Five Days that Shocked the World by Nicholas Best - Guest Blogger Book Review
In the five momentous days from April 28 to May 2, 1945, the world witnessed the death of two Fascist dictators and the fall of Berlin. The execution of Benito Mussolini, the suicide of Adolf Hitler, and the fall of the German capital signaled the end of the four-year war in the European Theater. In Five Days That Shocked the World, Nicholas Best thrills readers with the first-person accounts of those who lived through this dramatic time.
In this valuable work of history, the author's special achievement is to weave together the reports of famous and soon-to-be-famous individuals who experienced the war up close. We follow a young Walter Cronkite as he parachutes into Holland with a Canadian troop; photographer Lee Miller capturing the evidence of Nazi atrocities; the future Pope Benedict returning home and hoping not to be caught and shot after deserting his unit; Audrey Hepburn no longer having to fear conscription into a Wehrmacht brothel; and even an SS doctor's descriptions of a decadent sex orgy in Hitler's bunker.
In skillfully synthesizing these personal narratives, Best creates a compelling chronicle of the five earth-shaking days when Fascism lost it death grip on Europe. With this vivid and fast-paced narrative, the author reaffirms his reputation as an expert on the final days of great wars.
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Jennifer's Review
It's an okay book.
It's about the second World War between Germany, the British, and the Americans. Each person involved in the war tells their story and what they witnessed during Hitler's reign over Germany.
If you like history or have an interest in learning about WWII, this is a good book to start with.
2 stars.
Author Bio
Nicholas Best grew up in Kenya and was educated there, in England and at Trinity College, Dublin. He served in the Grenadier Guards and worked as a journalist in London before becoming a full time author.
His first novel ('As a satire on military bigotry and shambling officialdom, Where were you at Waterloo? is in places as sharp as Waugh and sometimes better' - Times Literary Supplement) was written at Harvard. His second, Tennis and the Masai ('The funniest book of the year - Daily Telegraph) was serialized on BBC Radio 4.
He has since written many other books, including Happy Valley: the Story of the English in Kenya, The Greatest Day in History, about the Armistice of 1918, and Five Days that shocked the World, about the end of the Second World War.
Best was the Financial Times's fiction critic for ten years. In 2010, he was long-listed for the Sunday Times-EFG Bank award of £30,000, the biggest short story prize in the world. He lives in Cambridge.
For more information, visit www.nicholasbest.co.uk
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