Thursday, September 24, 2015

Are You Ready for An Edge of Your Seat Non-Fiction Suspense Book? Check out this one....

Avenue of Spies: A True Story of Terror, Espionage, and One American Family's Heroic Resistance in Nazi-Occupied Paris
 

Amazon.com synopsis:
The best-selling author of The Liberator brings to life the incredible true story of an American doctor in Paris, and his heroic espionage efforts during World War II.
The leafy Avenue Foch, one of the most exclusive residential streets in Nazi-occupied France, was Paris's hotbed of daring spies, murderous secret police, amoral informers, and Vichy collaborators. So when American physician Sumner Jackson, who lived with his wife and young son Phillip at Number 11, found himself drawn into the Liberation network of the French resistance, he knew the stakes were impossibly high. Just down the road at Number 31 was the "mad sadist" Theodor Dannecker, an Eichmann protégé charged with deporting French Jews to concentration camps. And Number 84 housed the Parisian headquarters of the Gestapo, run by the most effective spy hunter in Nazi Germany.
From his office at the American Hospital, itself an epicenter of Allied and Axis intrigue, Jackson smuggled fallen Allied fighter pilots safely out of France, a job complicated by the hospital director's close ties to collaborationist Vichy. After witnessing the brutal round-up of his Jewish friends, Jackson invited Liberation to officially operate out of his home at Number 11--but the noose soon began to tighten. When his secret life was discovered by his Nazi neighbors, he and his family were forced to undertake a journey into the dark heart of the war-torn continent from which there was little chance of return.
Drawing upon a wealth of primary source material and extensive interviews with Phillip Jackson, Alex Kershaw recreates the City of Light during its darkest days. The untold story of the Jackson family anchors the suspenseful narrative, and Kershaw dazzles readers with the vivid immediacy of the best spy thrillers. Awash with the tense atmosphere of World War II's Europe, Avenue of Spies introduces us to the brave doctor who risked everything to defy Hitler. 

About the Author:
ALEX KERSHAW is the New York Times bestselling author of several books on World War II, including The Bedford Boys and The Longest Winter. He lives in Williamstown, Massachusetts. 

My review:    

WWII was a scary time, especially for those countries in the midst of it. Imagine being in the midst of it all. It being in your neighborhood, on your street. That is what happens to the Jackson family during WWII. Paris’s exclusive Avenue Foch was a “hotbed of daring spies”, and in the midst of it lived an American physician Sumner Jackson, his Swiss born Wife and their son Phillip. “There was no more dangerous place in all of occupied Europe than their street.” (From the cover leaf).

From the opening chapter to the end this book will keep you on the edge of your seat and you’ll want to read more until you finally finish it. In the opening chapter, brilliant surgeon Sumner Jackson fights to save lives, while amputating limbs in the dimmest light while bodies continue to pile up. This book isn’t for the faint of heart, but the heart is a mighty strong muscle as evidenced by the Jackson family. While French Jews around them are rounded up by their Nazi neighbors, the Jackson family do what they can to defy Hitler and his German rule

This is a true story. This is a human story. This is a story that I highly recommend to others without hesitation. Avenue of Spies is a scary read because it could happen anywhere at any time. In this case, it happened at the most volatile time in our history. As this book shows, heroes are ordinary people in the wrong place at the right time.

Disclaimer: I received an ARC e-book copy from Net Galley in exchange for a fair and honest review. 

Until next review, stay safe. Smile! Show compassion to others. Be nice to one another. Read a book and pass it on. Review it. Cheers!
Regards,
S.J. Francis
In Shattered Lies: "It's All About Family."  Available now from Black Opal Books at on-line retailers and independent booksellers.
            My Black Opal Books Author Page:
View My ShoutOut:  http://bit.ly/1r3oynM
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And now for some legal stuff: Copyright 2015 by S.J. Francis. Opinions expressed here are solely those of the author, S. J. Francis and are meant to entertain, inform and enlighten, and intend to offend no one.
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Thursday, September 10, 2015

A 5 star Review for The Real Doctor Will See You Shortly: A Physician's First Year by Matt McCarthy...


Every Doctor and Patient Should Read this One…..My 5 star review....

Book Synopsis:

In medical school, Matt McCarthy dreamed of being a different kind of doctor—the sort of mythical, unflappable physician who could reach unreachable patients. But when a new admission to the critical care unit almost died his first night on call, he found himself scrambling. Visions of mastery quickly gave way to hopes of simply surviving hospital life, where confidence was hard to come by and no amount of med school training could dispel the terror of facing actual patients.
This funny, candid memoir of McCarthy’s intern year at a New York hospital provides a scorchingly frank look at how doctors are made, taking readers into patients’ rooms and doctors’ conferences to witness a physician's journey from ineptitude to competence. McCarthy's one stroke of luck paired him with a brilliant second-year adviser he called “Baio” (owing to his resemblance to the Charles in Charge star), who proved to be a remarkable teacher with a wicked sense of humor. McCarthy would learn even more from the people he cared for, including a man named Benny, who was living in the hospital for months at a time awaiting a heart transplant. But no teacher could help McCarthy when an accident put his own health at risk, and showed him all too painfully the thin line between doctor and patient.
The Real Doctor Will See You Shortly offers a window on to hospital life that dispenses with sanctimony and self-seriousness while emphasizing the black-comic paradox of becoming a doctor: How do you learn to save lives in a job where there is no practice?

                                                        
My Book Review:
   If you’ve ever wondered why your physician lacks a good bedside manner, behaves as if he was God, or is the most pleasant doctor you ever met, read this book and you’ll soon find out why. Future doctors receive no training in medical school in how to become a doctor. That sort of training comes after graduation from medical school and is learned in on the job training. From the doctors that they work with, train under, from the patients they tend to, these new doctors as interns are molded into the doctor you see now. In the Real Doctor Will See You Shortly, idealistic recent medical school graduate Dr. Matt McCarthy takes us through his first year of his internship, his on-the-job training. During this first year, he endured thirty hour shifts, and worked in every area of medicine to help him determine what kind of medicine he will eventually practice. At one point, he says it best, “Learning medicine was about being thrown into the fire, learning on the fly….” Can you imagine saying awake for thirty hours straight, full of donuts and coffee and be expected to make an accurate diagnosis of a patient? Crazy huh? Unbelievable? Absolutely. These young doctors have no clue on how to take blood, read X-rays or other elated tasks until now, while they’re interns. “So many things go into being a doctor,” he said. “connecting with patients, medical knowledge, performing procedures-on any given day you can consider yourself a failure at one of them. Or all of them. You can beat yourself up to the point that you’re ready to quit. But on the other hand…at any moment you can look around and say, ‘I’m better than that guy. I’m a better doctor that her.”    

     Told through his eager, enthusiastic eyes with humor, his book is harrowing, uplifting, scary and hilarious. This book covers everything you ever wanted to know about what it takes in becoming a doctor. Whether you’re interested in becoming a doctor, or wish to know what training your doctor had that made him/her a good or bad doctor, this is the book to read. In fact, I’d like to hand out a copy to every patient in order to tell them that their doctor isn’t God. Like us he/she is just a human and they can’t perform miracles. I’d also like to give every doctor a copy in order to remind them of the same. This was an excellent, informative and enjoyable read and I highly recommend it. 
 

About the Author:

MATT MCCARTHY is an assistant professor of medicine at Cornell and a staff physician at Weill Cornell Medical Center. His work has appeared in Sports Illustrated, Slate, The New England Journal of Medicine, and Deadspin, where he writes the Medspin column. His first book, Odd Man Out, was a New York Times bestseller.
 
Disclaimer: I received this book from Blogging For Books in exchanged for a fair and honest review.
 
 

Until next review, stay safe. Smile! Show compassion to others. Be nice to one another. Read a book and pass it on. Review it. Cheers!
Regards,
S.J. Francis
In Shattered Lies: "It's All About Family."  Coming in 2015 from Black Opal Books.

My Black Opal Books Author Page:
View My ShoutOut:  http://bit.ly/1r3oynM
My web page: http://sjfranciswriter.com
 
A Book Review 4 U: abookreview4u.blogspot.com
 
A Consumer's View: aconsumersview.blogspot.com
 
OnefortheAnimals:    onefortheanimals.blogspot.com
 
 

Good Reads:       https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/33550975-s-j


 
And now for some legal stuff: Copyright 2015 by S.J. Francis. Opinions expressed here are solely those of the author, S. J. Francis and are meant to entertain, inform and enlighten, and intend to offend no one.
 
 

 
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