World War II

Home Front Girl

December 27, 2012

A couple of weekends ago–in between baking ham, slicing sweet potatoes, chopping cranberries and rolling out biscuit dough– I gave myself the treat of reading Home Front Girl: A Diary of Love, Literature and Growing Up in Wartime America. And a treat it was. Born in 1922, Joan Wehlen, later Joan Wehlen Morrison, grew up [...]

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Road Trip Through History: Portsmouth

December 11, 2012

My Own True Love and I went to Portsmouth primarily to visit the Historic Dockyards. Restored historic ships, the story of the Tudor warship the Mary Rose, the history of the dockyards themselves–it sounded right up our alley. And in fact it was. The quality of the exhibits ranged from the fabulous to the dated [...]

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Road Trip Through History: Dover

October 30, 2012

Image courtesy of Webzoloo via Creative Commons Dover is the reason My Own True Love and I headed to England. I had questions related to one of my personal writing projects that could only be answered on the ground. We weren’t expecting much. The guidebooks all say something along the lines of “this workaday town [...]

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Antony Beevor’s The Second World War

June 29, 2012

When Antony Beevor’s The Second World War arrived in the mail*, I was intimidated. I read and write about war-related topics a lot, but I wasn’t sure I was up to almost 800 pages of pure military history. I didn’t need to worry. Beevor begins his broad-sweeping history with the story of a single Korean [...]

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History on Display: Windows on the War

September 27, 2011

There are plenty of good reasons to visit the Art Institute of Chicago:  the Impressionist collection, the Chagall window, the under-appreciated collection of South Asia art, the gift shop.  But the Art Institute usually isn’t my first choice for a history lesson.  In fact, it doesn’t generally take much to set me off on the [...]

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