Books on the Nightstand discussion

Books On The Nightstand: Difficult (but Necessary) Reading

Posted: 13 Mar 2009 02:00 AM PDT

By Michael

In episode 26 of the podcast, Ann and I discussed books that had been sitting patiently on our shelves and that we finally got around to reading. I gushed and raved over The Book Thief and mentioned that, even though I hadn't read Night by Elie Wiesel, I imagined The Book Thief was similar in its power.

I was getting into bed the other evening and noticed Night sitting on the bookshelf near my nightstand. (Yes, I actually have a bookcase next to my bed - so why are there still piles on the floor?) Night has been sitting on that shelf since it was published in a new translation back in 2006. I decided the time was right to read the book.

I'm only half-way through, but it's easy to see why this book has endured and has been so acclaimed. The book is shocking in its horrors, and rightly so. It brings the holocaust to life in a way I haven't encountered since I visited the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. (An unbelievable experience. If you've never been, and the Holocaust is something you want to know more about, I highly recommend it.)

Here's my question to all of you wonderful readers out there: What else should I read on this subject? I've read Anne Frank's The Diary of a Young Girl and Maus. There's also a new book out called Every Man Dies Alone that's getting amazing reviews, so I may have to pick that one up too. What else?

I recently read:


A fiction one you might try is:

I just finished Those Who Save Usby Jenna Blum. It is an excellent portrayal of how the Holocaust affected the German population, as well as the after-affects for one family years later in the U.S. A very well written book--I couldn't put it down--my book group will be discussing it next week and I'm really interested to see what people think.

Thanks for starting this topic Summer and for the suggestions everyone!

Night by Elie Wiesel is the most excellent Holocaust book I've read so far. Sala's Gift was very good also.
Those Who Save Us is supposed to be great too- my sister is borrowing my copy and I just today got Survival in Auschwitz in the mail and also The Nazi Officer's Wife How One Jewish Woman Survived the Holocaust

I have a holocaust list that may help you if you want to take a look. Some are rated and some are to-read but I only add those that look REALLY interesting to me because my to-read list is so long and it's getting out of control. :)

The one book, other than Anne Frank's diary, that moved me more than any other was The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom. Ten Boom was a girl during WWII whose parents hid Jews from the Nazis. It's one of those books that makes me wonder if I'd have the courage to do the right thing or not.

A more recent book is Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay. It's a fictional account of one girl's experience during the round-up and incarceration of Jews in France and a 21st century journalist's uncovering the little girl's story and her husband's family's connection to it.

I think that the graphic novel by Art Speigelman called Maus is a great read. It gives a fresh take on the Holocaust. I am not an avid reader of graphic novels, but I think that this is one that is worth a look.

I read The Book Thief a couple of months ago and had much the same reaction to it as you, Michael. It is an outstanding book.

Two YA novels on the subject that moved me as a kid were Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene and Gentlehands by M. E. Kerr. I've since reread Summer of My German Soldier and can confirm that it's a powerful read for an adult, too. Not really a Holocaust novel, but rather a portrait of a devastatingly lonely Jewish girl in rural Arkansas who befriends an escaped German POW. I stayed up all night to finish it, crying and crying and crying.

Gentlehands, if I remember correctly, is about a boy growing up in the 1970s whose beloved, erudite grandfather is accused by the community of Nazi war crimes. Again, not a Holocaust novel per se, but more about how the collective psychological wounds of that era are passed down through generations. I just read a more recent WWII YA novel on a similar subject: Tamar by Mal Peet, which moves between a romantic drama played out by Dutch resistance fighters during the War, and a modern teenage girl's attempt to piece together that narrative in order to understand her late grandfather, one of the members of the resistance. A really beautiful book.

I'm new to this group, so hello. I read "the Search for Six of Six Million" by Daniel Mendelsohn (sp?) a year ago. The author's grandfather and 4 of his siblings got out of Europe before the Holocaust. One of the grandfather's brothers did not get out and he was killed along with his wife and their 4 children. The author, an academic by profession who knows a thing or two about research, decides he wants to find out what happened to them. Over quite a period of time he was able to find a handful of survivors from the village, who knew his family, who told him what they knew along with their own stories of survival. He also visited the village where it all happened and talking to non-Jews there who knew the family. By methodically piecing together pieces of information he puts together a story of what happened. By dealing with just 6 lives, and the lives of thos who touched them, the story is very personal and immediate. What makes it even more moving is that the survivors are elderly by the time Mendelsohnn begins his search, and a number of them die before he meets them or shortly after he connects with them. It's also a story of his own family and growing up in America. He was close to the grandfather who lost his brother. It's a long book and to be honest I skimmed parts. But much of it was very strong. I recommend it to anyone interested in this period of history, or who is interested in the resources available for researching Jewish families from eastern Europe.

thanks for the info Irene! I've heard good things about that book!

QB 7 by Leon Uris, and Mila 18 by the same author are both quite vivid too......

This isn't just an old thread, it's ancient, a collector's item, an antique, but I felt compelled to mention the most recent book that I read which shook me to the core. I read it several years ago and it has been made into a movie (that disappeared too quickly). It's The Boy in the Striped Pajamas .

I just finished reading The Girl in the Red Coat by Roma Ligocka (see my review here on Goodreads), and it was astounding. For those who saw Schindler's List, you will remember a girl in a red coat as being the only spot of colour in the film. Roma is that girl. Her experiences in Krakow and then in hiding, and then her long, slow recovery are detailed here in beautiful prose. It rivalled Elie Wiesel for elegance in describing the most ugly events. Easily a top read this year.

My son has read Night twice for school (6th grade and 9th grade). Book Thief is also one of my my favorites.

Another one I really liked was Those Who Save Us by Jenna Blum.

Oh, and The Reader was excellent - not set during the Holocaust but an excellent look at the moral dilemmas after the War. Here's my review:

http://bookbybook.blogspot.com/2009/0...

Sue

Another YA holocaust book that I love and have read many many times is Number the Stars. So good!