A Bond Never Broken (Daughters of Amana, Book 3), by Judith Miller

Read, reviewed, and released February-March, 2013

This was a very enjoyable quick read with mystery, intrigue, danger, and a hint of romance. Set in an Amana community of Iowa in the early days of U.S. involvement in WW I (aka The Great War), the German-Americans suffer mistrust during the patriotic fervor of the times. Reminded me of post-9/11 anti-Muslim feelings in current times. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Although is is #3 of a series, I detected no disadvantage in not having read the previous books.

All Quiet on the Western Front, by Erich Maria Remarque

Read and reviewed in August, 2013. It is no longer in my possession.

I'd been putting off reading this because I didn't think I'd like a book about war. I was wrong; so far I am liking it, getting to know the men in Bäumer's platoon, on the German side of World War I. Quite a different perspective for me!

Even though the Germans were my country's enemy, these were just an ordinary group of young men in their late teens, forced to go to war against other young men for whom they had no animosity. War is a terrible thing.

"... a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped shells, were destroyed by the war." (from the author's introductory note)

First copyrighted in Germany in 1928; this is a paperbook published by Fawcett Crest in 1987.