Defiance

We went to see Defiance last night. David was a History major in college and was especially interested in WWII. His father came from Minsk (now Belorussia) as a child but there were a brother and two sisters left in Russia when the left in the 20's. This story is about a motley group of Jewish refugees who hid and fought in the forest for over 3 years. The story of how they lived and died brought tears to our eyes. By the end of the war over 1200 people came out of the woods. I would recommend this movie to everyone. How can we change and become more tolerant if we don't know what has happened in the past?

People of the Book

People of the Book: A Novel by Geraldine Brooks

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
I picked up this book because we found a copy of the Sarajevo Haggadah when we were in Yugoslavia in 1974. The commentary by Cecil Roth with a facsimile of the beautiful Haggadah was only published the year before in 1973. People of the Book is a fictional story that traces the book back through history. The story is disturbing because of the tragic history of the times. The book is traced from the Inquisition, the ghetto in Venice, the Holocast and the Bosnian war. The work has wonderful episodes of the best in human behavior and heart renching stories of the worst. I would recommend this book to everyone, especially to those who really don't know much about history.


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I Am a Bookaholic!

I LOVE BOOKS.
I don't drink beer and only occasionally have a glass of wine. I don't smoke. My major "vice" is reading. I always have a book that I am reading - sometimes more than one. I have a book stand that I keep on the table at home where I put my book so that I can read while I eat. Sometimes I am multi-tasking, watching a program on TV, reading a book, and eating. I keep another book stand in my lunch bag. I use it at work in the lunch room so I can read while I eat there. I subscribe to Ellery Queen and Alfred Hitchcock short story magazines. I keep one of them in my back pack just in case I finish a book and don't have another one ready to read.
The first book I remember reading was a mini-book with Longfellow's poem "The Song of Hiawatha" that my first grade teacher had in her little closet library. My sister and I used to walk several blocks to where the book-mobile parked in front of the Community Church each week (we didn't have a library in our town). We would walk home with a grocery sack full of books, read them during the week and take them back the next Saturday. I have over 50 Bobbsey Twins books that I bought with my own money when I was a kid. I read Michener and Jean Auel as each of their new massive novels came out in paperback. I was angry when I found J.R.R.Tolkein on the Science Fiction shelf in the store but soon discovered the appellation "and Fantasy". Now one of my favorite authors is Anne McCaffrey. I love all of her series especially the Pern books. I read Steinbeck, Solzhenitsyn , and Issac Bashevits Singer and I love Sholem Aleichem. I read the Little House books as an adult and the Anne of Green Gables series. As a college student I was introduced to Winnie the Pooh and am a fan of "Piglet" and "Heffalumps".
I read novels, mysteries and sci-fi. I don't like "terror" books. The only Stephen King I have read is "The Stand" but I liked it. I even read some romance novels and am a great fan of Harry Potter. I rarely read non-fiction but I loved "Three Cups of Tea".
I have been spending some time updating my books on "goodreads" from the pile of books I have read in the last few years. You can see see from the list that I read James Patterson and John Grisham and another of my recent favorites is Alexander-McCall-Smith.
I LOVE BOOKS!!