BOOKS FROM THE BACKLOG #1

Hi,

Books from the Backlog is a weekly feature hosted by Carole @ Carole's Random Life in Books. I'm doing double features every other week: one physical book and one ebook. I'm picking my physical books through my TBR jar. For my ebooks, I'll just pick whichever catches my attention.

title: Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania

author: Erik Larson

genre: non-fiction, history

published: March 22, 2016 by Broadway Books (first published March 3, 2015)

format: trade paperback, 430 pages

purchase: Amazon | B&N | Book Depository

goodreads

From the bestselling author and master of narrative nonfiction comes the enthralling story of the sinking of the Lusitania 

On May 1, 1915, with WWI entering its tenth month, a luxury ocean liner as richly appointed as an English country house sailed out of New York, bound for Liverpool, carrying a record number of children and infants. The passengers were surprisingly at ease, even though Germany had declared the seas around Britain to be a war zone. For months, German U-boats had brought terror to the North Atlantic. But the Lusitania was one of the era’s great transatlantic “Greyhounds”—the fastest liner then in service—and her captain, William Thomas Turner, placed tremendous faith in the gentlemanly strictures of warfare that for a century had kept civilian ships safe from attack. 

Germany, however, was determined to change the rules of the game, and Walther Schwieger, the captain of Unterseeboot-20, was happy to oblige. Meanwhile, an ultra-secret British intelligence unit tracked Schwieger’s U-boat, but told no one. As U-20 and the Lusitania made their way toward Liverpool, an array of forces both grand and achingly small—hubris, a chance fog, a closely guarded secret, and more—all converged to produce one of the great disasters of history.

It is a story that many of us think we know but don’t, and Erik Larson tells it thrillingly, switching between hunter and hunted while painting a larger portrait of America at the height of the Progressive Era. Full of glamour and suspense, Dead Wake brings to life a cast of evocative characters, from famed Boston bookseller Charles Lauriat to pioneering female architect Theodate Pope to President Woodrow Wilson, a man lost to grief, dreading the widening war but also captivated by the prospect of new love. 

Gripping and important, Dead Wake captures the sheer drama and emotional power of a disaster whose intimate details and true meaning have long been obscured by history.

why did I buy this. I bought this during my huge fangirling over Wilhelm Gustloff because of Salt to Sea by Ruta Sepetys.
why is it still in my tbr. When I bought this I thought I'll jump into nonfiction quickly. But no. I started it. Dropped it. But I'll get back to it :)

title: Human Acts
author: Han Kang; Deborah Smith (Translator)
genre: literary fiction, historical fiction
published: January 17, 2017 by Hogarth Press (first Published May 19, 2014)
format: eGalley for hardcover, xx pages
purchase: Amazon | B&N | Book Depository
goodreads

From the internationally bestselling author of The Vegetarian, a rare and astonishing (The Observer) portrait of political unrest and the universal struggle for justice. 

In the midst of a violent student uprising in South Korea, a young boy named Dong-ho is shockingly killed.

The story of this tragic episode unfolds in a sequence of interconnected chapters as the victims and the bereaved encounter suppression, denial, and the echoing agony of the massacre. From Dong-ho's best friend who meets his own fateful end; to an editor struggling against censorship; to a prisoner and a factory worker, each suffering from traumatic memories; and to Dong-ho's own grief-stricken mother; and through their collective heartbreak and acts of hope is the tale of a brutalized people in search of a voice.

An award-winning, controversial bestseller, Human Acts is a timeless, pointillist portrait of an historic event with reverberations still being felt today, by turns tracing the harsh reality of oppression and the resounding, extraordinary poetry of humanity.

why did I get this. because it has an interesting premise that intrigued me.
why is it still in my tbr. I tried it before but I wasn't in the mood for a series novel. Might pick this up one of these days now that I've unearthed it. hahaha

HOW ABOUT YOU

Have you read these books? What do you think of them? Should I put them at the top of my tbr?

let's connect!