The Aussie Readers group on Goodreads has the April Reading Challenge – Authors of the Month;
For a bit of a change, this month we’ll combine special authors with a bit of Easter/Anzac Day spirit. Our authors to choose from will be:
* Tim Winton
* Kate Grenville
* Stephen King
* Jodi Picoult
* John GreenAs an alternative…if you are stuck…you can choose an author whom you HAVEN’T read before, who is well published, and has a book which will relate to our either Easter or Anzac Day requirements.
Now to incorporate your author from this list, you need to make sure there’s something which will relate to either Easter (eggs/colour purple/family) or Anzac Day (military/special forces) or both in the stories/titles/cover art of your chosen book/s.
It doesn’t matter how many you read, only one or as many as you want…just put your thinking caps on, challenge yourself with something different and enjoy
It doesn’t totally meet the challenge requirements (because I have read Peter FitzSimons before) but this book has been sitting in the TBR pile for some time and it fits perfectly into the Anzac Day (military/special forces) theme.
‘Freedom is the only thing worth living for. While I was doing that work I used to think that it didn’t mater if I died, because without freedom there was no point in living.’ — Nancy Wake
Peter FitzSimons – Nancy Wake
In the early 1930′s, Nancy Wake was a young woman enjoying a bohemian life in Paris. By the end of the Second World War she was the Gestapo’s most wanted person.
As a naive, young journalist, Nancy Wake witnessed a horrific scene of Nazi violence in a Viennese street. From that moment, she declared that she would do everything in her power to rid Europe of the Nazi presence. What began as a courier job here and there, became a highly successful escape network for Allied soldiers, perfectly camouflaged by Nancy’s high-society life in Marseille. Her network was soon so successful – and so notorious – that she had to flee France to escape the Gestapo who had dubbed her ‘the white mouse’ for her knack of slipping through its traps.
But Nancy was a passionate enemy of the Nazis and refused to stay away. She trained with the British Special Operations Executive and parachuted back into France behind enemy lines. Again, this singular woman rallied to the cause, helping to lead a powerful underground fighting force, the Maquis. Supplying weapons and training the civilian Maquis, organising Allied parachute drops, cycling four hundred kilometers across a mountain range to find a new transmitting radio – nothing seemed too difficult in her fight against the Nazis.
Peter FitzSimons reveals Nancy Wake’s compelling story, a tale of an ordinary woman doing extraordinary things.
