Books like The Woman Who Saved the Children — picked by fans

So great was the demand for hospital beds for the wounded, that medical facilities were a feature of most of Britain's cities, part of daily civilian life. At the heart of London's Covent Garden was the Endell Street Hospital, run entirely by women whose medical expertise and skill was matched by their direct experience of the war itself. But their achievements and experience were wasted after the war by a medical profession that reverted all too easily to pre-war prejudice and discrimination. Much was lost, especially to their patients whose recovery prospects were damaged, never to be restored.

A mystery novel, that tells a haunting, captivating story of the cost paid by one individual soldier at the battle of Messines Ridge. Impeccably researched, the reader is given a firm historical grounding of the physical, psychological, and geophysical costs of being at the explosive, bloody cutting edge of warfare on the Western Front.

A biography of an extraordinary building: the biggest hospital ever built, to contain the casualties of Britain's biggest and worst wars from Crimea to World War Two. Perhaps the most original work of medical historical writing in the English language, as the ghosts of the nurses, doctors, and their broken shell-shocked patients haunt its pages and its writer through his family connections.

A small and beautiful story of three young soldier casualties who lie in a German hospital ward as the Great War grinds its way to an end. They've survived the bullet wounds to their throats and faces that have reduced each of their voices to a whispering whistle. But there is little left of their lives beyond survival, despite the efforts of their dedicated surgeon and their devotion to each other. A novella, based on the real-life experiences of the author, his comrades, and the English PoW they met in the Whistlers Room.

Pat the Bunny is designed for the youngest children learning to read, yet I remember this book on our shelf throughout my whole childhood.

Each page is interactive as children are invited to pat the soft bunny, smell the flowers, touch Dad’s scratchy face, and more. Besides learning to read, children learn to notice sensory details in the world around them.

I think this book explains why genocide happens under the cover of war. It made me see why both World War I and World War II were marked by genocides. I really liked how the author explained why the Armenian Genocide was a key event of World War I.

Balakian is a poet who turned to history writing to explain the experience of genocide and demonstrate the central importance of the international response to genocide. He uses interesting source material from eyewitnesses and official archives to trace both the humanitarian response and military decisions that brought the US into the war on the side of the Allies in the wake of the first large-scale genocide of the twentieth century.

Do I judge a book by its cover? Why yes, yes I do! And the moment I saw this gorgeous cover I put it right into my shopping cart, paid full price, and never looked back.

Luckily for me, Women in Intelligence happens to be an excellent book where the content more than matched the expectations I had from the fabulous artwork. Although there are a few familiar faces that appear, most of the women were completely new to me. Not the femme fatales of popular culture; these were patriotic women who often went unseen in the background.

I love that Fry truly delves into uncovering the unsung heroines of WWI and WWII, giving these quiet, determined women a chance to be recognized and to shine.

If we are not killer apes, if war is not inevitable, how does it happen? Obviously because people were not up to the challenges of maintaining peace. Margaret MacMillan’s riveting account of the events leading up to the Great War, the First World War, shows in all-too-clear detail how not to go about avoiding war. The German Kaiser, Wilhelm, was petty and boastful and altogether too proud and confident of his totally inadequate abilities. The Tsar of Russia, Nicholas, was cut from the same cloth. But whereas Wilhelm made up his mind quickly and then was unmovable, Nicholas could never make up his mind. Between them, helped by other inadequates in places of high status and power, millions of young men lay dead on the fields of Flanders, in Northern France.

When war erupted in August 1914, Germany stationed two ships, battlecruiser Goeben and light cruiser Breslau in the Mediterranean to reinforce the fleets of her allies, Italy and Austria-Hungary. Together they planned to overwhelm outmatched British and French vessels and clear the way for an Italian invasion of southern France. In a shocking development, however, Italy remained neutral, Austria-Hungary’s lesser squadrons remained in port, and Goeben and Breslau were forced to flee from British pursuers. In an exciting chase – somewhat of a story twist on the Royal Navy’s hunt and sinking of Hitler’s battleship Bismarck in May 1941 – British ships failed this time and the German escapees fled through the Dardanelles to Istanbul, joined the navy of the Ottoman Empire, and facilitated Turkey’s entry to the war on Germany’s side.     

This is a collection of a dozen essays allowing us to feel the fun, the drama, the craziness of travel, and the effect it can have on both our personalities and views after the journey. In other words, this book teaches us to feel these stories, which show us the more you risk the more rewards you will gain from your travel adventures.

It also reminds us to worry or at least be concerned for whom you are traveling with. After reading this, I believe it is not what we accomplish by traveling but what we take away from traveling.