World War II Database

I had always enjoyed tales of resistance against Axis occupation, for that there were so many examples of personal bravery and human triumph, regardless of the scale of individual accomplishment. Charles Kaiser's Cost of Courage brought forth yet another set of tales, this one of the Boulloche family. It would be difficult to write much about the content of the book without giving away spoilers, so I would just say that the book was written beautifully and full of suspense and tragedy. The author's narration provided vivid images of occupied France, and his personal acquaintance with the family provided an intimate, though biased, view of each of the characters in the cast.

I had reviewed this title in its audio book format. The author performed the reading himself, something that I had always enjoyed, for no one would know the words and sentences as well as the person who wrote them. His fluency in French came through in the reading, which I appreciated much, although I caught a few questionable German pronunciations. This was spotted purely out of my pickiness with language, of course, and it did not detract from his great reading.

Cost of Courage was a great book and would certainly be on my recommended list for the topic of the French Resistance.