Phyllis Whitney, the Joys of Life and Fate, and Striking Hitler Parallels to Today

Oh, how I'm enjoying the challenge of reading Vasily Grossman's novel  Life and Fate, which after the first 35 pages, is not all that challenging at all. It's a thick, meaty slice of Russian life and literature, sprawling, lots of characters bundled into various settings across Russia and--in the case of prisoners--across Germany. Mostly it's the story of one extended family, which has been evacuated from Moscow and other cities to the hinterlands to the west. They are largely the professional class, although there is a family of Communist Party Members and their ilk. I'm up to p. 140 (out of 880 pages), and I'm loving it. I look forward to my early morning and late afternoon reading bouts. No, no, absolutely not reading this before bed! I need my wits about me.
The following book cover has a photo of Vasily Grossman. Sounds like a fascinating book as well.

Before bed I'm reading Spindrift by Phyllis Whitney. The lead character is a young married woman, who suffered (supposedly) a severe breakdown after discovering her father's body after a grand party in a Newport (Rhode Island) mansion, owned by her father's very wealthy colleagues. Christy's husband is hopeless, distant, and ineffectual, and her mother-in-law a tyrant, who is willfully blocking access to their only son Peter. Everyone treats the young woman as a hopeless invalid. (This is the premise--I'm not giving anything away.) Of course, from the beginning, Christy has never stopped protesting that her father's death was not a suicide. Lots of challenges for her, and great atmosphere.

In case you've made it through my post this far, ahem! Please read on, if you've the time:

In Chapter 10 "The Motherland Overwhelms the Fatherland" in Andrew Roberts's The Storm of War (2011), I was overwhelmingly struck by the following passage describing Hitler's managerial style and approach to the War on the Eastern Front with the Soviet Union.

Note: The following is an excerpt from the German Franz Halder's private and well-hidden diary. Halder was Chief of Staff for Hitler's military operations.

Halder notes that when Hitler is presented with realism from his officers and generals, he...
      "explodes in a fit of insane rage and hurls the gravest reproaches against the General Staff. This chronic tendency to underrate enemy capabilities is gradually assuming grotesque proportions and develops into a positive danger...This so-called leadership is characterized by a pathological reacting to the impressions  of the moment and a total lack of any understanding of the command machinery and its possibilities."  p. 317

There is much more to report about Hitler's psyche during the Battle of Stalingrad, but...it sure sounds familiar, in a way that makes me feel even more uneasy than I already am, as if that's possible!