“Sanctuary Not Certain: American, British, Australian, And Canadian Hospital Ships In The European—African—Middle Eastern Theatre In World War II”

“During World War II,” Chicoan David Bruhn writes, “German/Italian aircraft purposely bombed and sank thirteen Allied hospital ships in the European Theatre. A fourteenth hospital ship was sunk by a German mine in the English Channel off Juno beach, during the Normandy invasion.” That meant that wounded “servicemembers could not be assured of safety aboard hospital ships….”

The unheralded story is told in “Sanctuary Not Certain: American, British, Australian, And Canadian Hospital Ships In The European—African—Middle Eastern Theatre In World War II” ($33 in paperback from heritagebooks.com). Replete with photographs, charts, tables and maps, the book chronicles Allied hospital ships including the 24 operated by “civilian Merchant Marine employees of the Transportation Corps” for the U.S. Army.

Hospital ships were “converted passenger liners or troop ships” with clear markings. Many of the U.S. Army ships were named for flowers, like Shamrock and Marigold; others for “deceased Army doctors and Army nurses who had served with distinction”; still others retained their original names. “Each vessel had to be registered officially as to name and characteristics to be readily recognizable by the enemy.”

Details of life aboard hospital ships are hard to come by (no official diaries were required), but Bruhn has compiled a comprehensive account using available evidence. The chapter on the Normandy invasion on June 6, 1944 notes on that day alone there were some ten thousand Allied casualties, “killed, wounded, and missing in action,” including 6603 Americans. The role of British hospital carriers was crucial.

Bruhn writes me that this, his thirty-sixth book (with subjects including “naval history, competitive running, building land yachts, or creating” a Stand Easy “hideaway pub”), will be his last; he and his wife Nancy plan to travel. He’s created a “legacy website,” davidbruhn.com, where viewers can request help “in learning more about a relative’s naval service.”

After Bruhn’s deep dive into naval history, a little shore leave is not uncalled for.

David Bruhn is Nancy Wiegman’s guest on Nancy’s Bookshelf on Northstate Public Radio, mynspr.org, Wednesday, June 25 at 10:00 a.m., repeated Sunday, June 29 at 8:00 p.m.

“The Nimbus: A Novel”

Former Chico High student body president Bobby Baird, who grew up in Chico and now resides with his family in Brooklyn, earned a doctorate from the University of Chicago Divinity School. He is now a mind-bending first-time novelist. 

We begin with the odd “to the reader” note, that “since you’ll have every reason to distrust what follows—I still hardly believe half of it myself—let me confess, here at the outset, that I have taken certain liberties with the truth.” Names have been changed “to protect the innocent, yes, but also to protect myself, who am far from innocent.”

It's early in the twenty-first century, and Adrian Bennett, 50, divinity school associate professor at a “not particularly well-known university on Chicago’s South Side,” has two sons, Luca, 2, and Max, 5, and one day graduate student Paul Harkin, whom Adrian is mentoring, sees Luca, well, glow, “like flame you see on the underside of a broiler, something low and close.” 

“The Nimbus: A Novel” ($29.99 in hardcover from Henry Holt and Co.; also for Amazon Kindle) gives it a name.

In the days to follow it will come and go. It can’t be photographed, and Adrian’s wife, Renata, 38, can’t see it. Not everyone can. This drives a further wedge into Adrian’s and Renata’s uneasy relationship (she’s given up her career for Adrian) and allows Baird to satirize academia’s obsession with the arcane--and Adrian’s ambition.

Enter 40-something Warren Kayita, librarian and ex-Div School student, from Uganda. He’s seen Luca’s nimbus and others who have begin to believe it fosters good luck. Indebted to a mobster-type who will forgive everything for another look at Luca, Warren plays a key role in a tragic encounter. 

Baird raises, but does not answer, questions about the reality of the nimbus. “Every story starts with a lie,” he tells us. Does it end that way as well?

Bobby Baird is Nancy Wiegman’s guest on Nancy’s Bookshelf on Northstate Public Radio, mynspr.org, Wednesday, June 18 at 10:00 a.m., repeated Sunday, June 22 at 8:00 p.m. He’ll be speaking and signing books at Chico’s Barnes & Noble on Saturday, June 21 starting at noon. The public is invited.

“Evergreen Lodge: A Memoir”

The cover shows two best buds in the summer of 1982, in front of Half Dome, Tom on the left and taller Brad on the right. Tom Bross would go on to graduate from Chico State in 1986, then to careers in marketing, advertising, and (now) memoir writing.

“Evergreen Lodge: A Memoir” ($16.99 in paperback, independently published; also for Amazon Kindle and audiobook format read by the author) takes the reader to the summers of 1977 and 1978 and “an often dysfunctional family business located near the west gate of Yosemite National Park.” 

Brossie, raised by a hippie mother who calls him Jupiter, is 15. Lots of extended family members and friends round out the cast for a joyous romp of a teen sex comedy reminiscent of “Fast Times at Ridgemont High.” 

Bross superbly captures the ethos (and raunchiness) of the times, and there are (sweet) pictures. He writes that the events in the book “are mostly, but not exactly, true. Duh. How could they be? … I was fifteen and sixteen years old and twenty-two percent hormones by body weight…. This is an homage to the era when we were no longer children and not yet adults, and a new song was enough to blow our minds.”

For Bross and Brad and chums, the sex jokes come hot and heavy, especially when new babes move into the nearby lodges. Flights of fancy stoke their imagination, like when a drunken woman twice Brossie’s age makes eyes at him. “She’s a mammal. She’s female. She’s alive. She meets my minimum requirements. But this woman is also attractive and sexually mature. And she’s wasted. Now all my boxes are checked. I’m thinking, I’m getting de-virginized tonight.” But, uh, “consent requires consciousness.” Duh. 

Though he never does get de-virginized, he does (reluctantly?) peer through the peephole made to the women’s shower, check out the female guests (a “smorgasbord of hotties”), and play with--words. If there’s Boise, Idaho, “shouldn’t there be a Girlsy, Wyoming, too?” 

Pringles, beer and pot round out the food groups, and a Half Dome hike with buds makes a forever memory. Bottom line: “We’re fifteen, we’re idiots, and you only live once.”

“Sunset Gratitude: 365 Hopeful Meditations For Peaceful And Reflective Evenings All Year Long”

For Chico State grad Emily Silva Hockstra, the natural world is replete with wisdom in how to weather loss. Sunsets, for example, “symbolize an ending. When things end, it can feel hard to accept and surrender to what is. Letting go is rarely easy….” So, in a book of short daily thoughts, about “finding hope after a period of grief,” “I wanted these passages to be gentle reminders that it’s okay to take your time.” 

Thus comes “Sunset Gratitude: 365 Hopeful Meditations For Peaceful And Reflective Evenings All Year Long” ($19.99 in hardcover from Rock Point; also for Amazon Kindle). As a life coach (soulsadventures.com) living in San Diego with her husband, she found in 2020 “that my dream of having a child would never come true…. Although this book was born through the grief of infertility, it addresses many of life struggles” through patient inner explorations.

Suffused with Zen Buddhist and Daoist sensibilities, the author’s short meditations will strike a chord with many readers. Take the entry for June 3: “Not all plans will work out, but trying something new will create change within. Bravery blooms in the trying. Resilience takes root when things don’t work out. Confidence shows up the more we try to get back up. Your dreams are yours for a reason.”

The first day of each month offers an affirmation, such as for October: “As I notice hope sprouting once again in my heart, I recognize the growth that is taking place in what was once an empty space with deep gratitude.”

The inward journey should not be lonely: “Allow the tears to fall, call out for support, communicate as loudly as you need to. Grief needs a witness as it honors the ending of something significant.” 

She tips the hat to friends expressing the qualities of all twelve signs of the Zodiac. “Each moment of marvel reminds us that we are part of an infinite universe and connected to the flow of life. The next time you look up at the sky, remember that you contribute to the interconnectedness of the universe. Then pause and breathe in gratitude.”