Sons and Soldiers: The Untold Story of the Jews Who Escaped the Nazis and Returned with the U.S. Army to Fight Hitler
Bruce Henderson, 2017
HarperCollins
448 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062419095
Summary
Joining the ranks of Unbroken, Band of Brothers, and Boys in the Boat, the little-known saga of young German Jews, dubbed The Ritchie Boys, who fled Nazi Germany in the 1930s, came of age in America, and returned to Europe at enormous personal risk as members of the U.S. Army to play a key role in the Allied victory.
In 1942, the U.S. Army unleashed one of its greatest secret weapons in the battle to defeat Adolf Hitler: training nearly 2,000 German-born Jews in special interrogation techniques and making use of their mastery of the German language, history, and customs.
Known as the Ritchie Boys, they were sent in small, elite teams to join every major combat unit in Europe, where they interrogated German POWs and gathered crucial intelligence that saved American lives and helped win the war.
Though they knew what the Nazis would do to them if they were captured, the Ritchie Boys eagerly joined the fight to defeat Hitler. As they did, many of them did not know the fates of their own families left behind in occupied Europe.
Taking part in every major campaign in Europe, they collected key tactical intelligence on enemy strength, troop and armored movements, and defensive positions. A postwar Army report found that more than sixty percent of the credible intelligence gathered in Europe came from the Ritchie Boys.
Bruce Henderson draws on personal interviews with many surviving veterans and extensive archival research to bring this never-before-told chapter of the Second World War to light.
Sons and Soldiers traces their stories from childhood and their escapes from Nazi Germany, through their feats and sacrifices during the war, to their desperate attempts to find their missing loved ones in war-torn Europe. Sons and Soldiers is an epic story of heroism, courage, and patriotism that will not soon be forgotten. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Bruce Henderson is an American journalist and author of more than 20 nonfiction books. He served in Vietnam with the U.S. Navy from 1965-67, after which he headed to college on the G.I. Bill. After graduating, Henderson worked as an investigative reporter for several newspapers, including the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner and, as an associate editor, for New West and California Magazine.
In 1991 Henderson co-wrote And the Sea Will Tell with Vincent Bugliosi, prosecutor of Charles Manson. The book reached #1 on the New York Times bestseller list and later became a CBS miniseries.
Most recently, Henderson published his 2017 Sons and Soldiers: The Untold Story of the Jews Who Escaped the Nazis and Returned with the U.S. Army to Fight Hitler.
In between those two books, he published other bestsellers, including his 2015 Rescue at Los Baños: The Most Daring Prison Camp Raid of World War II. The book is an account of the February 23, 1945, raid that freed more than 2,000 civilian prisoners of war — American men, women and children, as well as other Allied nationalities — from an Japanese internment camp in the Philippines.
In 2010 Henderson released Hero Found: The Greatest POW Escape of the Vietnam War, the story of Dieter Dengler. A U.S. Navy pilot, Dengler was shot down over Laos in January, 1966, escaping from a POW camp six months later. Henderson and Dengler served on the same aircraft carrier USS Ranger (CVA-61) in 1965–66.
True North: Peary, Cook, and The Race to the Pole, out in 2005, examines the ongoing controversy regarding the race to the North Pole—who reached it first: Robert Peary in 1909 or Frederick Cook in 1908? Henderson's other Arctic title, Fatal North: Murder and Survival on the First North Pole Expedition, released in 2001, tells the story of the ill-fated Charles Francis Hall expedition to the North Pole.
An experienced collaborative writer, Henderson co-authored Time Traveler: A Scientist's Personal Mission to Make Time Travel a Reality, the autobiography of African-American theoretical physicist Ronald Mallett. That was in 2006. Working with Dean Allison in 2014, he published Ring of Deceit: Inside the Biggest Sports and Bank Scandal in History, which chronicles the meteoric rise and fall of boxing promoter and convicted swindler, Harold Smith.
Henderson has taught writing courses at University of Southern California School of Journalism and Stanford University. He lives in Melo Park, California. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 8/4/2017.)
Book Reviews
Riveting.… Richly detailed.… Puts readers alongside the Ritchie Boys in some of the darkest moments of history. ... A spellbinding account of extraordinary men at war.
USA Today
Highly compelling.… The Ritchie Boys… are the unsung heroes who saved so many American lives and helped win the war.
Daily Mail (UK)
Harrowing.… No small amount of courage was needed for [the Ritchie Boys’] work.… Their contribution to victory is undeniable.
New York Post
An irresistible history of the WWII Jewish refugees who returned to Europe to fight the Nazis.
Newsday
Henderson does well to humanize the story of the boys, although he occasionally gets bogged down in the details of particular battles.… [Still] this is an ably researched and written account of a previously unknown facet of the American-Jewish dimension of WWII.
Publishers Weekly
According to an army estimate, 60 percent of all credible intelligence during World War II resulted from work done by the Camp Ritchie boys. Verdict: An inspiring story about a group of men who took up arms for their adopted country against their former countrymen. —Chad E. Statler, Lakeland Community Coll., Kirtland, OH
Library Journal
An inspiring account. … Chronicles how, despite great personal risk if their Jewish identity was discovered, these soldiers were on the front lines in Europe, gathering crucial intelligence.
Booklist
(Starred review.) The inspiring story of the "Ritchie Boys" and their unique contribution to the Allied victory in World War II.… A gripping addition to the literature of the period and an overdue tribute to these unique Americans.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, please use our LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for Soldiers and Sons … then take off on your own:
1. How much of the history of the Ritchie Boys was known to you before reading this book? If the answer is "some," what new information did you come away having learned by reading Sons and Solders? What surprised you, or resonated with you, the most?
2. Talk about the reasons many of the young men were sent to the U.S. in the first place, some of them without their parents. Consider, in particular, the stories of Martin Selling and Stephan Lewy.
3. What made the Ritchie Boys so valuable to the Allied effort? What particular dangers, over and above other Allied soldiers, did they face in returning to Germany?
4. Discuss some of the information they provided U.S. intelligence, as well as the various subterfuges they carried out.
5. Talk about the horrors that Bruce Henderson reports in Sons and Soldiers—soldiers using bloated cows for cover, the young German soldier laying under the apple tree in obvious agony, or scorched crews crawling out of their burning tanks. What else?
6. Werner Anagress wrote the following in his journal:
The longer this war lasts, the more ugly sights I see and the more I get to know what death looks like, the more I am convinced that it will be our first duty after this war to prevent a second one.
Are you ever concerned that the farther we move away from the men Tom Brokaw called "the greatest generation," the more we risk forgetting the horrors of war?
7. Was World War II the last good war—a war in which the cause was just and enemy so evil?
8. Talk about some of the ironies inherent in German Jewish men returning to their homeland to kill their compatriots. Also, consider this ironic episode: "On the long walk across the valley, with the German Jew leading the blindfolded SS officer by the crook of his arm and telling him when to watch his step, the two began to talk." What other ironies can you discern?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder
Caroline Fraser, 2018
Henry, Holt & Company
640 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781627792769
Summary
Winner, 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
Winner, National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography
Millions of readers of Little House on the Prairie believe they know Laura Ingalls—the pioneer girl who survived blizzards and near-starvation on the Great Plains, and the woman who wrote the famous autobiographical books.
But the true story of her life has never been fully told.
The Little House books were not only fictionalized but brilliantly edited, a profound act of myth-making and self-transformation. Now, drawing on unpublished manuscripts, letters, diaries, and land and financial records, Caroline Fraser—the editor of the Library of America edition of the Little House series—masterfully fills in the gaps in Wilder’s biography, setting the record straight regarding charges of ghostwriting that have swirled around the books and uncovering the grown-up story behind the most influential childhood epic of pioneer life.
Set against nearly a century of epochal change, from the Homestead Act and the Indian Wars to the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression, Wilder’s dramatic life provides a unique perspective on American history and our national mythology of self-reliance.
Settling on the frontier amidst land-rush speculation, Wilder’s family encountered Biblical tribulations of locusts and drought, fire and ruin. Deep in debt after a series of personal tragedies, including the loss of a child and her husband’s stroke, Wilder uprooted herself again, crisscrossing the country and turning to menial work to support her family.
In middle age, she began writing a farm advice column, prodded by her self-taught journalist daughter. And at the age of sixty, after losing nearly everything in the Depression, she turned to children’s books, recasting her hardscrabble childhood as a triumphal vision of homesteading—and achieving fame and fortune in the process, in one of the most astonishing rags-to-riches stories in American letters.
Offering fresh insight and new discoveries about Wilder’s life and times, Prairie Fires reveals the complex woman who defined the American pioneer character, and whose artful blend of fact and fiction grips us to this day. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—SEattle, Washington, USA
• Education—Ph.D., Harvard University
• Awards—Pulitzer Prize; National Book Critics Circle Award
• Currently—lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico
Caroline Fraser is an American writer. She won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography, and the 2017 National Book Critics Circle Award in Biography, for Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder.
Formerly on the editorial staff of the New Yorker, her work has also appeared in The Atlantic Monthly and New York Review of Books, among others.
In addition to Prairie Fires, she is the author of God's Perfect Child: Living and Dying in the Christian Science Church (1999), Rewilding the World: Dispatches from the Conservation Revolution (2009), She is also the editor of the two volumes of the Library of America's Laura Ingalls Wilder: The Little House Books (2012).
Fraser was born in Seattle to a Christian Science family. She obtained a PhD in English and American literature in 1987 from Harvard University for a thesis entitled A Perfect Contempt: The Poetry of James Merrill.[2]
Whitney Balliett (1926–2007), himself a former Christian Scientist, described in God's Perfect Child as a "critical history that… casts a clear, merciless light" on the religion. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 6/20/2018.)
Book Reviews
Caroline Fraser's absorbing new biography…deserves recognition as an essential text for getting a grip on the dynamics and consequences of this vast literary enterprise.… For anyone who has drifted into thinking of Wilder's Little House books as relics of a distant and irrelevant past, reading Prairie Fires will provide a lasting cure. Just as effectively, for readers with a pre-existing condition of enthusiasm for western American history and literature, this book will refresh and revitalize interpretations that may be ready for some rattling. Meanwhile, Little House devotees will appreciate the extraordinary care and energy Fraser brings to uncovering the details of a life that has been expertly veiled by myth (front page).
Patricia Nelson Limerick - New York Times Book Review
Fraser discovers failed farm ventures and constant money problems, as well as natural disasters even more terrifying and devastating in real life than in Wilder’s writing. She also…opens her subject to new scrutiny, which, for Wilder’s many fans, may be both exhilarating and disconcerting.
Publishers Weekly
[A] great way to celebrate the 150th anniversary of her birth. Fraser draws on unpublished manuscripts, letters, diaries, and land and financial records to address gaps in Wilder's story and put to rest charges of ghostwriting. Fans are frothing.
Library Journal
Unforgettable.… magisterial…. Richly documented…, it is a compelling, beautifully written story.… One of the more interesting aspects of this wonderfully insightful book is… the fraught relationship between Wilder and her deeply disturbed, often suicidal daughter.
Booklist
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, nascetur neque iaculis vestibulum, sed nam arcu et, eros lacus nulla aliquet condimentum, mauris ut proin maecenas, dignissim et pede ultrices ligula elementum. Sed sed donec rutrum, id et nulla orci. Convallis curabitur mauris lacus, mattis purus rutrum porttitor arcu quis
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Thanks to the Little House books, Laura Ingalls Wilder’s childhood is one of the most legendary in our literature. Discuss how the factual account of Laura Ingalls’s real childhood in Prairie Fires differs from the ction. How does an understanding of Wilder’s life affect our perception of her work?
2. Fraser writes, “Wilder made history” (page 5). How is this true, and in what ways does the biography bear this out? Discuss how women made history in earlier eras and how female historical gures depart from traditional male spheres of politics, government, and the military. How do Wilder’s life and reputation differ, for example, from those of famous frontier icons such as Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett? How reluctant are we to acknowledge women as heroes and why?
3. Discuss the Dakota Boom of the late 1870s and 1880s. Why was it a bad idea for homesteaders to farm in Dakota Territory? Since the government knew about the arid nature of the Great Plains, why did it encourage settlement there?
4. Discuss Laura and Almanzo’s courtship and early marriage. Why did they come together, and how were they compatible (or not)? How did the tensions that developed between them affect their later lives?
5. What kind of mother was Laura? How did her experience of caring for Rose compare to what we know of Caroline Ingalls’s mothering skills? How did Rose respond to the tragedies of her parents’ early married life—Almanzo’s illness and disability, their loss of a child, the house lost to fire—and how would it affect her later life and relationship to her parents?
6. In 1894, after failing to make a go of it in Dakota Territory, the Wilders joined a mass exodus out of the region, journeying to the “Land of the Big Red Apples” in the Missouri Ozarks. How would Laura’s exile from her family affect her, and why would she return to De Smet only once in the next couple of decades, for her father’s death? Why do you think she did not return to see her mother or her sister Mary?
7. Women’s clubs, farmers’ clubs, and book groups were crucial to the development of Wilder’s writing career. Does such networking still play a central role for urban and/or rural women?
8. Discuss Wilder’s development as a farm columnist—how did her writing for the Missouri Ruralist shape her ambitions and style?
9. Talk about how Rose Wilder Lane’s return to Rocky Ridge Farm in the 1920s and 1930s affected her life. Why did she build another house for her parents, after their successful completion of their own farmhouse? What do you think the Wilders thought of the Rock House?
10. Laura Ingalls Wilder worked for ten years for the National Farm Loan Association. So why did she object so vehemently to the New Deal programs designed to help farmers? Why was federal aid acceptable for her and not for others? If you were a rural farmer in the 1930s, how would you have felt about the federal government?
11. Do you see the influence of the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression in Wilder’s memoir and the Little House books—and if so, how? Discuss the other, more personal events that led to her writing.
12. The way in which Wilder and Lane passed manuscripts back and forth between them has been described as a “collaboration.” It’s even been called “ghostwriting.” How would you describe it? Do you know of other mother/daughter professional writing relationships?
13. How have perceptions of the Little House books changed over the years, or even over the course of your own life? How has Prairie Fires changed your perceptions?
(Questions issued by the publishers).)
Reading with Patrick: A Teacher, a Student, and a Life-Changing Friendship
Michelle Kuo, 2017
Random House
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780812997316
Summary
A life-changing friendship between an idealistic young teacher and her gifted student, jailed for murder in the Mississippi Delta
Recently graduated from Harvard University, Michelle Kuo arrived in the rural town of Helena, Arkansas, as a Teach for America volunteer in 2004, bursting with optimism and drive.
But she soon encountered the jarring realities of life in one of the poorest counties in America, still disabled by the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.
In this stirring memoir, Kuo, the child of Taiwanese immigrants, shares the story of her complicated but rewarding mentorship of one student, Patrick Browning, and his remarkable literary and political awakening.
Convinced she can make a difference in the lives of her teenaged students, Michelle Kuo puts her heart into her work, using quiet reading time and guided writing to foster a sense of self in students left behind by a broken school system. Though Michelle loses some students to gun violence and truancy, she is inspired by students such as Patrick.
Fifteen and in the eighth grade, Patrick begins to thrive under Michelle’s exacting attention, rising to meet her rigorous expectations. However, after two years of teaching, Michelle feels pressure from her parents and the draw of opportunities outside the Delta, and leaves Arkansas to attend law school.
Years later, on the eve of her graduation, she learns that Patrick has been jailed for murder. Feeling that she had left the Delta prematurely, and determined to fix her mistake, Michelle returns to Helena and resumes Patrick’s education—even as he sits in a jail cell awaiting trial.
Every day for the next seven months they pore over classic novels, poems, and works of history. Little by little, Patrick grows into a confident, expressive writer and a dedicated reader galvanized by the works of Frederick Douglass, James Baldwin, Walt Whitman, W. S. Merwin, and others.
In her time reading with Patrick, Michelle is herself transformed, contending with the legacy of racism and the question of what the privileged owe to those with bleaker prospects.
Reading with Patrick is an inspirational story of friendship, a coming-of-age story for both a young teacher and a student, an expansive, deeply resonant meditation on education, race, and justice in the rural South, and a love letter to literature and its power to transcend social barriers. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1981
• Raised—Kalamazoo, Michigan, USA
• Education—B.A., Harvard University; M.S., Cambridge University; J.D., Harvard University
• Currently—lives in Paris, France
Michelle Kuo is a Taiwanese-American lawyer, professor, and author who grew up in Kalamazoo, Michigan. She graduated from Harvard with a degree in social studies and gender studies. She has a Master's in developmental studies from Cambridge and a law degree from Harvard. Her memoir, Reading with Patrick: a Teacher, a Student and a Life-Changing Friendship, was published in 2017.
After her year at Cambridge, Kuo volunteered for Teach America and headed to rural Arkansas to teach English for two year at an alternative school. There she met Patrick Browning, who became the inspiration for her 2017 book, Reading with Patrick.
When her two years in Arkansas were up, Kuo returned to Harvard, this time to earn her law degree. As a student, Kuo became deeply involved in education advocacy and legal aid. She worked as a student attorney at the Criminal Justice Institute (a domestic violence and family mediation clinic) and the Education Law Clinic/Trauma Policy Learning Initiative.
After earning her J.D., Kuo went to Oakland, California, where she worked as a community lawyer at a nonprofit for Spanish-speaking immigrants. She also volunteered as a teacher at San Quentin as part of the Prison University Project. Finally, from 2012-13, she clerked for a judge in the U.S. Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.
Currently Kuo is a professor at the American University of Paris, in the History, Law, and Society Program. She won the university's 2016 Board of Trustees Award for Distinguished Teaching. (Author bio adapted from a variety of online sources. Retrieved 8/4/2017.)
Book Reviews
Reading with Patrick could be the most affecting book you’ll read this year. To experience such a spectrum of responses — from anger to admiration, disbelief to inspiration, helpless frustration to stand-up-and-shout-cheering — should be enough impetus to get you urgently "reading with Patrick" as soon as possible.
Christian Science Monitor
Three out of four stars!
USA Today
A powerful meditation on how one person can affect the life of another.… One of the great strengths of Reading with Patrick is its portrayal of the risk inherent to teaching.
Seattle Times
[A] tender memoir.
Oprah Magazine
(Starred review.) The author weaves her personal story with that of Patrick …. She witnesses how many Americans are trapped in a vicious cycle of poverty and comes to several of the same insights as J.D. Vance in Hillbilly Elegy.… [A] reminder of how literacy changes lives. Highly recommended. —John Rodzvilla, Emerson Coll., Boston
Library Journal
Honest, thoughtful, and humane, Kuo's book is not only a testament to a remarkable friendship, but a must-read for anyone interested in social justice and race in America. Thoughtfully provocative reading.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
(We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available.)
Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy
Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant, 2017
KnopfDoubleday
240 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781524732684
Summary
A powerful, inspiring, and practical book about building resilience and moving forward after life’s inevitable setbacks.
After the sudden death of her husband, Sheryl Sandberg felt certain that she and her children would never feel pure joy again. "I was in ‘the void," she writes, "a vast emptiness that fills your heart and lungs and restricts your ability to think or even breathe."
Her friend Adam Grant, a psychologist at Wharton, told her there are concrete steps people can take to recover and rebound from life-shattering experiences. We are not born with a fixed amount of resilience. It is a muscle that everyone can build.
Option B combines Sheryl’s personal insights with Adam’s eye-opening research on finding strength in the face of adversity. Beginning with the gut-wrenching moment when she finds her husband, Dave Goldberg, collapsed on a gym floor, Sheryl opens up her heart—and her journal—to describe the acute grief and isolation she felt in the wake of his death.
But Option B goes beyond Sheryl’s loss to explore how a broad range of people have overcome hardships including illness, job loss, sexual assault, natural disasters, and the violence of war. Their stories reveal the capacity of the human spirit to persevere …and to rediscover joy.
Resilience comes from deep within us and from support outside us. Even after the most devastating events, it is possible to grow by finding deeper meaning and gaining greater appreciation in our lives.
Option B illuminates how to help others in crisis, develop compassion for ourselves, raise strong children, and create resilient families, communities, and workplaces. Many of these lessons can be applied to everyday struggles, allowing us to brave whatever lies ahead.
Two weeks after losing her husband, Sheryl was preparing for a father-child activity. "I want Dave," she cried. Her friend replied, "Option A is not available," and then promised to help her make the most of Option B. We all live some form of Option B. This book will help us all make the most of it. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—August 28, 1969
• Where—Washington, D.C., USA
• Raised—North Miami Beach, Florida
• Education—B.A., M.B.A., Harvard University
• Currently—lives in Northern California
Sheryl Kara Sandberg is an American businesswoman and author, who has served as the chief operating officer of Facebook since 2008. In June 2012, she was also elected to the board of directors by the existing board members becoming the first woman to serve on its board.
She has written one book and co-authored a second: on her own, Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead (2013) and, with Adam Grant, Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy (2017). The latter was written after the death of her husband, David Goldberg. Both books became bestsellers.
Before Facebook, Sandberg was Vice President of Global Online Sales and Operations at Google. She also was involved in launching Google's philanthropic arm Google.org. Before Google, Sandberg served as chief of staff for the United States Department of the Treasury. In 2012, she was named in "Time 100," an annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world assembled by Time.
Background
Sandberg is the daughter of Adele and Joel Sandberg and the oldest of three siblings. Her father, Joel, is an optometrist, and her mother, Adele, has a Ph. D. and worked as a French teacher before concentrating on raising her children. Her family moved to North Miami Beach, Florida when she was two years old. She attended public school and taught aerobics in the 1980s while still in high school.
In 1987, Sandberg enrolled at Harvard College and graduated in 1991 summa cum laude with an A.B. in economics and was awarded the John H. Williams Prize for the top graduating student in economics. While at Harvard, Sandberg met then-professor Larry Summers, who became her mentor and thesis adviser. Summers recruited her to be his research assistant at the World Bank, where she worked on health projects in India dealing with leprosy, AIDS, and blindness.
In 1993, she enrolled at Harvard Business School and in 1995 she earned her M.B.A. with highest distinction. After business school, Sandberg worked as a management consultant for McKinsey & Company. From 1996 to 2001, Sandberg served as Chief of Staff to then United States Secretary of the Treasury Larry Summers under President Bill Clinton where she helped lead the Treasury’s work on forgiving debt in the developing world during the Asian financial crisis.
She joined Google Inc. in 2001 and served as its Vice President of Global Online Sales & Operations, from November 2001 to March 2008. She was responsible for online sales of Google's advertising & publishing products and also for sales operations of Google's consumer products & Google Book Search.
Facebook
Facebook
In late 2007, Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder and chief executive of Facebook, met Sandberg at a Christmas party; at the time, she was considering becoming a senior executive for The Washington Post Company. Zuckerberg had no formal search for a COO but thought of Sandberg as "a perfect fit" for this role. They spent more time together in January 2008 at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and in March 2008 Facebook announced hiring Sheryl Sandberg away from Google.
After joining the company, Sandberg quickly began trying to figure out how to make Facebook profitable. Before she joined, the company was "primarily interested in building a really cool site; profits, they assumed, would follow." By late spring, Facebook's leadership had agreed to rely on advertising, "with the ads discreetly presented"; by 2010, Facebook became profitable. According to Facebook, Sandberg oversees the firm's business operations including sales, marketing, business development, human resources, public policy and communications.
Her executive compensation for FY 2011 was $300,000 base salary plus $30,491,613 in FB shares. According to her Form 3, she also owns 38,122,000 stock options and restricted stock units (worth approx. $1.45 billion as of mid-May 2012) that will be completely vested by May 2022, subject to her continued employment through the vesting date.
In 2012 she became the eighth member (and the first female member) of Facebook's board of directors.
Personal
In 2004, Sandberg married David Goldberg. The couple lived in Northern California with their two children. Tragically, David died from a head injury after falling from a treadmill while the couple was on vacaction in Mexico.
Sandberg's grief inspired her to pair with psychologist Adam Grant in order to write Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy. The book, published in 2017, became a New York Times bestseller. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved, 2013; updated, 2017.)
Adam Grant is a psychologist and the New York Times best-selling author of Originals: How Nonconformists Move the World (2016) and Give and Take: Why Helping Others Drives Our Success (2013). His also co-authored, with Sheryl Sandberg, Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy (2017).
As Wharton’s top-rated professor for five straight years, Adam is a leading expert on how we can find motivation and meaning, and live more generous and creative lives. He has been recognized as one of the world’s 25 most influential management thinkers and received distinguished scholarly achievement awards from the American Psychological Association and the National Science Foundation.
Grant received his B.A. from Harvard University with Phi Beta Kappa honors and his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. He serves as a contributing op-ed writer for The New York Times on work and psychology.
His keynote speaking and consulting clients include Facebook and Google, the NBA, Teach For America, and the U.S. Army and Navy. Adam is a former Junior Olympic springboard diver. He lives in Philadelphia with his wife, their two daughters, and their son. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
[A] remarkable achievement: generous, honest, almost unbearably poignant. It reveals an aspect of Sandberg's character that Lean In had suggested but…did not fully demonstrate: her impulse to be helpful. She has little to gain by sharing, in excruciating detail, the events of her life over the past two years. This is a book that will be quietly passed from hand to hand, and it will surely offer great comfort to its intended readers.… The intimacy of detail that fills the book is unsettling; there were times I felt that I had come across someone's secret knowledge, that I shouldn't have been in possession of something that seemed so deeply private. But the candor and simplicity with which she shares all of it…is a kind of gift.
Caitlin Flanagan - New York Times Book Review
Sandberg is wise and honest and funny and practical in ways that are likely to stay with the reader. Her deeply personal book is more than memoir; interspersed with devastating scenes are equally powerful strategies for coping when your world has gone tilt.
Tracy Grant - Washington Post
Being among the most powerful women in the world didn’t spare Sheryl Sandberg from the sudden death of her husband, not quite two years ago. Option B is at its best when pinpointing specific tips for coping with overwhelming grief. Sandberg writes how she created new rituals, such as taking a moment at dinner each evening to express gratitude for something positive that day, and declaring ‘small wins.’ Day by day, the book says, these small victories can become building blocks to a return to emotional equanimity.
Diane Cole - Wall Street Journal
Option B chronicles Sandberg’s devastating loss, her grief and how she emerged from it with a new perspective on life. The most affecting parts of the book recount not just Sandberg's grief, but that of her children.… "Tragedy does not have to be personal, pervasive or permanent, but resilience can be," she writes. "We can build it and carry it with us throughout our lives."
Associated Press
Intimate, personal.… Within Option B there are lessons for leaders who want to make organizations more resilient, help employees recover from a loss—or crisis—and create workplaces that are more prepared to deal with failure.
Jena McGregor - Los Angeles Times
Like her debut volume, Sandberg’s Option B is an optimistic book, even if one riven with sorrow. She argues that after adversity and loss, there is an opportunity for "post-traumatic growth." Thus the book is in part a moving memoir.
Rebecca Mead - New Yorker
Sandberg’s new book is tough, full of the raw, painful emotions.… Option B [has] advice for people who are grieving. But it’s also a book for nearly everyone — people who may not know what to say or do in the wake of a tragedy. It’s also a deeply optimistic book, framed around the question, what’s next?
Rebecca J. Rosen - Atlantic
Admirably honest, optimistic.… Sandberg shares a great deal of herself and what she has learned. At its core the book helps those who have been felled by despair: a guide both for those who have directly suffered loss and for those who are close to people who have.
Economist
[H]elpful and hopeful.… [A]uthors show how… strengthened relationships and a greater sense of gratitude, can be gleaned from awful situations. Those suffering [or] seeking to provide comfort should find both solace and wisdom in this book.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) While the authors concede that everyone's story is different, they explore…what others have gone through in order to find joy and strength after difficulty.… This captivating memoir offers genuine hope.
Library Journal
A memoir of the loss of a husband and finding a path forward beyond the grieving process.… A book that provides illuminating ways to make headway through the days when there doesn't seem to be a way forward.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, please use our LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for Option B … then take off on your own:
1. What do you think of Sheryl Sandberg's Option B? Do you find it enlightening? Has it helped you cope with your own grief or offer guidance for helping others? What was your experience reading the book? Did you feel uncomfortable reading some of the rawer, more intimate sections? Or did the book's candor create a more sympathetic connection between you (the reader) and Sandberg (the author)?
2. Sandberg writes about starting rituals, such as taking a moment each evening to express gratitude for something positive that happened that day. What was, in your mind, the most important or helpful advice in Option B? What struck you most or resonated with your own personal experiences? Are there suggestions or observations in the book you disagree with?
3. If you read Lean In, does Sandberg come across the same in Option B … or does she seem different? If you haven't read Lean In, how you feel about Sheryl Sandberg: what kind of person is she?
4. Sandberg acknowledges that her wealth and status insulate her from the economic insecurity many feel after loss. As one of the top executives and most accomplished women in the country, is she capable of offering advice to us more mud-bound souls (an occasional criticism of Lean In)? When, on the first anniversary of their father's death, she takes her kids to a SpaceX launch, does someone like Sandberg have something of relevance to say to the rest of us? Does wealth cushion one from despair and grief? Or, ultimately, is money irrelevant?
5. Talk about the book's title and its derivation. What is "Option A" and why is it "not available"?
6. What are the "three P's" that, according to Martin Seligman, hinder recovery after trauma or loss? Talk about why they end up working against us when we most need comfort?
7. It can be fashionable to level scorn at our over-use of social media. But Sandberg points to Facebook as a venue to help people express their own grief or offer solace to others. What are your thoughts and experiences regarding Facebook?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz
Erik Larson, 2020
Crown Publishing
608 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780385348713
Summary
On Winston Churchill’s first day as prime minister, Adolf Hitler invaded Holland and Belgium. Poland and Czechoslovakia had already fallen, and the Dunkirk evacuation was just two weeks away.
For the next twelve months, Hitler would wage a relentless bombing campaign, killing 45,000 Britons.
It was up to Churchill to hold his country together and persuade President Franklin Roosevelt that Britain was a worthy ally—and willing to fight to the end.
In The Splendid and the Vile, Erik Larson shows, in cinematic detail, how Churchill taught the British people “the art of being fearless.”
It is a story of political brinkmanship, but it’s also an intimate domestic drama, set against the backdrop of Churchill’s prime-ministerial country home, Chequers; his wartime retreat, Ditchley, where he and his entourage go when the moon is brightest and the bombing threat is highest; and of course 10 Downing Street in London.
Drawing on diaries, original archival documents, and once-secret intelligence reports—some released only recently—Larson provides a new lens on London’s darkest year through the day-to-day experience of Churchill and his family: his wife, Clementine; their youngest daughter, Mary, who chafes against her parents’ wartime protectiveness; their son, Randolph, and his beautiful, unhappy wife, Pamela; Pamela’s illicit lover, a dashing American emissary; and the advisers in Churchill’s “Secret Circle,” to whom he turns in the hardest moments.
The Splendid and the Vile takes readers out of today’s political dysfunction and back to a time of true leadership, when, in the face of unrelenting horror, Churchill’s eloquence, courage, and perseverance bound a country, and a family, together. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—January 3, 1954
• Where—Brooklyn, New York, USA
• Raised—Freeport (Long Island), New York
• Education—B.A., University of Pennsylvania; M.S., Columbia University
• Awards—Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime, 2004
• Currently—lives in New York City and Seattle, Washington
Erik Larson is an American journalist and nonfiction author. Although he has written several books, he is particularly well-know for three: The Devil in the White City (2003), a history of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition and serial killer H. H. Holmes, In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and An American Family in Hitler's Berlin (2011), a portrayal of William E. Dodd, the first American ambassador to Nazi Germany, and his daughter Martha, and Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania (2015).
Early life
Born in Brooklyn, Larson grew up in Freeport, Long Island, New York. He studied Russian history at the University of Pennsylvania and graduated summa cum laude in 1976. After a year off, he attended the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, graduating in 1978.
Journalism
Larson's first newspaper job was with the Bucks County Courier Times in Levittown, Pennsylvania, where he wrote about murder, witches, environmental poisons, and other "equally pleasant" things. He later became a features writer for the Wall Street Journal and Time magazine, where he is still a contributing writer. His magazine stories have appeared in The New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, Harper's, and other publications.
Books
Larson has also written a number of books, beginning with The Naked Consumer: How Our Private Lives Become Public Commodities (1992), followed by Lethal Passage: The Story of a Gun (1995). Larson's next books were Isaac's Storm (1999), about the experiences of Isaac Cline during the Galveston Hurricane of 1900, and The Devil in the White City (2003), about the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago and a series of murders by H. H. Holmes that were committed in the city around the time of the Fair.
The Devil in the White City won the 2004 Edgar Award in the Best Fact Crime category. Next, Larson published Thunderstruck (2006), which intersperses the story of Hawley Harvey Crippen with that of Guglielmo Marconi and the invention of radio. His next book, In the Garden of Beasts (2011), concerns William E. Dodd, the first American ambassador to Nazi Germany and his daughter. Dead Wake, published in 2015, is an account of the sinking of the Lusitania, which led to America's intervention in World War I.
Teaching and public speaking
Larson has taught non-fiction writing at San Francisco State University, the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars, and the University of Oregon, and he has spoken to audiences from coast to coast.
Personal
Larson and his wife have three daughters. They reside in New York City, but maintain a home in Seattle, Washington. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 2/17/2015.)
Book Reviews
Through the remarkably skillful use of intimate diaries as well as public documents, some newly released, Larson has transformed the well-known record of 12 turbulent months, stretching from May of 1940 through May of 1941, into a book that is fresh, fast and deeply moving.… These small, forgotten stories, which Larson uses to such moving effect, make it possible for us to understand, even 80 years later, what made hearts race and break.… The Blitz its tense, terror-filled days, the horrors it inflicted—is palpable throughout… [and] make a reader stop, look up and say to whoever happens to be nearby, "Listen to this."
Candace Millard - New York Times Book Review
[F]ascinating and accessible.… [A] broad panorama, encompassing everything from Churchill’s lavish personal spending habits to the squalor of bomb shelters in the London Underground to the fast-paced development of military technology.… The entire book comes at the reader with breakneck speed. So much happened so quickly in those 12 months, yet Larson deftly weaves all the strands of his tale into a coherent and compelling whole.… [The Blitz] year, when Britain was staggering on the ropes, only to gather itself and push on, makes for a lively and urgent read.
John Reinan - Minneapolis Star Tribune
[A] sprawling, gripping account of Winston Churchill's first year as prime minister…, and it's nearly impossible to put down.… [B]y expanding the scope of his book, Larson provides an even deeper understanding of the legendary politician.… And although he doesn't at all neglect Churchill's actions and policies, he also paints a vivid portrait of the politician's personality.… There are many things to admire about The Splendid and the Vile, but chief among them is Larson's electric writing. The book reads like a novel… [and] keeps the reader turning the pages with [its] gripping prose.… [A] bravura performance by one of America's greatest storytellers.
Michael Schaub - NPR
(Starred review) [P]ropulsive, character-driven account of Winston Churchill’s first year as British prime minister.… Larson highlights little-known but intriguing figures,… while the story… [has] been told in greater historical depth, [it has] rarely been rendered so vividly. Readers will rejoice.
Publishers Weekly
[I]lluminating.… Blending a gripping narrative and a well-researched examination of personal and news archives, Larson's distinctive history of Britain's "darkest hour" offers a new angle for those already familiar with this era, while attracting readers who wish to learn more. —David Miller, Farmville P.L., NC
Library Journal
(Starred review) Larson brilliantly…focuses on the family and home of its dynamic, idiosyncratic, and indefatigable leader.…Larson’s skill at integrating vast research and talent for capturing compelling human dramas culminate in an inspirational portrait of one of history’s finest, most fearless leaders.
Booklist
(Starred review) Larson employs a mildly unique strategy, combining an intense, almost day-to-day account of Churchill’s actions with those of his family, two of his officials, and staff…. A captivating history of Churchill’s heroic year, with more than the usual emphasis on his intimates.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. The book’s title comes from a line in John Colville’s diary about the peculiar beauty of watching bombs fall over his home city: “Never was there such a contrast of natural splendor and human vileness.” How do you think a tragedy like this could be considered beautiful? Why do you think Larson chose this title?
2. The Splendid and the Vile covers Winston Churchill’s first year in office. What are the benefits of focusing on this truncated time period?
3. Larson draws on many sources to provide a vivid picture of Churchill’s home and family life in his first year as prime minister. What struck you most about his family dynamic? Considering how powerful he was at the time, was his relationship with his family what you would have expected it to be? Why or why not?
4. Churchill’s most trusted advisers spent many long days and nights with the prime minister, so much so that they became like members of his family. Why do you think Churchill had such close relationships with his political advisers? What do you see as being the key advantages and disadvantages of running a government office in this way? Which of Churchill’s political relationships was the most interesting to you?
5. Larson provides various perspectives in the book, from diaries by Mary Churchill and Mass-Observation participants to the inner workings of both Churchill’s and Hitler’s cabinets. How did these different perspectives enhance your understanding of life in 1940 and 1941?
6. Reading about how war was waged and discussed by the public in 1940, do you see any similarities to how we talk about warfare today?
7. How did you feel reading about the raids? How would your daily life and your priorities change if your country were experiencing similar attacks with such frequency?
8. The book includes anecdotes about a vast array of characters around Churchill, such as his daughter-in-law Pamela, his children Randolph and Mary, and his wife, Clementine. What are the benefits of including various stories about the people related to Churchill—like Pamela’s affair, or Randolph’s gambling habits—in a book discussing his first year in office? Which of these characters did you find to be the most interesting? The most surprising?
9. Mary Churchill recounts the evening when the Cafe de Paris—where she and her friends had planned to go dancing—was bombed. After the initial shock, her group decides that the dead would have wanted them to continue their evening of gaiety and dancing elsewhere, and they move on to another location. What did you think about this choice? What do you think you would have done in their situation?
10. Discuss Mary Churchill’s portrayal in the book. Do you feel she grows and matures throughout this tumultuous year? Why or why not?
11. What was the most surprising thing you learned about Churchill? Why did it surprise you?
12. While England rationed food, gasoline, and other supplies during the war, Churchill and his cabinet received extra provisions. What did you think about this policy? Do you think government officials are justified in implementing such measures during a time of crisis? Why or why not?
13. Were there any decisions Churchill made over the course of his first year as prime minister that you disagreed with? If so, which? Which of his decisions were you most impressed with?
14. Do you think there has been another leader as universally beloved in their day as Churchill was in his? If so, who? If not, why not?
(Questions issued by the publishers.)