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mechee91's review
5.0
I was concerned that this was going to be a tough one to slough through. As a 90’s kid (specifically 1991) I have no real emotional attachment or memory of the Berlin Wall. You have that standard universal knowledge that there was a wall, and someone told some Russian to tear it down.(I Googled it, Reagan to Gorbachev) Other than that I didn’t have much starting knowledge. My other fear was that it was a nonfiction book, and therefore boring. As an ardent historical fiction reader, I tend to stay away from the nonfiction. This one blew me out of the water.
With author Greg Mitchell’s use of the narrative voice, I found myself being drawn into the story. Instead of simply a black and white story, Mitchell has formed all these facts into a multi faceted gem that takes all these different nations’ and governments’ views and hands you a story. He doesn’t just stop there, instead of leaving readers in the past, he brings them forward to present time to compare it to modern day walls. Though today we spend more time talking about keeping people out with our walls(i.e. Trump) rather than the East Germany goal of keeping them in.
I would recommend this book for anyone who likes history and a good spy novel. Though it’s nonfiction I think this is going to rank very high on my list of favorites. I’m going to have to go back and give nonfiction another try and definitely anything by Greg Mitchell will be on the list. I rarely give books 5-stars, yet this one had me intrigued from the first chapter.
*This book was provided by BloggingForBooks and Crown Publishing in exchange for honest feedback*
With author Greg Mitchell’s use of the narrative voice, I found myself being drawn into the story. Instead of simply a black and white story, Mitchell has formed all these facts into a multi faceted gem that takes all these different nations’ and governments’ views and hands you a story. He doesn’t just stop there, instead of leaving readers in the past, he brings them forward to present time to compare it to modern day walls. Though today we spend more time talking about keeping people out with our walls(i.e. Trump) rather than the East Germany goal of keeping them in.
I would recommend this book for anyone who likes history and a good spy novel. Though it’s nonfiction I think this is going to rank very high on my list of favorites. I’m going to have to go back and give nonfiction another try and definitely anything by Greg Mitchell will be on the list. I rarely give books 5-stars, yet this one had me intrigued from the first chapter.
*This book was provided by BloggingForBooks and Crown Publishing in exchange for honest feedback*
tonstantweader's review
5.0
The Tunnels tells the history of several escapes under the Berlin Wall and the NBC documentary The Tunnel that chronicled one of the most successful tunnel escapes. It is pure history with no fictionalized dialogue, yet it remains as suspenseful as any spy thriller, not least because it is all true.
This book is thrilling, fast-paced, and suspenseful. The action in the first chapter was so fast and furious I wondered what was left for the rest of the book. No worries, there was plenty. Replete with spycraft, secret couriers, Stasi spies and infiltrators, and the bold tunnelers, there is no shortage of heroes and villains.
Add the Cuban Missile Crisis, network competition, and some embarrassingly low behavior by CBS and there is suspense before, during, and well after the tunnel escapes. Thanks to pressure from the Kennedy Administration and an overly compliant and competitive press, NBC was vilified for pursuing the documentary of the tunnel escape and pressured into postponing its broadcast. It eventually did broadcast to critical and commercial success and the same government that tried to suppress it was airing it overseas as part of the USIA.
The Tunnels is a great success, not just in terms of telling an exciting, suspenseful story, but also of engaging readers emotionally. It is a reminder that we are not meant to build walls. I remember watching in awed surprise when the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, sinking to my knees in front of the television and touching the screen, as though I had to touch it to believe it was real. I cried then and reading about it again in The Tunnels, I cried again. The Wall was such a disgrace, a scar on humanity and perhaps some of my tears came from acknowledging my own country’s eagerness to build a wall, another scar revealing some deep infection in our national bloodstream.
The Tunnels is also meticulously researched with data from Stasi files, Kennedy Administration recordings, personal papers, documents, declassified government files, and personal interviews. Everyone is real and so are the conversations. It is a book that proves that history does not need to fictionalized or dramatized to be fascinating and exciting.
Whether you love liberty or just love a great adventure, The Tunnels will be worth reading. It is useful to remember that liberty is something that needs to be claimed, not assumed, nor taken for granted.
I was provided a copy of The Tunnels through the Blogging For Books program.
https://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpress.com/2016/11/27/the-tunnels-by-greg-mitchell/
This book is thrilling, fast-paced, and suspenseful. The action in the first chapter was so fast and furious I wondered what was left for the rest of the book. No worries, there was plenty. Replete with spycraft, secret couriers, Stasi spies and infiltrators, and the bold tunnelers, there is no shortage of heroes and villains.
Add the Cuban Missile Crisis, network competition, and some embarrassingly low behavior by CBS and there is suspense before, during, and well after the tunnel escapes. Thanks to pressure from the Kennedy Administration and an overly compliant and competitive press, NBC was vilified for pursuing the documentary of the tunnel escape and pressured into postponing its broadcast. It eventually did broadcast to critical and commercial success and the same government that tried to suppress it was airing it overseas as part of the USIA.
The Tunnels is a great success, not just in terms of telling an exciting, suspenseful story, but also of engaging readers emotionally. It is a reminder that we are not meant to build walls. I remember watching in awed surprise when the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, sinking to my knees in front of the television and touching the screen, as though I had to touch it to believe it was real. I cried then and reading about it again in The Tunnels, I cried again. The Wall was such a disgrace, a scar on humanity and perhaps some of my tears came from acknowledging my own country’s eagerness to build a wall, another scar revealing some deep infection in our national bloodstream.
The Tunnels is also meticulously researched with data from Stasi files, Kennedy Administration recordings, personal papers, documents, declassified government files, and personal interviews. Everyone is real and so are the conversations. It is a book that proves that history does not need to fictionalized or dramatized to be fascinating and exciting.
Whether you love liberty or just love a great adventure, The Tunnels will be worth reading. It is useful to remember that liberty is something that needs to be claimed, not assumed, nor taken for granted.
I was provided a copy of The Tunnels through the Blogging For Books program.
https://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpress.com/2016/11/27/the-tunnels-by-greg-mitchell/
jamescridland's review
5.0
For some reason, I chose this book just before the 30th anniversary of the Berlin Wall coming down. School never taught this part of history - probably because a) it happened within 30 years of me going to school, and b) it was never expected to have lasted this long anyway; so I didn't appreciate how Cuba was involved in this, nor the extent of the East Berliner escapes. (I also went through the Berlin Wall in the mid 1980s on a school trip, coming out of a bright, brash and modern West Berlin into a deathly quiet East Berlin and finding the whole thing quite bewildering).
It was a fascinating read of a very different Europe - and fascinating to spend occasional visits to Berlin never quite understanding what the country went through. It's written well, if a little drily, and certainly worth a read.
It was a fascinating read of a very different Europe - and fascinating to spend occasional visits to Berlin never quite understanding what the country went through. It's written well, if a little drily, and certainly worth a read.
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