To Siberia, by Per Petterson is an excellent novel depicting a family within the Danish landscape.
The narrator is a sixty-year old woman who is reflecting on her past, from her childhood in Jutland through her early twenties. Her parents are seemingly uncaring, and often neglectful. Her one area of comfort is her brother Jesper. They [...]
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The Reader, by Bernhard Schlink is a frank, blunt and disturbing book on many levels. There are many questions raised within the pages, and some relate to issues of morality, ethics, dignity, love and truth. The questions all begin with the narrator, Michel Berg. He is reflecting on his past, one in which he [...]
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Posted in Book Reviews, General, Literature/Fiction, tagged A.S. Byatt, Books, fiction, Litrature, Novels, Possession, Writers on December 20, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
I read Possession, by A.S. Byatt when it first came out a few years back, on an airplane on my way to England.
The passion between the lines, in this wonderfully conceived and crafted book of both prose and poetry, had me totally possessed and engrossed in the multiple and simultaneous stories.
I like the [...]
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The Novel, Plum Wine, turned out to be less than what I had expected. I found the story line to be slow going, and thought the characters lacked depth. It took all I could to get through the book, without putting it down and not continuing on.
Angela Davis-Gardner’s book, filled with love and [...]
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Posted in Authors, Book Reviews, General, Literature/Fiction, tagged anti-semitism, Authors, Books, Female Authors, fiction, Genocide, Geraldine Brooks, Haggadahs, historical fiction, Jew, Jewish, Jewish Culture, Jewish Historical Books, Jewish Holidays, Jewish Life, Jews, Judaism, Novels, novels The Inquisition, Passover Haggadahs, People of the Book, Pesach Haggadahs, Religion, Religious Books, Sarajevo Haggadah, Sarajevo history, Sarajevo siege, Writers on December 16, 2008 | 1 Comment »
People of the Book by Pulitzer Prize author Geraldine Brooks is an incredible novel. Although it is fiction, the content is filled with historical information and fact. People of the Book is based on the Jewish Religious book the Sarajevo Haggadah, and its survival through the centuries.
The Sarajevo Haggadah is a factual manuscript/volume, [...]
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“Accidents of fate are rarely fatal accidents, but once in a while they are.”
In The Image is one of those books that evolves through the characters’ coming of age, journeying towards peace and acceptance, and sojourning towards spiritual identity. One young girl (Leora)l learns to accept the death of her best friend, through [...]
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The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, by John Boyne, is a novel written from a unique perspective, that of a young German boy named Bruno. He is the son of a Nazi Officer.
Bruno befriends a Jewish boy named Shmuel who is in a concentration camp. Their friendship begins through a fence that borders [...]
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Posted in Authors, Book Reviews, General, Literature/Fiction, tagged Authors, Biblical Characters, Biblical history, Biblical men and women, Biblical messages, Biblical portraits, Biblical reference, Biblical stories, Bilbical studies, Books, Elie Wiesel, fables, Hasidic masters, Hasidism, History, Holocaust/Genocide, Jew, Jewish, Jewish Authors, Jewish Culture, Jewish history, Jewish Life, Jewish Religion, Jewish sages, Jewish scholars, Jewish Studies, Jewish Tradition, Jewish Writers, Jews, Judaism, Literature, Male Authors, male writers, Religion, stories, Wise Men and Their Tales, Writers on December 2, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Biblical figures abound in Elie Wiesel’s Wise Men and Their Tales: Portraits of Biblical, Talmudic, and Hasidic Masters. His masterful mode of story telling is no less compelling than similar-themed books written by him.
In the book Somewhere a Master: Hasidic Portraits and Legends, Wiesel focuses on how “The sages, legendary teachers, saw the [...]
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Posted in Authors, Book Reviews, General, Literature/Fiction, tagged anti-semitism, Auschwitz, Authors, Books, Female Authors, female writers, fiction, Holocaust/Genocide, Jew, Jewish, Jewish Literature, Judaism, Literature, Nancy Reisman, novel, Novels, Religion, Shoah, Survivors, Writers, writing on November 30, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
In First Desire by Nancy Reisman, we are given a set of characters who appear to be constantly yearning for acceptance and love, within the confines of the familial structure.
The Cohen family is composed of a tyrannical widower, Abe Cohen, and his five adult children, who seem to be stuck in a time [...]
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Posted in Authors, Book Reviews, General, Literature/Fiction, tagged anti-semitism, Authors, Books, French authors, French writers, Genocide, historical fiction, Historical Literature, historical novels, Holocaust/Genocide, Israel history, Israel Independence, Israel War of Independence, J.M.G. Le Clezio, Jewish, Jewish Culture, Jewish history, Jewish Life, Jewish People, Jewish Refugees, Jewish Religion, Jewish Survivors, Jews, Judaism, Literature, Nazi invasion France, Novels, Palestinian genocide, Palestinian history, Palestinian refugees, Religion, Shoah, Wandering Star, War, war and destruction, World War II, Writers, WWII, WWII historical fiction, WWII Israel on November 29, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
wandering-star1 This year’s Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to French author J.M.G. Le Clezio. The Swedish Academy praised him in their citation, “author of new departures, poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy, explorer of a humanity beyond and below the reigning civilization” The Award will take place in Stockholm, Sweden on December 10, 2008.
I [...]
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