The Drowned and the Saved by Primo Levi

October 16, 2018 by Christina

Nonfiction — print. Translated from the Italian by Raymond Rosenthal. Vintage International, 1989. Originally published 1986. 203 pgs. Purchased. In Levi’s last book before his death, he sets out to examine the concepts of forgiveness, guilt, and memory in the context of his experiences as a prisoner at Auschwitz. He includes replies to his memoir from Germans, who struggle with how they should feel in light of what their parents did, and his reaction to children and adults from around […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Europe, Genocide, Holocaust, Italian, Italy, Nonfiction, Poland, Translated • Tags: Primo Levi

Edith’s Story by Edith Velmans

August 12, 2018 by Christina

Nonfiction — print. Bantum, 2001. Originally published 1998. 256 pgs. Gift from my mom. Subtitled “The True Story of a Young Girl’s Courage and Survival During World War II”, Velmans’ story begins in the 1950s with the birth of her twin daughters at a hospital in the Netherlands. She shares her hospital room with Miep Gies, the woman who hid Anne Frank and her family from the Nazis and returned Anne’s diary to her father at the end of the […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Europe, Genocide, Holocaust, Nonfiction • Tags: Edith Velmans

Poland by James A. Michener

September 18, 2017 by Christina

Fiction — Kindle edition. Random House, 2014. Originally published 1983. 688 pgs. Library copy. Covering eight centuries of Polish history, Michener’s novel begins in the then-present day of 1981 with a sit down between the fictional Minister of Agriculture of communist Poland, Szymon Bukowski, and the leader of the farmers, Janko Buk, who are operating same vain as the Solidarity movement occurring in Gdansk. Bukowski and Buk come to realize their family history — and, in fact, the history of Poland […]

Categories: 2017 Reads, Chunkster, Europe, Fiction, Genocide, Holocaust, Poland • Tags: James A. Michener

Schindler’s List by Thomas Keneally

January 13, 2016 by Christina

Fiction — print. Touchstone, 1993. Originally published 1982. 400 pgs. Purchased. Winner of the 1982 Man Booker Prize and adapted into a film in 1993 produced by Steven Spielberg, Keneally’s novel recounts the efforts of Oskar Schindler, a Czechoslovakia-born German who saved over 1,100 Jewish workers from the Nazi concentration camps by employing them in his factory in Krakow, Poland. As a member of the Nazi Party and an ethnic German from Hitler’s prized Sudetenland, Schindler had the credentials necessary […]

Categories: 2016 Reads, Booker Prize, Europe, Fiction, Genocide, Holocaust, Poland • Tags: Thomas Keneally

The Bone Woman by Clea Koff

December 11, 2015 by Christina

Nonfiction — print. Random House, 2005. Originally published 2001. 304 pgs. PaperBackSwap. In order to prosecute perpetrators for genocide and crimes against humanity, bodies must be exhumed and their condition as well as the mass graves they are found in must be documented. It is not enough to say people of particular ethnic or religious groups have disappeared and are presumed dead as perpetrators can claim these missing individuals were casualties of war or are undocumented refugees in neighboring lands. […]

Categories: 2015 Reads, Africa, Balkans, Europe, Genocide, Nonfiction • Tags: Clea Koff

Suspended Sentences by Patrick Modiano

April 8, 2015 by Christina

Fiction – print. Translated from the French by Mark Polizzotti. Yale University Press, 2014. 213 pgs. Library copy. Like many who read solely in English, the announcement that Modiano won the 2014 Nobel Prize for Literature left me a bit confounded. I have never heard of the author and never, to my recollection, seen a review for his work on one of the many book blogs I religiously read. Journalists and bloggers alike blamed the lack of awareness for his […]

Categories: 2015 Reads, Europe, Fiction, France, French, Genocide, Holocaust, Nobel Prize, Short Stories, Translated • Tags: Patrick Modiano

Journalism by Joe Sacco

December 27, 2014 by Christina

Nonfiction — print. Metropolitan Books, 2012. 192 pgs. Library copy. This collection of short-form comics produced by Sacco for various journalist enterprises reports from conflict zones around the world — Gaza, Chechnya, Iraq — and as well as from areas trying to reconcile with the aftermath of those conflicts — migration from war torn African nations to Malta, the war tribunals for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, poverty amongst the Dalits (“untouchables”) in India. At the end of reprinted […]

Categories: 2014 Reads, Asia, Balkans, Comics, Europe, Genocide, India, Israel/Palestine, Middle East, Nonfiction, Russia • Tags: Joe Sacco

The Fixer by Joe Sacco

December 11, 2014 by Christina

Nonfiction — print. Drawn and Quarterly, 2003. 140 pgs. Library copy. During his coverage of the Bosnian genocide and the Balkan conflict, Sacco worked with a rather shady character known as a “fixer” – someone who can assist foreign journalists with gaining access to the front-lines of the conflict, the warlords and gangs running the countryside as the nation is torn apart, and victims to provide stories to color the news articles being written about the region. Sacco’s “fixer”, known […]

Categories: 2014 Reads, Balkans, Comics, Europe, Genocide, Nonfiction • Tags: Joe Sacco

MetaMaus by Art Spiegelman

November 17, 2014 by Christina

Nonfiction — print. Pantheon, 2011. 300 pgs. Library copy. This companion to Spiegelman’s Pulitzer-winning Maus contains one long interview with the author addressing the questions he commonly receives about his work – Why the Holocaust? Why mice? Why comics? – and explores the impact the novel has had on those around Spiegelman in a series of smaller, shorter interviews. It also includes an archive of the audio interviews Spiegelman conducted with his father, historical documents he used to supplement the […]

Categories: 2014 Reads, Art, Comics, Genocide, Holocaust, Nonfiction • Tags: Art Spiegelman

Anne Frank and Me by Cherie Bennett and Jeff Gottesfeld

October 30, 2014 by Christina

Fiction — print. Puffin, 2001. 291 pgs. Purchased. The “me” in the title is American teenager Nicole Burns, who blogs about her frustrations with school, her inability to measure up to the ideal body or as the ideal student and daughter that her sister Elizabeth (known as Little Bit or LB on the blog) seems to be, and her infatuation with her classmate Jack (known as J on the blog) under the penname “Girl X”. “Frightening Thought du Jour: We […]

Categories: 2014 Reads, Europe, Fiction, France, Genocide, Holocaust, Juvenile • Tags: Cherie Bennett, Jeff Gottesfeld

Those Who Save Us by Jenna Blum

October 20, 2014 by Christina

Fiction — print. Harcourt, 2005. 479 pgs. Library copy. Told in a duel narrative structure, Blum’s novel largely focuses on the life of Trudy Schlemmer’s mother, Anna, during World War II in Germany with occasionally glimpses into the lives of Trudy and Anna in the United States during the 1990s. A professor of German history at the University of Minnesota, Trudy has launched an audio-visual interview project where she asks non-Jewish Germans about their experiences in Nazi Germany; a project […]

Categories: 2014 Reads, Book Club, Chunkster, Europe, Fiction, Genocide, Germany, Holocaust, North America, United States • Tags: Jenna Blum

Beatrice and Virgil by Yann Martel

September 29, 2014 by Christina

Martel’s novel is about the Holocaust. I state such a fact so starkly because I am still trying to wrap my head around his use of this topic. I admit, I picked this book up solely because of my deep and abiding affection for Life of Pi – both the novel and the film – and then avoided it for four years after hearing whispers of heavy criticism following its publication. I finally picked it up in part because of […]

Categories: 2014 Reads, Audiobook, Fiction, Genocide, Holocaust • Tags: Mark Bramhall, Yann Martel