In the new Ken Burns documentary, The War, Sascha Weinzheimer's story reminds us that not all American prisoners of the Japanese were in the armed forces. Weinzheimer was just a child when the Philippines, where she and her family lived, were invaded by Japan. The Weinzheimers were among the more than 5,000 American civilians living there who fell into enemy hands.
To learn more about the Japanese internment of American civilians in the Philippines during World War II, check out CAPTURED. This history recounts daily life in five internment camps, including the Santo Tomas camp, where the Weinzheimers were held. Supported by diaries, memoirs, war crimes transcripts, Japanese soldiers' account, medical data, and many other sources, CAPTURED presents a detailed and moving chronicle of the internees' efforts to survive overcrowding, heavy labor, malnourishment, and disease. The American Historical Review praised CAPTURED as a "truly remarkable and important book," and recommended it to "those interested in the wider American historical experience."
The refugee crisis along the Myanmar-Thailand border is only the latest episode of a decades-long problem. SINGING TO THE DEAD adds context to current headlines by recalling one woman's work alongside a group of Buddhist monks in Thailand who gave refuge to victims of the violence and oppression in Myanmar in the 1990s.
Booklist said that author Victoria Armour-Hileman chronicled her experience "with striking candor, confessing her sense of inadequacy in the face of so much pain and evil, her despair over the stark reality that indigenous people all around the world have been forced to the brink of extinction, and her inability to fathom the motives of those who commit atrocities. Observant, sweetly funny, modest, and compassionate, Armour-Hileman is a thought-provoking storyteller and an invaluable witness to what is both 'hideous and holy' in human nature."Technorati Tags: ken burns world war ii myanmar burma human rights
Don't forget:
Our White Sale ends at 12 noon EST, Sunday, September 30.
Recent interviews:
Mort Zachter, author of DOUGH, on NPR.
Riché Richardson, author of BLACK MASCULINITY AND THE U.S. SOUTH on Psychjourney Audio Book Club.
Recent reviews:
PEACHTREE CREEK in Creative Loafing and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
THE RINGING EAR in Rain Taxi: "Offers a consistently strong showcase of Black voices and a compelling and accessible organization, and should persist as an important articulation of the Black experience of the American South . . . The genius of this book and of Cave Canem's importance is obvious."
GOOD OBSERVERS OF NATURE in the Feminist Review.
THE PALE OF SETTLEMENT in Booklist: "Singer’s tremendous debut ... weaves together strands of familial identity, history, and myth to create a fascinating, many-hued narrative fabric."
THE PALE OF SETTLEMENT in Publishers Weekly.
CIRCLING HOME in Booklist: "Lane’s forays took him from a posh country club golf course to the local sewage treatment plant, through an abandoned graveyard, and past a burned-out ironworks. Each locale inspired eloquent and esoteric essays about the archaeological and ecological wonders found beneath his feet. Taken together, his descriptive reports create a painstakingly intricate portrait of the land he lovingly calls home."
DEPTH THEOLOGY in the Modern Review
GEORGIA QUILTS in Southern Living: "It's nice to see what was once dismissed as 'women's work' finally getting it's due . . . GEORGIA QUILTS offers more than quilts. It gives us the women who made them and 200 years of the Georgia in which they lived. It shows that so-called women's work is as much a part of the fabric of our state's heritage as wars and politics. Amen to that."
In the news:
Judson Mitcham, whose latest book is A LITTLE SALVATION, was recently the featured poet on Poetry Daily.
JOHN ASHBERY AND YOU looks at the last twenty years of the mtvU laureate's poetic output.
The Southern Texts Society, whose book series we publish, has a new web site. The most recent volume in the series is MARY TELFAIR TO MARY FEW.
FAVORITE WILDFLOWER WALKS IN GEORGIA gets a nod in this Atlanta Journal-Constitution piece about about wildflowers that bloom in the fall.
Recent awards:
A chapter from Jason Phillips' DIEHARD REBELS will appear in the anthology Best American History Essays 2008. The piece, titled "The Grape Vine Telegraph: Rumors and Confederate Persistence," originally appeared in the Journal of Southern History.
We get blogged:
Recommendation of THE SPIRIT OF ISLAMIC LAW in Islam and Christianity.
Mention of THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT IN AMERICAN MEMORY in a review of another recent civil rights history on mdot.
Recommendation of WORDS ABOUT PICTURES in One-Minute Book Reviews.
Mention of THE RHETORIC OF EUGENICS IN ANGLO-AMERICAN THOUGHT in The Necromancer.
Listen to NPR's Weekend All Things Considered this Sunday, September 23, to hear an interview with Mort Zachter, author of DOUGH.
Zachter is a winner of the AWP Creative Nonfiction Award. His memoir centers on a small shop on Manhattan’s Lower East Side known in the neighborhood as “the day-old bread store.” It was a bakery where nothing was baked, owned by his two eccentric uncles who referred to their goods as “the merchandise.” Zachter grew up sleeping in the dinette of a leak
ing Brooklyn tenement. He lived a classic immigrant story—one of a close-knit, working-class family struggling to make it in America. Only they were rich. DOUGH chronicles Zachter's life-altering discovery made at age thirty-six that he was heir to several million dollars his bachelor uncles had secretly amassed in stocks and bonds.
For the in
terview, NPR host Jacki Lyden went with Zachter to the bakery that defined his family for so many years. They taped the interview inside the small store in an effort to capture the "bakery buzz in the background." NPR producers snapped some pictures while they were there. They will be posted on the NPR website, along with an excerpt from the book, after the interview airs. Check out your local NPR affiliate's web site to find out when Weekend All Things Considered airs in your area.Images:Top left: Book jacket for Dough
Bottom left: Uncle Joe and Uncle Harry in their store, 1960s (photo courtesy of the author)
Right: Mort Zachter, photo by David Ticktin
Technorati Tags: npr national public radio
The finalists for the 2007 National Book Awards have been announced. Two of the nominees in the poetry category also have published books with the UGA Press.
author of WHAT IS A BOOK? and ULTRA-TALK.
