Sheila M. and I will be reading and discussing Marching Home: To War and Back With the Men of One American Town by Kevin Coyne for the next week or two. It looks like there is one copy available in the system if anyone wants to snag it and join in the chat. Or if you have it on your TBR pile, or can find it at the library and would like to join in, please do! The more the merrier. :-)

Looking forward to reading and discussing the book Janelle. I should be able to start reading it after the weekend :-)

Yep, me too!

I'd like to find this book and read along.  I could throw a rock and hit Freehold. (Well, maybe not quite that close, but

real darned close!)

Hope you can join us Chris. If you need more time getting the book, let us know. We could put off discussing the book for a few days.

My library has it, but it's a reference book.  Sounds like a good reason to go sit and read in peace and quiet a couple of

days this week!

I've started the book, but we're going out of town for four days, so I'm hoping to get more read on the plane! See ya next week!

I've read about 1/3 of the book. I really enjoy what I've read so far.

I have about 80 pages left of Marching Home and I have to say that I have enjoyed reading it a lot. Coyne presents the men’s stories in a very honest and forthright way and in keeping with the time period. I liked how he started the book with a coming weather storm and its destruction on Freehold . . . but there was a much worse storm brewing overseas and the destruction it will wreck on Freehold’s inhabitants, as all of America, is much more significant.

Do you have a favorite veteran? Bill Lopatin, Jake Errickson, and Walter Denise planted themselves a little more firmly in my memory than Stu Bunton, Buddy Lewis, and Jimmy Higgins. But, Coyne may have written more about them.

I didn’t realize there would be so much of the book about after the war. It is still interesting just not what I expected.

I'm still in the early part of the book. I'm enjoying getting to see different experiences of the war in different theaters.

I was wondering if a lot of the book would deal with the post-war years, because I'm still near the beginning and the author is dealing with 1943-44 already.

My DH's granddad was from New Jersey and served in the army in Europe, so that adds another layer to the reading for me. We have his WW II scrapbook.

Great connection for you and your family Janelle.

I finished the book. Enjoyed it. Would have liked more about the war years and less about the years after the war. The author did a nice job with the ending. I don't know if the material may have been available or if the guys would have been willing but some quotes from their letters home would have been a great addition to the book.

Wow, I'm finally finished! I agree that there was too much of the book devoted to the post-war years. I understand what the author was trying to do here, but it all fell a little flat for me. I guess I'm used to more dramatic depictions, like Band of Brothers, and somehow this book was a little too matter-of-fact or something. It's not that I want authors to manufacture drama where there is none, but I felt very removed from what was happening in the book. I agree with you that putting in some of the men's own words from their letters would have been a good way to make them seem a little more real.

Thanks for helping me clear another book off my TBR Janelle :-)

Still up for John Adams? I think that was the other one we discussed reading together. I have a few things to catch up on . . . so end of June to start would be best for me.