A Widow's Story by Joyce Carol Oates

The book's synopsis from the publisher's website:

"My husband died, my life collapsed."
On a February morning in 2008, Joyce Carol Oates drove her ailing husband, Raymond Smith, to the emergency room of the Princeton Medical Center where he was diagnosed with pneumonia. Both Joyce and Ray expected him to be released in a day or two. But in less than a week, even as Joyce was preparing for his discharge, Ray died from a virulent hospital-acquired infection, and Joyce was suddenly faced—totally unprepared—with the stunning reality of widowhood.
A Widow's Story illuminates one woman's struggle to comprehend a life without the partnership that had sustained and defined her for nearly half a century. As never before, Joyce Carol Oates shares the derangement of denial, the anguish of loss, the disorientation of the survivor amid a nightmare of "death-duties," and the solace of friendship. She writes unflinchingly of the experience of grief—the almost unbearable suspense of the hospital vigil, the treacherous "pools" of memory that surround us, the vocabulary of illness, the absurdities of commercialized forms of mourning. Here is a frank acknowledgment of the widow's desperation—only gradually yielding to the recognition that "this is my life now."

What a great experience reading this memoir was! Many aspects made this book worth being read by all but probably the most important is the quality of writing. To me it almost seemed like a refresher course in what English written language should really be and what many contemporary writers seem to forget. I'm talking about basic rules of grammar, construction of sentences and even meaning of words. I read A Widow's Story as an ARC, which means its editing and proofreading isn't finalized and ready for publication, and still there were very few errors, if any at all, and the whole book was in a better shape than many books served to us after being corrected and edited by others. I realize I may sound as a snob in this regard and I don't really care. It's important to me to know that someone who calls him/herself a writer knows the basic rules of grammar at least and has enough respect for the language to learn and check what they don't know. Joyce Carol Oates is a writer who exudes such respect and it's a pleasure to read what she writes. Shelf Awareness  published a great interview with  Oates's longtime friend and editor, Daniel Halpern. He states a lot more clearly what I mean about Joyce's writing.

Style, grammar and vocabulary aside, A Widow's Story is a very, very personal book that speaks much to Joyce's courage as she bares her heart and soul to us, readers. And yet, it's not a self-centered and egotistic person we meet on the pages of this memoir. Instead, it is Ray Smith, Joyce's late husband, that is at the forefront and that we learn of through the lenses of his wife's love, devotion and despair of losing him. Ms. Oates does reveal, unwittingly maybe, a lot about herself however. Here, she is Joyce Smith, the woman, the wife and the friend. Not, Joyce Carol Oates, the author. She is fragile, emotional, thinks of suicide even, but in the end she is most importantly a strong female who does persevere despite the biggest loss of her life. It's heartbreaking but beautiful at the same time, to see her struggle, her teetering on the verge of self-destruction and the victory of her will to live anyway. We, the readers know this will is there from the very beginning but  Joyce had to discover it slowly, step by step, oftentimes with the help of amazing friends.

I'm convinced I haven't written nearly enough about this memoir but I hope it's enough to encourage you to read it, especially if you want to read a memoir but you don't want a conceited, boastful  paean authors of some memoirs write to themselves. A Widow's Story is anything but that.  Do see for yourself.

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I have received an ARC of A Widow's Story from Ecco, via Shelf Awareness.

My Reading Life by Pat Conroy

The book's synopsis from the author's website:

Starting as a childhood passion that bloomed into a life-long companion, reading has been Conroy's portal to the world, both to the furthest corners of the globe and to the deepest chambers of the human soul. His interests range widely, from Milton to Tolkien, Philip Roth to Thucydides, encompassing poetry, history, philosophy, and any mesmerizing tale of his native South. He has for years kept notebooks in which he records words and expressions, over time creating a vast reservoir of playful turns of phrase, dazzling flashes of description, and snippets of delightful sound, all just for his love of language. But reading for Conroy is not simply a pleasure to be enjoyed in off-hours or a source of inspiration for his own writing. It would hardly be an exaggeration to claim that reading has saved his life, and if not his life then surely his sanity.

I have been waiting for this book my whole life and I knew I found what I was looking for after reading the first chapter.I know that you're not supposed to be forming opinions on books until you actually read the last page, but in reality it's not always so. In reality you sometimes stumble upon books that capture your attention and your heart with the first sentence and you don't have to worry whether the rest of it will hold. And that's what happened to me and My Reading Life.

This book is about Pat Conroy's life, but because reading is life (which becomes quite obvious in the first chapter) for Mr. Conroy, the book is inevitably about reading. However, as simple as it sounds, My Reading Life is filled with difficult moments from the author's life and the way he writes about them will bring a tear or two to your eyes. Chapter after chapter is a testimony of Conroy's love for either a specific person or a book. His mother is probably the one I admired the most. She is the one who instilled the love of reading in Pat and his siblings and maybe even made a writer out of him. (She did what I am unfortunately failing to accomplish with my daughter she will not pick up a book unless absolutely forced to). Oh, and the love for books is just overwhelming. If ever you need encouragement to read Gone with the Wind, War and Peace or anything by Thomas Wolfe, just reach for Conroy's memoir and read what he has to say. There's no way you'll come away not wanting to at least give them a try. You'll probably even want to read those books again if you previously hadn't liked them.

My Reading Life is not a long book (I haven't read any others by Mr. Conroy, but I know they are rather big) but it is just right in size and scope. It encompasses the author's struggles with life itself, a difficult and hurtful relationship with his father, but also the very many good things that happened to him on his 'reading and writing' journey. The second best thing (to reading about another's love of books, of course) is how funny the book turned out to be. There were places where I actually laughed out loud at the comedy of a particular situation. Conroy's stay in Paris was particularly funny. This book really is a gem and if ever you are stuck in a reading rut, just read this memoir. You don't even have to read it from beginning to end, pick any part, any chapter or any page and I guarantee you will feel the love of reading sparking right back.

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I received My Reading Life by Pat Conroy from the publisher via Shelf Awareness.

Broken: A Love Story by Lisa Jones

I haven’t written a review for such a long time that I’m starting to fear I might be out of touch. Hopefully I’m not, because I really want to give justice and write as good a review as I possibly can on Broken: A Love Story by Lisa Jones. It’s a wonderful memoir and it deserves the attention and words of praise and, last but not least, a good review.

Lisa Jones is a freelance writer, writing articles for magazines and for NPR. One of her magazine assignments was to write about Stanford Addison, an Arapaho Indian. She left her home and went to Wyoming in search for Stanford, not having the slightest idea that what was supposed to be a four-day-trip, would turn out to be a life-long journey of friendship with a very inspiring man. Stanford Addison was that man. He ‘broke’ wild horses, he healed people from maladies, depression, bipolar disorder and cancer being only some of them and everyone just gravitated towards him, especially children. He was also a quadriplegic who at one point in his life, shortly after a terrible accident that left him paralyzed, wanted to kill himself to end his own misery. But physical limitations seemed to be the least of his problems. Right after the accident, Stanford kept being visited by spirits and eventually realized that he had special and mysterious gifts and he had to use them whether he wanted to or not. Lisa comes into his life twenty years after Stanford’s accident but instead of simply writing an article, she ends up with a book in which we learn how she got ‘broken’ and discovered truths about herself she didn’t know existed, and how she got to truly love and be loved.

Broken is a refreshing, captivating memoir. And it’s not a love story you might think it is. It’s a story of discovering love of life, of the people and world around you, and of every mundane thing there is out there. Because in end, nothing in our lives really is or has to be mundane. From the description, you’d think the book is a work of fiction what with the ghosts and healings in it. However, I didn’t for a second doubt Stanford Addison’s story because Lisa somehow managed to convince me with her writing that Stanford’s spirit visitations and his healing abilities are very much real, however amazing and mysterious they might seem. I remember actually being quite envious at times. I envied Lisa her friendship with Stanford and his family. They all are Northern Arapaho Indians who live in poverty, who get into a lot of troubles with law, who are wild but who are also beautiful and rich, and wise.

Lisa Jones really is a skilled writer and I hope she actually decides to write more books. She’s very honest, especially about herself even if it may invite criticism. I think I liked that honesty the most. No one was glorified which only made the memoir and the people in it all the more likeable. You have no idea how many times while reading I wished I were right there, in Wyoming with Stanford and his family. I know they could teach me a lot about appreciating life and all that comes with it. But because I can’t, Broken is quite enough for now and I know I will be going back to reading this book many times, just to remind myself of simple truths written in there. If you like memoirs and want to be inspired, this is definitely a book for you. Even if you don’t read memoirs, you should still read this one because there is much to learn from it, and maybe you’ll even gain a fresh perspective on your own life.

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Special thanks to the author, Lisa Jones, for sending me a copy of Broken: A Love Story.

2-in-1 : The Book Shopper & Tattoo Machine

In this edition of 2-in-1 I will be writing about two memoirs. But the genre is pretty much all these two books have in common.

1. The Book Shopper. A Life in Review by Murray Browne *

I acquired this book while chatting with Mr. Paul Dry whom I met at Book Expo America 2009. I am mentioning this fact first because Mr. Dry is a publisher and his company, Paul Dry Books, Inc put out The Book Shopper and also because he was probably one of the nicest, most courteous people I met there. I felt Mr. Dry was genuinely interested in what I had to say and we really had a nice, intelligent chat. On that premise I accepted Murray Browne's book with a promise of reading it and further sharing my thoughts about it on my blog.

The Book Shopper is pretty much a short, to the point memoir of one person who loves books (not just reading them) and even though he is hesitant to call himself a true bibliophile, Mr. Browne's life pretty much revolves around books. The book's title is self-explanatory because it is mostly reflective of what we'll find inside: the author's experiences and knowledge concerning shopping for books in all kinds of places. Mr. Browne mentions bits and pieces of his 'other' private life but mainly he wants us, readers, to maybe learn something from his adventures in book shopping and to share our mutual love for books.

I honestly enjoyed myself reading The Book Shopper. It is a quick and easy read but filled with passion for books. And because I have this passion, I also like and feel connected to anyone who wants to write about it and does it exponentially better than I would. Even though I didn't necessarily agree with Mr. Browne's book choices (yes, there is a list of books he recommends), I was pleasantly surprised at the accuracy of some of his observations about bookstores, about people who love books and about people who work in used bookstores. It was a lot of fun to read

this witty recounting of one person's journey through the world of book shopping and if you are looking for something light but intelligent to read, this might be the book.

2. Tattoo Machine. Tall Tales, True Stories, and My Life in Ink by Jeff Johnson **

This is a memoir about...surprise, surprise...tattoos. Jeff Johnson is a tattoo artist (or a tattooer) who decided to put his experiences in tattoo world on paper. I wanted to read the book because I have a tattoo and even though it's the only one I ever will have (that's right, getting tattoos is not addictive and a person can live with just one), I am fascinated by them. Jeff Johnson tells a story of what tattoo artists really think of us, peons wanting to have one and how his life revolved around tattoo shops, pranks, drugs, sex and all the cliches one might expect from someone who does tattoos.

The book was okay. That's it. I did smirk here and there but I was mostly left dissatisfied and felt at times outright offended by Mr. Johnson. His attitude of 'I'm better than you are because I am a tattoo artist' really grated on my nerves. As you probably can tell from the last sentence in the previous paragraph, I was being intentionally snarky. Truth be told, if you want to read about the world of tattooing from the insider, you may want to read this one but I would recommend perusing the library instead of a bookstore. The content is from time to time quite interesting, some incidents from Mr. Johnson's life funny but I mostly had a feeling that the author felt lost himself while writing the book, because it felt disjointed at times, there were chapters or fragments within a chapter for which I couldn't quite I understand the reason. They mostly felt like 'fillers' just to meet the word requirements. Anyway, it's not a horrible book, it is readable but because of the tone of superiority, I took it personally and feel mostly negative about it.

* I received this book from the publisher for review.

** I won this book through GoodReads giveaway program.

Silverstein & Me by Merv Gold

What do you know about Shel Silverstein? If you are like I was ten years ago, nothing. Yes, you heard that right. Before I became a mother, I’d had no idea that a person name Shel Silverstein existed. I never liked poetry, I still don’t like it but when my daughter asked me to read Mr. Silverstein’s poems from the Runny Babbit I honestly became enchanted by them because of how simple they were yet each and every one carried a meaning important to me and I like to think my daughter as well. Since then I have read every book of poems by Shel written for children and I thought I had a pretty good image of who Mr. Silverstain was. Here’s the thing: I didn’t, it wasn’t anywhere near and Silverstein & Me by Merv Gold is the book that opened my eyes (at least a little, because I have a feeling there is still a lot more unsaid).

Silverstein & Me is a memoir of sorts written by a person who probably knew Shel the longest (well besides his parents) and is someone you can call life-long friend. I write ‘of sorts’ because it really is a little more than just a memoir and covers pretty much a whole life of Mr. Silverstein. Merv Gold doesn’t just concentrate on one event or certain period but instead chooses to tell Shel’s story from the day they became friends to the day Shel died. And what a story it is! I got shocked at certain things, some things I still can’t bring myself to fully believe, others made me laugh and others yet got very deep and made me cry. There are tons of anecdotes and facts from Shel’s life I had no idea about, including his career as a Playboy cartoonist and his drug use. One thing is certain, if you saw Silverstein as a clever and funny poet for children, you will never see him as such after reading Silverstein & Me.

Despite my image of him is forever shattered (no worries, it's in a good way), I really enjoyed the book. Mr. Gold did a wonderful job writing about Shel Silverstein in two most important ways. First, the writing itself flows very smoothly, it’s quite fast-paced for a memoir and really makes you want to read it all in one sitting (that’s what I did, by the way), not because the poet’s life was so intriguing because we all know how the most wonderful lives can be turned into a bore by an unskilled writer. The way Merv Gold combined prose with a little bit of silly songs and funny cartoons (which I think are a great addition) and not very long but nonetheless necessary descriptive passages with quick dialogue really appealed to me and I think also added to the true, if unknown picture, of who Shel Silverstein was. Second most important things is that Mr. Gold managed to add value and color to his friend’s life, managed to show all the respect due Silverstein and his family and the book never felt to me like a ‘washing-the-dirty-laundry’ kind of memoir. Despite all the shocking things and all the character traits I would never have expected from an author of The Giving Tree, I now think much more of Mr. Silverstein, not less. Like a true friend, Merv Gold paid a real tribute to his friend. As the author himself writes in the opening pages:

“For some this is a tell-all book, telling all that one can recall. But not a tattle tale book, though he was far from perfect, and sometimes a downright arrogant pain in the ass. Its point is to uncover the hidden, unknown Shel, to show he was most often friendly, giving, and above all interested in everyone and everything.”

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Special Thanks to Paula K. from AME, Inc for sending me this book for review.

Traveling with Pomegranates by Sue Monk Kidd & Ann Kidd Taylor

My relationship with my mom has never been one full of warm feelings or deep understanding. It gets better as I get older and while I will never be emotionally close to my mom, I am glad for what we have today. On the other hand, I am also a mother myself and I have to admit that it’s probably one of the most difficult roles in a woman’s life. I am a daughter and a mother, and I reached out for Traveling with Pomegranates because it’s a mother-daughter memoir and I think I am having the most difficulty with coming to terms with what motherhood and daughter-hood entail.

Sue Monk Kidd is probably known to most readers as the author of The Secret Life of Bees and The Mermaid Chair. That’s how I knew about her even though I have yet to read both these books. Traveling with Pomegranates is Sue’s and her daughter Ann’s story recounting their travels to Greece and France and their life in between. It starts with their first trip to Greece as Sue’s birthday present (she turns 50) and Ann’s graduation present (she graduated from college). Beginning with this trip forward, both Sue and Ann learn a lot about each other and about themselves. Ann is struggling with depression and trying to hide it from her mom even though she knows that her mom will know without ever being told. Sue is struggling with her identity, with her ageing, and with her desire to be a fiction writer. The memoir covers a few years of self-discovery and mother-daughter efforts to understand what their destinies are and where exactly it is these two women are heading.

Traveling with Pomegranates moved me on several levels, especially when I least expected it. Sue is already an accomplished writer but this memoir is Ann’s first attempt at writing and I must say that she is a very talented author. I really couldn’t tell the difference in quality between mother and daughter. And honestly, I don’t think I was supposed to. What both of these women wrote was beautiful and emotional because they both put their hearts into it. Their love for each other emanated from the pages of the book and therefore to experience their deeply emotional yet very lonely struggles was all the more heartbreaking. The best part for me was that I could identify with both of them. With Ann because we are close in age and because I also suffer from depression (even though that’s one issue I had a slight problem with, which I will elaborate on) and with Sue because I am a mother and I also struggle with my identity as a woman, mainly I don’t want to be seen as a mom only. Just like Sue, I want to be a woman, breathing, living, beautiful woman with my own goals, my own dreams, separate from those of a mother.

Besides the spiritual side, I also really liked reading about the travel part. All the Greek mythology weaved into the pages of Traveling with Pomegranates got me once again interesting in this topic and also brought on a little bit of nostalgia, as I remember being fascinated by this subject in my late teens and early twenties. Ann especially has a talent for writing about all the places they visited and all the experiences they went through caused by history of those places. I really wish I could go to Greece one day.

As I mentioned, the only problem I had was with Ann’s struggle and eventual recovery? from depression. From the way she described this malady (that’s how I see it) I knew it was genuine, as I have felt the same way countless times. What upset me was the fact that Ann either all of a sudden recovered from it after the three trips with her mom or simply stopped talking about it, as if it was a non-issue all of a sudden. It upset me because I know you can’t recover from depression simply because you get to go to Greece with your mom and maybe Ann wasn’t as truthful about it as I would have liked. The other thing might be that I am just jealous and she did conquer depression (jealous that I don’t seem to progress at all after many, many years of living with it). I guess it’s up to individual readers how they want to perceive it. It certainly didn’t stop me from enjoying this book and crying many times when reading about Sue’s and Ann’s doubts about life, spirituality and their futures. If you are a sucker for memoirs like I am, I think Traveling with Pomegranates deserves a place in your library.

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Special Thanks to Katrina A. from Wiredset for sending me this book for review.

Also check out this nice widget about Traveling with Pomegranates which includes an exclusive video of Sue and Ann:

2-in-1: Amazing Grace & I Do Again

For today’s edition of 2-in1 I have two Christian non-fiction books. And this is pretty much where the similarities end.

1. Amazing Grace by Kathleen Norris

It is Ms. Norris’s recounting of her struggles with going back to the Christianity. What seemed to have kept her away from it for many years was the language that is used in connection with this religion and the misunderstandings stemming from it. Amazing Grace is a memoir of sorts with many personal and very endearing stories in which Kathleen rediscovers the meanings of words such as ‘dogma’, ‘antichrist’ or ‘annunciation’. There is also a lot of theology and etymology woven through this memoir which surprisingly is very captivating to read about.

I am a member of the Roman-Catholic Church and I for once found a book where author didn’t bash this close to my heart religion. As soon as I realized that Amazing Grace is more about opening one’s eyes to the art of living with the abstract and turning it into reality of everyday life, I began treating it more seriously than I initially intended. Obviously, I heard and encountered all the words talked about in this book many, many times in my life but I experienced ‘Aha’ moments in pretty much every chapter. I suspect that a lot of it has to do with the way Kathleen writes about her own understanding, her faith and her struggles that brought me closer to the faith I thought I was pretty much close enough. Probably, the best part of the book is that there is no discrimination, no ridicule and no off-putting passages that could otherwise turn an atheist or non-Christian away.

2. I Do Again by Cheryl & Jeff Scruggs

This one is part memoir, part self-help for broken couples and marriages. Cheryl & Jeff write about their paths coming together to join them in marriage and how those paths went separate ways after a few years. Cheryl felt misunderstood and really unloved on a deeper, spiritual level, which pushed her into the arms of another man. What came next is what happens to so many couples nowadays: a painful divorce that affected not only Jeff & Cheryl but also their twin daughters, their families and their mutual friends. That’s the memoir part. The self-help part is that they actually got back together and remarried after seven dreadful years of divorce and are now actively working together to help other couples find the spiritual path to a happy marriage, no matter how broken they might appear to be.

I mentioned above that I am Catholic. I am also a divorced and remarried person, although not to the same man. Talk about two things that cannot possibly exist together. But yet, here I am. Needless to say, this book brought upon a lot of feelings of guilt and sadness. I Do Again might be good for people who are better Christians than I am and want to fix their marriages before it’s too late. But I also felt that there was no place for people like myself in this book. The Srcuggs’s apparently are full of faith that every marriage can be fixed if there is God in a relationship. But what about a person like myself, who from the day of the wedding until the day of divorce knows that the marriage is a mistake? I was pushed into marrying, even though I knew this wasn’t what I wanted. I honestly felt like the biggest sinner in the world while reading this book and kept asking myself what was wrong with me that I couldn’t fix my relationship even though I had been a spiritual person. So, all and all, this book might be a saving grace for someone who is teetering on the verge and wants to turn to God for help. But if you already are past the divorce and (God forbid) building a life with someone who should have been your partner all along, then I think you should skip this book. You might otherwise be thrown into a guilt trip of your life.

Trail of Crumbs by Kim Sunee

I have a strange attraction towards memoirs. I think they at once draw me away from my own life and give me many reasons to somehow compare my life to the person a memoir is about. When it came my turn to pick the next read for my book club, I knew right away it would be a memoir. Trail of Crumbs by Kim Sunee was the one democratically chosen. I was both glad I read it since it had been on my reading list for a long time and slightly disappointed with it.

Trail of Crumbs is a story of Kim’s life from the day she was abandoned by her Korean mother and adopted by American parents at the age of three until the time when she is in her late twenties going back to New Orleans, the town she grew up with, after ten years of living in Europe. It is also a food memoir as hunger and the need to make wonderful food are two of the main forces in Kim’s life (she finishes chapters in the book with one or more recipes of very elaborate and sometimes complicated recipes). The whole memoir is mainly focused on Kim’s life when she enters the world of adulthood and decides to study and live in Europe. She takes us through the cities of Paris, Stockholm and then back to France as she grows more and more apart from her adopted family, especially her mother left in America. Kim finally lands in a place she thinks might be her true home. She moves in with Olivier, a wealthy founder of L’Occitane and tries to take on a role of the mistress of his beautiful house in Provence and a step-mother of Olivier’s eight-year-old daughter, Laure. But even having what most people can only dream of, Kim is still unhappy and still searching for the ‘real’ idea of home she claims she never really did get to grasp.

I’ll get right to the bottom of it all and put on the record I did not like Trail of Crumbs. It’s difficult to explain why because it is a memoir and it does deal with real people not some fictitious characters. I hate getting personal in my critique but Ms. Sunee is the main reason I didn’t like the book. Granted, she certainly has a talent for writing. It’s obvious from the first pages to the last. There really isn’t much, if anything that I could frown upon in terms of quality of the book. In that respect, Trail of Crumbs reads like a breeze.

However, if I was supposed to feel sorry for Kim I am confused because I didn’t. I did sympathize with her and did feel a lot of her pain initially when reading about how she was left by her mother on the sidewalk with only a piece of bread in her hands. The scared, three-year-old Kim spent three days on that sidewalk waiting for her mom to return. It did break my heart a little, I admit. But then, the whole book turns into a sort of bashing of Kim’s adopted parents, especially her mom, and Kim’s wallowing in how unhappy she is, how she can’t find her true self and how her life is pretty much worthless. Forget about having an opportunity to live and study and then work in not one but two beautiful countries in Europe. Forget that she used this opportunity when she was barely twenty (when most of us peons are stuck doing menial and boring jobs just to get us through college with as little debt as possible). And finally, don’t even pay attention to the fact that at the age of twenty one she captures the heart of a very wealthy man who gives Kim anything she wants, and I mean anything (he even buys her a bookstore just for poetry books, which brings nothing but financial loss)and truly loves her. I guess I did start to dislike Kim because of how selfish she turned out to be and how she would stamp on other people’s lives just because she couldn’t figure hers out. I hope that nowadays Ms. Sunee is able to look at how egocentric she really was in those days of what could have been pure happiness had she made an effort.

As far as food goes, the recipes were truly yummy and I would gladly eat the dishes if someone else prepared them for me. I am guilty of hating cooking. You have no idea how many times I have been told by others to start cooking because it had therapeutic qualities. Well, it doesn’t for me. And as delicious as all the dishes talked about in Trail of Crumbs must be, I am still not convinced or encouraged to try any of them. 

'A Lucky Child' by Thomas Buergenthal

Today is another Day of Remembrance and, as I mentioned in my previous post, I am writing here about a book that is just perfect for the remembering of Holocaust. First however, I would like to say a little bit on my experiences with the Nazi concentration camps and the horrifying legacy left by WWII. Having been born and raised in Poland I had been educated on the horrors of the extermination of the Jewish people quite thoroughly I thought. But it was all textbook knowledge that for a child in school had no other meaning apart from that of just another thing to study. It all changed with my first visit to Auschwitz as a high school student. When I finally had a chance to go through the barracks, to look at the gas chamber and the crematorium, when I could look at the chimney and imagine the smoke drifting upwards with the souls of all these innocent people, that’s when the cruel reality of the suffering hit me. That’s the reason why I believe that simply learning the dry facts at school is not enough to really try and understand the nightmare of genocide. This is also the reason why I think that books like A Lucky Child by Thomas Buergenthal are relevant today and should always remain as such.

A Lucky Child is a little different from other books on Holocaust because it is a memoir of a person, who as a child survived not only Auschwitz, but the ghetto that, like all Jewish ghettos, was liquidated, and two other labor camps. The miracle in it all is, only a handful of children came out of Auschwitz alive. Most of them had been murdered and burnt before they even got a chance to enter the camp, or were sent to Treblinka straight form ghettos where the same fate awaited. The author of this memoir is Thomas Buergenthal, an International Court of Justice judge, who devoted his life to making sure that what had happened in WWII, doesn’t happen again. Mr. Buergenthal arrived at Auschwitz when he was ten and was abruptly and cruelly separated from his mother but thankfully was still together with his father. He went through the life in the camp and through the rest of the war trying his best to live, to survive and to finally get reconnected with his parents. He was a truly lucky child because while all the other children he managed to become friends with were killed, he always escaped that same, gruesome fate. Mr. Buergenthal, Tommy, was also miraculously reunited with his mother just when he started losing the hope that either of his parents survived Auschwitz.

Thomas Buergenthal essentially wrote a book of hope, resilience and a child’s spirit that could never get extinguished. I absolutely loved it. It’s a work of a great mind and heart and because it was written straight from the heart it takes on a deeply moving meaning. The prose is beautifully simple and almost dainty, which spoke to me clearer than any convoluted, rich in hyperboles and metaphors pieces ever could. And in this simplicity, the true questions shine through. Who does truly survive: the one who refuses to compromise their morality, dignity and soul, or the one who gives that up to preserve or prolong their life no matter what? How insane did the people who served up such a fate to the millions of innocents had to be? These and many other deep issues are what Buergenthal thinks about and also gives a reader the freedom to answer them individually. One aspect of the book that I particularly loved were the photographs of Thomas and his family. I thought it was wonderful to look at all these people, his mother, his father and many others, and be able to put a face to them, to their great spirit and personalities. And just like my experience in Auschwitz, these photographs make it more real, make you look at them and know that this is all true, that it isn’t a dry historical fact only but many personal tragedies that can never be forgotten.

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Special Thanks to Anna B. from Hachette Book Group for sending me a copy of this book.

'A Child's Journey Out Of Autism' by Leeann Whiffen

My first experience with autism was just a few months ago, when I attended a week-long program for parents of autistic children. I arrived there as an interpreter for a family from Poland and five days later I left as a changed, spiritually and mentally uplifted person. A Child’s Journey Out of Autism by Leeann Whiffen left me with the same feeling of awe and amazement I had experienced at the program five months before.
Leeann Whiffen and her husband Sean were suddenly thrown into the world of nightmare when their two-year-old son Clay was diagnosed with PDD, Pervasive Developmental Disorder, which is a form of autism. From that day forward, they went through the whirl of misinformation, doctors’ inadequacy and fellow parents’ misunderstandings, confused, sometimes cold and reproachful looks and comments. They hit every stumbling block, every wall and shutting door but they refused to give up. Because of the determination to win their son back from autism, they also met many helping angels on their journey: doctors who wanted and knew how to help, parents who suffered the same anguish, and people who wanted to help simply because they wanted to make a difference in one child’s life.
A Child’s Journey Out of Autism leads us through Leeann’s incredible path of always holding on to hope. Even though it is a real-life story, it reads like a first class action and suspense book. Even all the medical terms and description, that otherwise could bore a reader to tears, are surprisingly interesting because they are written in a language of deep emotions. Leeann turns out to be a fantastic writer. Her writing is clear, very straightforward and engaging, grabbing a reader’s attention from the first page and holding it to the very end. Probably the best part is that Leeann neither sanctifies nor victimizes herself. There are moments of doubt, selfishness and despair, but there are also moments of great joy, determination and courage to go on one more day. She is a normal mother who loves and cares for her children and who manages to win the battle despite being told that she never would. Precisely because of this ‘normalcy’, Leeann’s message of hope to other parents of autistic children is so powerful. I couldn’t help but care and cheer for every member of the Whiffen’s family: Leeann, her husband Sean and their two wonderful boys, Clay and Drew (who, by the way, is a wonderful, courageous brother and friend to Clay). I cried tears of sorrow and joy, and I guarantee that everyone who reads this book will too.
This book however, should be read by every parent, not only the ones with autistic children. It is a story of how to appreciate every little thing about our children, how to love them fully and unconditionally. It is a story of perseverance in the face of biggest despair, of determination to never give up, even if we are told that that’s precisely what we should do.

Favorite quote:

"He smiles his crooked smile and tilts his head until it touches his shoulder. His smile morphs into a giggle. Then, simultaneously, we laugh out loud – a deep, feel-good laugh right from the belly. We laugh together some more, and I cry, because I am so full of joy. A joy that is so deep it can only be felt when one has finally emerged from the depths of desperation and discouragement."

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Special Thanks to Danielle J. from Sourcebooks for providing me with a copy of this book.

CHALLENGES: 100+ Reading Challenge, 999 Reading Challenge

'Reading Lolita In Tehran' by Azar Nafisi

How much do most people in the Western world know about the difficult lives of people in Iran? Personally, I think not that much. Our knowledge is based on preconceived notions and news reports flooding our brains on a daily basis. Being separated by thousands of miles and an abyss between our culture and theirs, it is quite difficult to truly grasp the trials and tribulations of ordinary men, women and children living in Iran. In my opinion, the most credible source of information regarding any experience is a personal account. That’s why Reading Lolita In Tehran is such an important book.



Azar Nafisi returned to her beloved country of Iran after spending several years, including attending college, in the United States. When she left Tehran, it was a modern, democratic city with happy, intelligent people, with women sharing equal rights with men and all enjoying their country and their freedom of religion. Years later she came back to Iran she didn’t recognize but still had no idea what would really become of it. Reading Lolita In Tehran is Nafisi’s memoir, depicting the seventeen years of living under the fundamentalist regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran. She is a brave and very bold university teacher, who first gets expelled from University of Tehran and then resigns from another university before they get a chance to expel her. Instead, she creates a regular meeting at her own house where seven former female students of her meet weekly to discuss one of the greatest writers in the literary world. In between the accounts of every meeting, Azar describes Iran’s quick descent into tyranny, where women are refused any rights, jailed and put to death of the smallest offenses and all the intelligentsia, every academic that refuses to submit to censorship and regime is quieted or eradicated.



Reading Lolita In Tehran is not an easy read. Nor should it be such. You cannot write down in any easy terms memories and experiences that defined these women and became their everyday terrors. However, it is a beautiful book and well worth the time you’ll spend reading it. It is written in a way that’ll become personal to every person that reads it. For me, Azar Nafisi gave me the greatest gift a writer can give to a reader: a new appreciation for literature, which sadly and quite unconsciously I have started to take for granted. Austen, Nabokov, James, Gatsby, they become lifelines to these brave women. The books let them live through one thing the regime couldn’t take away, their imagination, the window into another world that could have been their world too.



Probably, the saddest part was the heartrending disillusionment with the country Ms. Nafisi once loved and the young girls desperately wanted to love. As the author mentions herself, the women of her generation and older at least had the past and the memories to cherish, while the generation of her students and their children was denied even that.



Lastly but maybe the most importantly, Reading Lolita In Tehran brings to life the saying that “the pen is mightier than the sword”. Both sides know it. The government is painfully aware of that, therefore the bookstores are closed down, the books are burned, the academia is being forced into discussing only the works that further the Islamist cause and those who don’t comply lose their careers or even lives. The young women, students of Ms. Nafisi, know the power of a written word too. It saves their lives, gives them hope and keeps them floating on the surface, not drowning just yet.

Favorite quote:

"If I turned towards books, it was because they were the only sanctuary I knew, one I needed in order to survive, to protect some aspect of myself that was now in constant retreat."

CHALLENGES: 100+ Reading Challenge, 2009 Ban On Spending Challenge, 999 Reading Challenge, Well-Seasoned Reader Challenge

"The Year of Magical Thinking" by Joan Didion

When I am getting ready to read a book I always make sure that it is completely different from the one I had read before. The two books must differ in the mood they convey, the subject matter, the genre, sometimes the era each was created in, but most importantly I make sure that the mood is always the opposite. When I read a horror book I know that the next one will be Dickens or Hugo. When I read a sad, heart wrenching novel, the one after that will be light, easy and funny. All this is because every book I read I experience it on many levels (mental, spiritual, sometimes even physical). In this order, it came a turn to read "Year of Magical Thinking". I had wanted to read it for a long time, but having known what it was about I thought I wasn't ready to experience it. But as there is time for everything, there was time for finally reading Ms Didion's book.
In a very raw manner, it is a work of non-fiction describing how Joan Didion dealt with the death of her husband of forty years and a death - threatening illness of her daughter. I write raw since the book is so much more than that. In a very intelligent and at the same time cautious way the author lets us know how much suffering and sorrow the death of her beloved husband has caused her. It is not easy to see it, some who've read it even claim that the language is too technical to convey any feelings at all, yet once you understand the reason behind all the medical terms and all the technicalities, you see all the better how hard, if not really impossible, it is for Didion to come to terms with the death of her life partner. After all it is much easier to write about the pain and suffering if it is not own. Easier even, if it is completely made up. When write about your own, it is a process where you learn about yourself, you discover sometimes unsettling things that were there all the time yet you couldn't see.
I will let you read the book and decide for yourself how you perceive it and whether or not you agree with me. One thing is certain it is not an easy read and should not be read on the beach when you simply have nothing else better to do. For if you do that, you will be disappointed and maybe even not finish it, through no fault of the book or the writer however.