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Why read it?

1 author picked The Smoking Mountain as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Perhaps the most sweeping view of the Occupation can be found in The Smoking Mountain by Kay Boyle. An editor at the New Yorker asked Boyle, who was in Germany under the Occupation, for a fictional account. While most of the short stories, except for the first which is clearly reportorial, work as fiction, they are grounded in her experiences in a fraught world where victors and vanquished, Germans and Americans, military and civilians struggle to find a way to coexist. In Boyle’s gimlet eye, few come out blameless.

From Ellen's list on the allied occupation of Germany.

If you love The Smoking Mountain...

Book cover of December on 5C4

December on 5C4 by Adam Strassberg,

Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!

On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…

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Courting the Sun by Peggy Joque Williams,

Can a free-spirited country girl navigate the world of intrigue, illicit affairs, and power-mongering that is the court of Louis XIV—the Sun King--and still keep her head?

France, 1670. Sixteen-year-old Sylvienne d’Aubert receives an invitation to attend the court of King Louis XIV. She eagerly accepts, unaware of her mother’s…

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Whispers on the Wind by Elizabeth Revill,

Wales between the wars, a place of poverty and a world full of anguish. Yet, there is hope. Within family, within community, and most of all in the brave heart of one young girl.

Set in the lush Dulais Valley; Carrie is fated to a life of hardship and sorrow,…

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