Wayward Pines, Agent ZigZag, and Other Stuff

I've read and reviewed all 3 of the Wayward Pines novels ( my reviews here and here). The novels are weird and fascinating, although I prefer the first one.  I watched the first episode of the Wayward Pines new series and was surprised at how much the town and certain scenes matched my imagination from the book.  The characters don't fit my images, but the town is uncannily like my imagination.  The first episode is confusing...as was the book which trickled out the information a little at a time.  You are curious and confused as the story slowly clarifies, bit by agonizing bit.  Before watching any more episodes, I want to wait until several more are released.  Has anyone else watched them?

While working on my various projects, I love watching K-dramas and series like The Black list, Grimm (waiting on new season), and Granite Flats.  During the day, I usually do the work that takes more thought, then at night I play with details.  I can embroider or hand quilt and watch my shows, but am unable to do anything like work on my clay figures or figuring out what to do next on my improvisational quilts-- so a little planning is required to have simple projects at night that I can do while watching my shows.  The quilted beads are mounting up.

Because I am unable to watch television (read Netflix and Drama Fever) without having something to do with my hands. 


I finished Agent ZigZag:  A True Story of Nazi Espionage, Love, and Betrayal by Ben MacIntyre, an  account of British triple agent Eddie Chapman during  WWII.  While I did not like it as much as MacInyre's Operation Mincemeat: How a Dead Man and a Bizarre Plan Fooled the Nazis and Assured an Allied Victory (reviewed here; gotta' love the titles), Agent ZigZag is a fascinating look at Britain's utilization of a handsome, brazen young criminal who was finally arrested and jailed on occupied Jersey, ironically, for one crime that he didn't commit.  Later transferred by the Nazis to a Paris prison, Chapman agreed to work for the Germans.  He was trained and eventually parachuted back into England where he immediately went to British authorities, told them what he'd learned, and offered to spy on the Germans.  Fearless and feckless, Chapman provided disinformation to the Nazi Abwehr, and the Germans so trusted this thief and con man that they awarded him the Iron Cross--now that is irony, indeed.

Certainly not an admirable man in many ways, Chapman nevertheless risked his life for his country and served it well during the war years.  The information MacIntyre reveals about some of the difficulties of running spies, double agents, and the outlandish triple agent named ZigZag is truly fascinating

MacIntyre's research is impeccable and his list of sources impressive.  


A New York Times Notable Book of the Year
A Washington Post Best Book of 2007
One of the Top 10 Best Books of 2007 (Entertainment Weekly)
New York Times Best of the Year Round-Up
New York Times Editors’ Choice

Purchased on Kindle.

WWII, Espionage.  2007.  Print version: 384 pages.

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In the synchronicitous way of things, I've read two fiction books concerning WWII espionage in the last week.  

The Haigerloch Project is more interesting for its factual references than for the fictional characters and plot.  The information about the Manhatten Project, the attempts to discover how close the Germans were to producing their own atomic bomb, and the search for ways to derail its completion is a fictional plot informed by fact. 

I.B. Melchior, novelist, screenwriter, and film producer, served with the U.S. Counterintelligence Corps during WWII.  A decorated war hero, Melchior participated in the liberation of the Flossenburg concentration camp and the capture of a Werwolf unit in 1945, as well as other important missions.

I found the mention of individuals in the nonfiction Agent ZigZag and the fictional Haigerloch Project, even if they received little more than a few lines, especially interesting.  Most fascinating was Moe Berg, an American professional baseball player who graduated from Princeton and Columbia, spoke seven languages, and during the war, worked for the OSS special intelligence branch.  Parachuting behind enemy lines, he evaluated resistance groups and worked on Project AZUSA, moving across Europe interviewing European physicists and trying to determine how close the Germans were to achieving a bomb... among other things.  Berg is mentioned in both Agent ZigZag an in The Haigerloch Project.

I researched a number of things I wasn't familiar with:  ALSOS, Project Larson, Haigerloch and the German reactor, and more.  Melchior's bibliographic material contained, perhaps not surprisingly, many of the same sources as Ben MacIntyre's bibliography.  John Masterson's and William Pasher's WWII records also intrigue me.

NetGalley/Open Road Media

WWII/Espionage.  1978 and 2014.  Print version:  289 pages.

I'll get to my reviews of The Scent of Secrets and A Kind of Grief which are also connected with the theme of espionage.  And I was surprised that Granite Flats, the Netflix series, moved from what initially seemed like the adventures of three kids in a small Colorado town during the Cold War to a much darker theme of espionage during and after the war.  It includes elements of the Red Scare, blacklisting, and MK-Ultra.  From light-hearted to some shameful episodes in American history, the series is an odd one in both style and content--but fascinating.

Caught Up

I'm caught up on reviews as I'm not going to review the cookbook, even though I've already spent as much time on it as I would have with a novel. I'm about half way through Immortal--which is...interesting.

Last night, I watched the entire first season of Slings & Arrows, a Canadian television series. I didn't intend to watch both disks, but I got so wrapped up in it that I couldn't keep myself from putting that second disk in. Mostly the behind the scenes goings on of the fictitious New Burbage Theater, the series is witty, blackly funny, intelligent, and fascinating. The characters are marvelous. The series had me from the opening song:

Cheer up Hamlet
Chin up Hamlet
Buck up you melancholy Dane
So your uncle is a cad
Who murdered Dad and married Mum
That's really no excuse to be as glum as you've become
So wise up Hamlet
Rise up Hamlet
Buck up and sing the new refrain
Your incessant monologizing fills the castle with ennui
Your antic disposition is embarrassing to see
And by the way you sulky brat the answer is To Be
You're driving poor Ophelia insane
So shut up you rogue and peasant
Grow up it's most unpleasant
Cheer up you melancholy Dane

To Read or Not to Read

You can listen to this short article at All Things Considered on NPR: Reading Study Shows Remarkable Decline in U.S.

And read about it here:

To Read or Not To Read: A Question of National Consequence

just one excerpt:

All of the data suggest how powerfully reading transforms the lives of individuals— whatever their social circumstances. Regular reading not only boosts the likelihood of an individual’s academic and economic success—facts that are not especially surprising—but it also seems to awaken a person’s social and civic sense. Reading correlates with almost every measurement of positive personal and social behavior surveyed. It is reassuring, though hardly amazing, that readers attend more concerts and theater than non-readers, but it is surprising that they exercise more and play more sports—no matter what their educational level. These cold statistics confirm something that most readers know but have mostly been reluctant to declare as fact— books change lives for the better.

Whether or not the study is flawed (as some have suggested), it covers such an important aspect of a culture that it deserves attention.

And, Carl, did you realize this? I'm sure you did, and I've just missed it, but it is such a "good thing." More reason for the networks to allow the writers their due and get on with the process because I need more Joss Whedon.

Netflix Movies

I watched a couple of BBC series last week that I enjoyed:

Rosemary & Thyme is a delightful mystery series about two women whose circumstances changed in midlife and who join forces in a landscaping venture with a mystery-solving sideline.

Campion: The Case of the Late Pig is also great fun with wonderful characters and settings. Peter Davison plays Margery Allingham's Albert Campion. Jill sent me 3 of the Campion series (I reviewed them in June), and I'm now hooked on this series of quintessentially British mysteries.

I will be leaving in a few hours for another tournament in Houston. Hope to get some pictures this time--camera battery charged and ready to go.

And the Winner Is...

I won! Me! Carl drew my name, and I get a copy of Colleen Gleason's The Rest Falls Away! Things have been so hectic around here that computer time has been almost non-existent, but yesterday, I checked my email and received Carl's note. Cool, huh? Wasn't expecting anything but checking in on email and got a surprise gift book! Looking forward to the first in this vampire series.

Still not much time available right now, but I'm trying to update my December Reading. I realized this morning that I put it on "draft" the other day when I updated...and left it there. Now I have more to add.

Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas! Like everyone else, I enjoyed reading all the entries in Carl's G.I.F.T Challenge and now this Christmas is added to those memories.

Oh, and speaking of Carl, a while back he recommended the BBC series Mulberry with Geraldine McEwan. I watched the first disc before Christmas and have to admit that I, too, fell in love with both the series and the star. If you want a pleasant "movie" experience, you really should try this one. Thursday should bring the second disc, and I can't wait. Another set of characters as eccentric and lovable as you could hope for.

Assorted books and blather

I finished re-reading The Woman in White yesterday and am happy to say that my fond memories were justified. I'll review it later, but Wilkie Collins had a mind for details, organization, and tying up loose ends.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Oh, how many years since I read Pirsig? Reading the article makes me want to revisit this one.

Time for another trip to the library, and one book that I want is Marking Time, the Vol. 2 in the Cazalet Chronicles...before all of those characters begin to fade from my mind.

Finished all but one of the books on my list for the Stacks Challenge. The one book unread is The Haunted Bookshop - which I included in my Stacks list because it was ordered in September, and I counted it as "in my stacks." However, Amazon eventually shipped all of the other books...with this one exception, although I continue to get email updates, I do not have the book.

Watched Disc 2 of Firefly Sunday night. :) Now awaiting Discs 3 & 4, and the movie; love that Netflix que!

Netflix, Novels, and Santas

Last night, after an entire afternoon of Christmas shopping with Laddie and then dinner at his favorite Country Tavern, I came home and found Netflix had delivered Discs 1 and 2 of Firefly. It was a little after 7:00, so I found some hand work to do, pulled up the ottoman, turned on the lamp, arranged scissors, thread, & glass of diet coke, hi-jacked the throw from my "reading chair," and settled into the "sewing and television chair" -- for a delightful evening. (discovered this morning that Carl had also watched a little Firefly) Joss Whedon - love him!

After finishing the first Disc of Firefly, I read a little more on The Woman in White before going to bed. It has been so long since my first reading (not telling how many years!) that discovering over the last couple of days that this well-loved book still brings the same pleasure and suspense that it did all those years ago has been a source of joy. Danielle has Armadale by Wilkie Collins awaiting her, and Dark Orpheus commented that Armadale is her favorite Collins' work. So...when I finish The Woman in White (and some of the others in the stacks), I'll be on to acquiring copies and re-reading The Moonstone (and reading Armadale for the first time).

Just a preview of some of Fee's Santa's . He carved these (and probably 20 more several years ago, and they are part of our standard Christmas search. Where t0 put them all?