflects the war’s impact on his life and on those who write back from the front. Marcia Williams retains her humor and energy as she employs a new collage style to present an intimate and compelling view of the First World War and its era.

Under the Hidden Sun


MW Kennard - 2012
    Under the Hidden Sun will keep you turning the pages late at night until the very end.(from Amazon.com)

The Silver Guitar: A Julie Mystery


Kathryn Reiss - 2011
    But then she learns her friend T.J. is in trouble. In the process of uncovering the clues that may prove T.J.'s innocence, she begins to wonder whether the people involved with the auction may be keeping some awful secrets.