Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelly (audio)

★★★★ 1/2

"Don't waste your energy on hate.  That will kill you sure as anything."

Another wonderfully written novel focusing on the events of World War II.  I enjoyed the unique perspective of an all-women concentration camp and different point of views.  This novel tells the story of three women from very different backgrounds - a wealthy American women, a German doctor, and Polish political prisoner.  It was beautifully written, well-researched, and filled with memorable characters and powerful insight on a tragic part of the past.

The Muralist by B. A. Shapiro (audio)

★★★★

Alizee Benoit is an American painter from France who is working on the WPA (Works Progress Administration) mural project in New York City when World War II breaks out.  Even though she is far away from the war, she worries constantly about the rest of her Jewish family living in German-occupied France.  As she tries to get visas for her family to come to the United States, she faces other personal and political obstacles.  And then she suddenly disappears and her family and friends never hear from her again.  

Seventy years later, her great-niece Danielle is still looking for answers.  Also an artist, Danielle finds a series of paints that she thinks may have been done Alizee.  Dealing with her own problems in her personal life, she connect with the story of her great-aunt and is determined to find the truth that she is looking for.

I have read a lot of books about World War II and the holocaust and am always surprised when I read one that looks at a new aspect of the war.  For this book, it was the obstacles that European refugees faces in order to obtain visas to immigrate to the United States.  I'm not sure how many of the details were completely accurate, but the author told an interesting and unique story of a women's struggle to save her family when she was 1,000s of miles away with essentially no power to do so.  I was struck by Alizee's families letters about the treatment of the Jewish people and their desperation to leave the country.  I also really liked the incorporation of art and the WPA and the story was very compelling.

The main reason I gave this book 4 instead of 5 stars was because it was way too predictable.  I figured out end of the story from pretty much the very beginning and there were a lot of details that seemed to fit too perfectly together in order to make the story to work.  I found myself rolling my eyes a few too many times (especially towards the end), but it was all-in-all a very enjoyable book.

The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah (audio)

★★★★★

" 'Oh for heaven's sake, Isabelle.  Paris is overrun.  The Nazis control the city.  What is an eighteen-year-old girl to do about all of that?' "

"If I have learned anything in this long life of mine, it is this: in love we find out who we want to be; in war we find out who we are."

"Men tell stories.  Women get on with it.  For us it was a shadow war.  There were no parades for us when it was over, no metals or mentions in history books.  We did what we had to during the war, and when it was over, we picked up the pieces and started our lives over."

I have always been a fan of Kristin Hannah, but she became one of my all-time favorite authors with her first historical novel, The Winter Garden, a few years ago.  I couldn't wait to read her new novel and it was so worth the wait!  It was beautifully written and is one of the best books that I have read in a long time.  The story is essentially was 'war-time' story of Nazi occupied France during World War II.    It is a story of family and love and war and sacrifice and takes readers on a indescribable journey from the very first page to the last.  I read a lot of historical novels set during the war, but Kristin Hannah as the wonderful ability to capture a new aspect - much like she did in The Winter Garden.  

I won't give away too much of the plot, but the center of the novel is on two sisters - Isabelle and Vienne - and they're determination to survive the war one day at a time.  As the novel progresses, each is faced with unthinkable decisions that they will live with long after the war is over.  One of my favorite parts of the novel (besides the breathtakingly beautiful writing) is how each of the sisters grow and develop throughout the book.   The relationships are intense and are made even-more-so by the constant horrors of wartime France.  A wonderful and unforgettable story!!  I loved every second of it and cannot wait to see what Kristin Hannah has planned next!

This was #1 on my top ten list of 2015.

The Nazi Hunters: How a Team of Spies and Survivors Captured the World's Most Notorious Nazi by Neal Bascomb

★★★

The Nazi Hunters is the account of the case of Adolf Eichmann, an SS officer and the head of the Nazi final solution during World War II.  During the war, Eichmann was responsible for carrying out Hitler’s plan in murdering millions of Jews and other groups of people that were deemed “unfit” in the eyes of German citizens.  Even though he was a highly wanted criminal after the war, he escaped to Argentina with no remorse or remission for what he had done. This non-fiction book for young adults tells of the events and individuals who played a role in Eichmann’s capture including a holocaust survivor, a teenage girl, and a group of Israeli spies.  After over sixteen year, Eichmann is finally placed on trial.  His execution serves as both justice for those whose lives were impacted by the holocaust and as a starting point for the public to be made aware of the horrors of the events.   

I’m not a big reader of nonfiction, but as far as nonfiction books go I found the book to be very informative and generally easy to get through.  I have read a lot of books about World War II and the Holocaust (primarily historical fiction) and was surprised never to have heard of Eichmann.  The author did a great job of incorporating a lot of facts into a narrative that included an intriguing storyline and a lot of action.  I was a little confused by all of the characters at times, but the photographs definitely helped to keep everyone straight.  I wouldn’t generally read this book on my own, but I appreciate the author’s research and would recommend this book to young adults who are interested in learning more about World War II.

Day After Night by Anita Diamant (audio)

 ★★★★

"Sometimes luck was just another word for creation, which was as relentless as destruction."

This novel covers the post-World War II experience of four young girls.  Their lives shattered after the Holocaust, Shayndel, Leonie, Tedi, and Zorah struggle to find new lives for themselves in a holding camp for illegal immigrants in Israel.  Each women deals with their loses and memories in different ways and come together as a support system.

I first read Anita Diamant many years ago when I read The Red Tent.  I believe I was around 14 at the time and it was one of earlier attempts at reading historical fiction.  Today it remains one of my favorite books.  Day After Night was no comparison, but I did enjoy reading it.  I read a lot of Holocaust historical fiction, and this one gave the unique perspective of what happened to people directly after the events of the war.  Usually novels end in 1944-1945 or shortly after or flash back between the past and the present.  Day After Night had really unique characters that processed their past in different ways.  It was interesting to see the direct effects that the war had on them.  I did get a little confused sometimes with all of the story lines, but listening to the audio at work might have had some effect on that as well!

The Storyteller by Jodi Picoult (audio)

★★★★ 1/2
"History isn't about the dates and places and wars.  It's about the people who fill the spaces between them."

Sage Singer is a loaner in her small town - which is why working the late night shift at a bakery is the perfect job for her.  She loves her job, but has been a in a bit of a rut lately.  Both of her parents have recently died, she hardly talks to her sisters, her boyfriend is married, and her only real friend is her boss.  One day at the bakery, she strikes up a unique friendship with an elderly man named Josef.  Josef is seen as legend in the town - teaching German at the high school and coaching baseball - and frequently comes to the bakery with his dog.  Sage and Josef begin spending a lot of time together, but one day Josef asks her to help him die.  Sage is shocked at the request and Josef confesses that he was a Nazi during World War II.  Unknown to Josef (or so she thinks), Sage also has a link to the holocaust.  Her grandmother was a survivor of Auschwitz.  As Sage struggles to make a decision, she also learns the story of her grandmother.  She is left with many questions about family, forgiveness, and acceptance.

I really enjoyed this book!  I've been wanting to read this for awhile - being a Jodi Picoult fan and having read lots of holocaust/World War II novels.  This book was a little different from her usual.  I had the ending pretty much figured out (which usually doesn't happen) towards the middle of the book, but I kept second guessing myself.  I liked Sage's story, but what really kept me going was the story of Minka, Sage's grandmother, and her experiences during the war.  For awhile, I almost forgot that Minka was just one part of the novel.  I also loved her writing of a fairy tale that ultimately saved her live in the camps.  It was really unique and has so many connects to her life.  This novel brought up a lot of questions about what was right and wrong and if someone can ever truly be forgiven for their past.

Skeletons at the Feast by Chris Bohjalian (audio)

 ★★★★

"She didn't care so much whether the world would ever forgive her people; but she did hope that someday, somehow, she would forgive herself."

I came across the book as I was going though the Chris Bohjalian audio books.  I read A LOT of World War II/Holocaust historical fiction, and I was surprised that I hadn't really heard of this one before.  I wouldn't say it was one of the best books I've ever read, but I did enjoy it.  

It's the beginning of 1945 and World War II is finally coming to an end.  Left in chaos, a group of Germans begin a journey to reach the allied forces near the Rhine.  The group includes Anna - a privileged daughter and her lover, Callum - a Scottish prisoner of war and Manfred - a Jew posing as a Nazi soldier after escaping Auschwitz.  Travelers also include Anna's mother and younger brother.  As the head away from the only home they have ever known, they begin to comprehend the horrors of the war as they fight to survive.

This novel painted an interesting perspective of World War II - that of a story of the German refugees.  War is never simple.  There is no "good" and "bad."  It's easy to classify the German Nazis as the "bad guys," but it's not that easy.  Many of the things that happened to aristocrats like Anna and her companions were similar to what the Nazis did to there enemies as well.  A lot of the detail about the horrors of World War II did not come out until the end of the war, and a high percentage of Germans didn't even know they were going on until years later.  The author did a wonderful job of capturing the time period and what the characters were going though.  A very powerful novel.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

★★★★★

"I have hated words and I have loved them, and I hope I have made them right."

"I wanted to tell the book thief many things, about beauty and brutality.  But what could I tell her about those things that she didn't already know?  I wanted to explain that I am constantly overestimating and underestimated the human race - that rarely do I ever simply estimate it.  I wanted to ask her how the same thing could be so ugly and so glorious, and its words and stories so damning and brilliant."

Updated: 5/7/2014

The movie is coming out, so I listed to his as an audio book this past week.  I loved it just as much as I did a few years ago and it remains one of my favorite books.  The story is subtle, yet extremely powerful.  I have always loved the character of Liesel and the connection between books and words throughout the novel.  I enjoyed listening the the audio version, but I missed a lot of the formatting and drawings that were in the print version - especially Max's stories that he wrote for Liesel. 

The Baker's Daughter by Sarah McCoy (audio)

★★★★ 1/2

"We all tell little lies about ourselves, our past, our presents.  We think some of them are minuscule, unimportant.  And other, large and incriminating.  But they are the same.  Only God has enough of the story to judge our souls."

Amazon.com Summary: "In 1945, Elsie Schmidt is a naive teenager, as eager for her first sip of champagne as she is for her first kiss. She and her family have been protected from the worst of the terror and desperation overtaking her country by a high-ranking Nazi who wishes to marry her. So when an escaped Jewish boy arrives on Elsie’s doorstep on Christmas Eve, Elsie understands that opening the door would put all she loves in danger.

Sixty years later, in El Paso, Texas, Reba Adams is trying to file a feel-good Christmas piece for the local magazine, and she sits down with the owner of Elsie's German Bakery for what she expects will be an easy interview. But Reba finds herself returning to the bakery again and again, anxious to find the heart of the story--a story that resonates with her own turbulent past. For Elsie, Reba’s questions are a stinging reminder of that last bleak year of WWII. As the two women's lives become intertwined, both are forced to confront the uncomfortable truths of the past and seek out the courage to forgive."

I been a bit behind on updating my book blog after I finish a book so bare with me regarding the "borrowed" summaries.  Work, library school, and wedding planning have kept be a little busy lately.  Not too much time for reading, but my hour-long commute and gym time have left a lot of time for listening to audio books.  I was able to finish this one in less than three days :)

I've always been really into historical fiction novels of World War II - especially involving the holocaust - and I'm always amazed when I learn something new.  With this book, it was the Lebensborn Program that Elsie's sister Hazel was involved in.  This was a program in Germany during the Nazi occupation that implemented the intentional raising of "Aryan" children.  I googled lots of information about the program while I was reading the book and was horrified by the anonymous births and the "doing away" with children that did not meet their criteria.  I am always interested in learning about the "German" side of the holocaust as well and this was another example of how the people of the Nazi reign suffered during the war as well.

Anyways, back to the novel...

Being a huge fan of historical fiction, I of course, loved Elsie's story from the very beginning, but I found myself very much enjoying Reba and Riki's story as well.  The author did a wonderful job of bringing out contemporary issues that were relevant to the Nazi ruling - both with Reba's father as a Vietnam veteran suffering from PSD and with Riki's work with the U.S. Border Patrol and Mexican immigrants.  Throughout the novel Elsie demonstrates a hidden strength and a great love for her family amidst many obstacles.  This is a book about family, friendship, and forgiveness.  I have to admit I tend to be a sucker for novels that are "wrapped up like packages" by the last page, but the ending was perfect!

I also really enjoyed the aspect of growing up in a bakery that was seen both in Germany during the war and in the present-day United States.  The epilogue includes lots of recipes - great ideas for a future book club meeting!

 

The Street Sweeper by Elliot Perlman

★★★ 1/2

 "The best historians...take a thorough knowledge of the evidence of their subject and combine it with a sharp intellect, the warmest understanding of people and the highest imaginative powers."

I first started this book last March and had to re-start in about a month and a half ago because I couldn't remember where I left off.  It was also one of the seven books I got for Christmas last year.  The novel was over 600 pages and it took me about a month and a half to finish once I started it again.  It is an epic novel that intertwines a survivor's account of the holocaust with modern-day characters and story-lines and a wonderful testimony to the importance of oral and first-hand accounts of history.

I first got really interested in the holocaust and World War II sometime in early high school.  I don't exactly remember why exactly, I have always liked history and historical fiction and found the time period to be extremely interesting.  The holocaust was a horrific event and is often very hard to read about, but I became fascinated with personal accounts of those involved and learning about how people survived these unthinkable tragedies.  In high school, my senior portfolio centered around music in the holocaust and in music college music history course, I wrote a paper about this as well.  It focused on the children's opera Brundibar that was produced and performed by prisoners at Theresienstadt, a concentration camp that was used for Nazi propaganda and contained many prominent Jewish musicians, writers, artists, and scholars.  I've completed a lot of extensive research and try to read as many books on the subject as a I can (you can see my complete list here).

That being said, Elliot Perlman's portrayal of the Nazi death camps and gas chambers were the most graphic I have ever read.  The author gave a great amount of detail on the procedures of death camps.  The descriptive and graphic language created an simple comparison between the camps and factories - which, essentially it was.  A factory solely designed for killing as many people as possible.  I guess I was just being naive, but I did not give much thought to what happened to the prisoners once they entered the gas chambers.  I guess I just assumed that they were killed instantly.  And while this was a tragedy in itself, it was nothing compared to the pain and suffering that they had to endure in the minutes before their deaths.  

This was a great story, but it had A LOT of different characters and story lines: a ex-convect searching for his daughter, a elderly holocaust survivor, a historian on the verge of losing his career and relationship, a psychologist research personal accounts of concentration camp survivors in the mid 1940s - just to name a few.  While all of these stories ultimately fit together, there was a lot going on and a lot of keep track of. Normally I don't mind lots of complicated story lines, but the author seemed to go back and forth between each one around every other page.   I might have to read this one again because I feel like I missed some important detaiils while trying to keep everything straight!

This book was #8 on my top ten list of 2013.

The Zookeeper's Wife by Diane Ackerman

★★★

"God may promise not to destroy creation, but it is not a promise humankind made -  to our peril."

The Reader by Bernhard Schlink

★★★★★

"At the same time I ask myself, as I had already begun to ask myself back then: What should our second generation have done...We should not believe we can comprehend the incomprehensible, we may not inquire because to inquire is to make the horrors an object of discussion, even if the horrors themselves are not questioned, instead of accepting them as something in the face of which we can only fall silent in revulsion, shame, and guilt."

"I looked at Hanna's handwriting and saw how much energy and struggle the writing had cost her.  I was proud of her.  At the same time, I was sorry for her, sorry for her delayed and failed life, sorry for the delays and failures of life in general."

"In the first few years after Hanna's death.  I was tormented by the old questions of whether I had denied and betrayed her, whether I was guilty for having loved her.  Sometimes I asked myself if I was responsible for her death.  And sometimes I was in a rage at her and at what she had done to me.  Until finally the rage faded and the questions ceased to matter.  Whatever I had done or not done, whatever she had done or not to me-it was the path my life had taken."

"What would you have done?"

La's Orchestra Saves the World by Alexander McCall Smith

★★★★

"That was the extraordinary thing about what the war achieved: it transformed lives, made heroes ou of the mildest of people, out of the most timid, showed the bravery that must always have been there but merely lacked the occasion to manifest itself."

The Wave: The Classroom Experiment That Went To Far by Todd Strasser

★★★★

People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks

★★★★★

"I wanted this one to be different.  I wanted to give a sense of the people of the book, the different hands that made it, used it, protected it."

Maus I: My Father Bleeds History

★★★★★

"To die, it's easy.  But you have to struggle for life."

The True Story of Hansel and Gretel by Louise Murphy

★★★★

"God didn't come down and kill us.  I don't see God shooting children and priests.  None of us met God beating up Jew and shoving them into railroad cars.  This is men doing the murdering.  Talk to men about their evil, kill the evil men, but pray to God. You can't expect God to some down and do our living for us.  We have to do that ourselves."

The Devil's Arithmetic by Jane Yolen

★★★★

"We all have such stories.  It is a brutal arithmetic.  But I - I am alive.  You are alive.  As long as we breathe, we can see and hear.  As long as we can remember, all those gone before are alive inside us."

"You are a name, not a number.  Never forget that name, whatever they tell you here."

The Upstairs Room by Johanna Reiss

★★★

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne

★★★★★

"...Despite the mayhem that followed, Bruno found he was still holding Shmuel's hand in his own and nothing in the world would have persuaded him to let go.."