Melanie Middleton is an excellent Realtor in the exclusive district of Charleston known as South of Broad, yet she hates the houses she sells. She sees the old mansions as termite-infested money pits. Still, the money is good and a girl’s gotta eat, right? One day she is summoned to the home of elderly Nevin […]
This is the continuation of the true story of Vladek Spiegelman’s survival as a Jew in WWII Poland. Most of what I wrote in my review of Maus I still stands, but there’s a bit more of the author’s feelings included. You can see the catharsis he’s going through as he writes this novel. He’s […]
Art Spiegelman’s father, Vladek, was a Jew living in Poland in WWII. He made it through, and Maus I is Spiegelman’s story of his father’s life, as well as an exploration of the way the lives of the survivors and their family members were never the same. Okay, let’s look at the fact that this […]
Primo Levi was a young Jewish man living in Turin, Italy when he was arrested and sent to Auschwitz. Due to a combination of luck and calculation, he survived. I truly, truly hate to give any Holocaust memoir less than five stars. They are all important and they should all be read. That said. Somehow […]
Annemarie Johansen is a 10-year-old girl growing up in Denmark during WWII. Soldiers occupy every street corner and everyone does his or her best not to draw attention to themselves. Annemarie’s best friend, Ellen, is a Jew. One night, Annemarie’s family hides Ellen from soldiers who are looking for Jews. How far is the family […]
Jan and Antonina Żabiński were the keepers of the Warsaw Zoo when Germany invaded Poland. Between the bombing, Nazi cruelty, and the Nazi desire to keep all of the rare animals for themselves, there quickly wasn’t much of a zoo to keep. But Jan was an ingenious thinker and he came up with various ideas […]
This is Neil Gaiman’s poem, “Instructions” bound as a picture book and illustrated by Charles Vess. I love this. I have to admit that when I first came across Gaiman’s poem in Fragile Things, I read it, thought it was pretty cool, and moved on, both in the book and in my head. It wasn’t […]
“In the land of Ingary, where such things as seven-league boots and cloaks of invisibility really exist, it is quite a misfortune to be born the eldest of three. Everyone knows you are the one who will fail first, and worst, if the three of you set out to seek your fortunes.” So begins Howl’s […]
I loved this. I finished it with a huge smile on my face and that contentment that comes from a story well told. It’s like enjoying a feast for the reader’s soul. I had heard so many good things about this book, I went into it with very high expectations. I have to admit that I wasn’t too sure what to think at first. The…
3 Stars. This was a decent book, but I have a couple of complaints. I was excited to read a non-Western fairy tale re-telling. While I did enjoy the story, and I really liked Mulan herself, this book stayed a little too faithful to what I know of the legend from the Disney movie. I enjoy re-tellings that add an unusual twist to […]
Twenty-three-year-old Jacob Jankowski has just lost his parents in a car crash. They had already lost everything in the Great Depression. In a devastating bout of grief, Jacob, a vet school student, walks out of his final exams at Cornell University. He ends up working for a circus as the vet. His boss, August, is […]