Mark Obmascik is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and bestselling author of The Big Year, which was made into a movie, and Halfway to Heaven. He won the 2009 National Outdoor Book Award for outdoor literature, the 2003 National Press Club Award for environmental journalism, and was the lead writer for the Denver Post team that won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize. He lives in Denver with his wife and their three sons.
"The Storm on Our Shores is a well-told and important book, not
only for understanding a particular campaign of a war that's fading
from living memory but for questioning the demonizing of others.
Even in a time of relative peace, we would do well to remember
that, despite our differences in ethnicity, citizenship, beliefs or
appearance, it's our shared humanity that makes us as one."
--Anchorage Daily News, Best of 2019 Reads
"Compelling story of a little-known battle. . . . The emotional
story of two families brought together by war--and eventually
peace--is a tragic look at the destruction brought about by
conflict. It is also a story of redemption that comes from
forgiveness and understanding." --The Denver Post
"Mr. Obmascik has found a remarkable story and dug deeply to enrich
the telling... (A)n engrossing and at times deeply moving book. The
reader will not soon forget Attu, or the courage and humanity of
Dick Laird and Paul Tatsuguchi. The two men are in some sense bit
players in history, but here they take on almost Shakespearean
heft, especially in the cruel choices they must make." --Wall
Street Journal
"Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Obmascik . . . serves up a
moving, intimate tale of two men, two families, and two countries
that intersected at the forgotten WWII battle of Attu. . . .
Obmascik's account of their relationship's growth reinforces the
compassion of everyone involved. This poignant, dramatic tale will
captivate both younger readers less familiar with the details of
WWII history and those who are passionate about it." --Publishers
Weekly (starred review)
"A poignant chronicle of the deeply complicated emotions
surrounding the American-Japanese hostility stoked by World War II.
. . . Obmascik has carefully and fairly sifted through the layers
to this complex story, offering a tightly focused examination of
the different, misleading translations of Tatsuguchi's diary as
well as Laird's efforts to get the diary back to his family. An
evenhanded, compassionate portrayal of the two deeply wounded sides
to this story." --Kirkus Reviews
"Mark Obmascik is a master storyteller. He writes with tremendous
grace about a forgotten part of our history, telling the same story
from two opposing points of view--perhaps the only way warfare can
truly be understood. He brings to life in gritty detail the
enormity of the sacrifices made on both sides of the conflict, and
thus enables us to appreciate the terrible price of war anew."--
Helen Thorpe, author of Soldier Girls, The Newcomers, and Just Like
Us
"A riveting true tale of a soldier's lost diary, The Storm on Our
Shores is a vital reminder of grace, forgiveness and the power of
words to heal." --Ruth Ozeki, author of A Tale for the Time
Being
"Here is a part of World War II that most of us not only forgot--we
never knew it happened in the first place. Mark Obmascik has deftly
rescued an important story from the margins of our history--and
from our country's most forbidding frontier. Deeply researched and
feelingly told, The Storm On Our Shores is a heartbreaking tale of
tragedy and redemption."--Hampton Sides, bestselling author of
Ghost Soldiers, In the Kingdom of Ice, and On Desperate Ground
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