Wednesday, August 05, 2009

Agent Zigzag by Ben Mcintyre

I finished this book while on vacation last week in Colorado (without internet access):

Eddie Chapman was a small time criminal serving time in a Jersey prison when the Germans occupied the Channel Islands in 1940. In an effort to get out of prison, Chapman offered to become a spy for the Germans. Surprisingly, the Germans took him up on his offer and trained him to be a spy. He parachuted into England in 1942, with the mission to blow up an aircraft factory. As soon as he was on the ground, he turned himself over to the British, who then used him as a double agent. It was an interesting story, especially because it's true. I rate this book 3 out of 5.

This was my final book for the WWII Reading Challenge.

"To participate in the WWII Reading Challenge, you must commit to reading at least five books throughout the year. . . . The books can be fiction or non-fiction, and they can be about any aspect of WWII. WWII should be the primary or secondary theme, and it doesn’t matter whether the book takes place during the war or after the war."

The first 4 books I read for this challenge were fiction:
  • A Thread of Grace by Mary Doria Russell - finished 2/1/09 - review here
  • Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson - finished 3/17/09 - review here
  • The Cloud Atlas by Liam Callanan - finished 4/5/09 - review here
  • The Reader by Bernhard Schlink - finished 4/15/09 - review here
This was the only non-fiction book I read for the challenge. It is also the first reading challenge that I have participated in - and it feels great to have successfully completed it.

5 comments:

Anne said...

Hi! You're back! Hope you had a terrific time in Colorado! :-)

Carol said...

I've finally added your Karma Friends Award to my blog - thank you so much - and I've linked to yours. I'm struggling to keep up with everything and have hardly drawn for months, very sad. I guess it just means I have a very full life and I have much to be grateful for.

Anna said...

I've heard good things about this one, and I've added it to my to-read list. Congrats on completing the challenge! I'll get your review up on War Through the Generations soon.

--Anna
Diary of an Eccentric

dshreve said...

Thanks for writing about this book. After you talked about it during book club, I wished I had writen down the title. I will tell Terry about Agent Zigzag, I think he would like it.

Anna said...

We posted your review on War Through the Generations.

--Anna
Diary of an Eccentric