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Auschwitz: A History |
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I agree that this is an interesting and unusual record, but some aspects of the editing and/or translation puzzle me. The book contains conflicting dates, blatantly wrong dates and various typographical errors which should not occur in an appropriately edited manuscript. These details, however, are relatively minor when compared to the huge error on page 107 which amounts to calumny against two countries mentioned: Bulgaria and Denmark. No Bulgarian Jews were deported to the gas chambers from Bulgaria itself - protests by the citizenry were so strong that the Nazis succumbed. Unfortunately some Bulgarian Jews living in other countries were deported and killed. Bulgaria invaded and occupied Thrace, and from there the Germans forced deportations, but it must be stressed again that not one single Bulgarian-born Jewish person was deported from Bulgaria.
As for Denmark: The Danes assisted almost their entire Jewish population to escape to Sweden (almost 6000 people). The Nazis managed to forcibly deport 500 to Theresienstadt, 423 of whom survived the war.
It seems obvious that the names of these two countries should be deleted from those who allowed their Jewish people to be deported and exterminated. It is difficult to understand how the translator and/or editor could have allowed them to be included in the first place.
More Sheila M.
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Angels & Demons by Dan Brown |
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Dan Brown is a brilliant author. His ability to tell a story from several different angles and then seamlessly weave the whole thing together at the end, without losing the reader, is incredible. This is a terrific read, and for those who have not yet read The Da Vinci Code, I would recommend you read that one first and then go on to Angels Demons, despite the order that they were written in. In my opinion, this is a good idea because despite the brilliance of the Da Vinci Code, Angels Demons is even better. WAY TO GO DANNY BOY!! .. Ahem..Sir.
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The Flaming Corsage by William J. Kennedy |
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I am only half way through this book right now and I am just in aww. Kennedy is a beautiful writer. Each word is just written with such caution and grace. I have a million books sitting on my shelf but this is the one I just can not put down. First of all I have never really read any books that were set in the 1800's and never thought that they could be so wonderful. I see that some people are actually critizing his story telling and if you are one of those then you must not be a big reader. Not to be rude, ofcourse. I have read everything from Silas Marner to The clan of the cave bears and this is the book that out does all others.More
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The Kite Runner
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Khaled Hosseini |
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In his debut novel, The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini accomplishes what very few contemporary novelists are able to do. He manages to provide an educational and eye-opening account of a country's political turmoil--in this case, Afghanistan--while also developing characters whose heartbreaking struggles and emotional triumphs resonate with readers long after the last page has been turned over. And he does this on his first try. The Kite Runner follows the story of Amir, the privileged son of a wealthy businessman in Kabul, and Hassan, the son of Amir's father's servant. As children in the relatively stable Afghanistan of the early 1970s, the boys are inseparable. They spend idyllic days running kites and telling stories of mystical places and powerful warriors until an unspeakable event changes the nature of their relationship forever, and eventually cements their bond in ways neither boy could have ever predicted. Even after Amir and his father flee to America, Amir remains haunted by his cowardly actions and disloyalty. In part, it is these demons and the sometimes impossible quest for forgiveness that bring him back to his war-torn native land after it comes under Taliban rule. ("...I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded, not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night.") Some of the plot's turns and twists may be somewhat implausible, but Hosseini has created characters that seem so real that one almost forgets that The Kite Runner is a novel and not a memoir. At a time when Afghanistan has been thrust into the forefront of America's collective consciousness ("people sipping lattes at Starbucks were talking about the battle for Kunduz"), Hosseini offers an honest, sometimes tragic, sometimes funny, but always heartfelt view of a fascinating land. Perhaps the only true flaw in this extraordinary novel is that it ends all too soon. --Gisele Toueg Read
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The March : A Novel
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E.L. Doctorow |
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As the Civil War was moving toward its inevitable conclusion, General William Tecumseh Sherman marched 60,000 Union troops through Georgia and the Carolinas, leaving a 60-mile-wide trail of death, destruction, looting, thievery and chaos. In The March, E.L. Doctorow has put his unique stamp on these events by staying close to historical fact, naming real people and places and then imagining the rest, as he did in Ragtime. Recently, the Civil War has been the subject of novels by Howard Bahr, Michael Shaara, Charles Frazier, and Robert Hicks, to name a few. Its perennial appeal is due not only to the fact that it was fought on our own soil, but also that it captures perfectly our long-time and ongoing ambivalence about race. Doctorow examines this question extensively, chronicling the dislocation of both southern whites and Negroes as Sherman burned and destroyed all that they had ever known. Sherman is a well-drawn character, pictured as a crazy tactical genius pitted against his West Point counterparts. Doctorow creates a context for the march: "The brutal romance of war was still possible in the taking of spoils. Each town the army overran was a prize... There was something undeniably classical about it, for how else did the armies of Greece and Rome supply themselves?" The characters depicted on the march are those people high and low, white and black, whose lives are forever changed by war: Pearl, the newly free daughter of a white plantation owner and one of his slaves, Colonel Sartorius, a competent, remote, almost robotic surgeon; several officers, both Union and Confederate; two soldiers, Arly and Will, who provide comic relief in the manner of Shakespeare's fools until, suddenly, their roles are not funny anymore. Doctorow has captured the madness of war in his description of the condition of a dispossessed Southern white woman: "What was clear at this moment was that Mattie Jameson's mental state befitted the situation in which she found herself. The world at war had risen to her affliction and made it indistinguishable." And later, " This was not war as adventure, nor war for a solemn cause, it was war at its purest, a mindless mass rage severed from any cause, ideal, or moral principle." As we have come to expect, Doctorow puts the reader in the picture; never more so than in recalling "The March" and letting us see it as a cautionary tale for our times. --Valerie Ryan Read
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