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Food memoirs often delve into the meaning of life. This hardly surprises--memories are as essential to daily life as the food that sustains us. Miriam's Kitchen blends recipes and food reminiscences with family narratives and observations about the author's personal evolution as a Jew. Ehrlich weaves the stories from four generations of family life, punctuated with powerful and often tragic memories. While her mother-in-law, Miriam, is teaching her to make chicken livers with noodles, Ehrlich unexpectedly learns how Miriam, her mother, and husband survived a Nazi labor camp in Poland during the Holocaust. Using vivid and bare yet discreet words, she graphically tells what they suffered and the nightmares that still haunt them.

Ehrlich's own story covers her transformation from a child whose family lit Sabbath candles but went boating on Yom Kippur, to an adult who chooses an Orthodox life marked by ambivalence about the rigors of being kosher and pride in what she is passing on to her children. Recipes for Honey Cake, Noodle Pudding, and many others are buried treasures hidden among Ehrlich's intense words. Sadly omitted is a recipe for potato kugel. Her grandmother uses this tempting pudding to good-naturedly test, taunt, and ultimately as the means for accepting her daughter Selina's non-Jewish fiancé into the family. Happily for us, 24 other tempting kosher recipes make up for this one missed dish. Miriam's Kitchen is a gripping and gratifying memoir of food, life, tragedy, and family survival. --Dana Jacobi ... Read more

Reviews (23)

A Treasure!
This author has written a treasure of a book, tying family stories, her own life, and the recipes together into one scrumptious feast.Literature meets cookbook and the result is fabulous.Many thanks to Mrs. Ehrlich for taking us with her on her journey.And bless Miriam for remembering.

One odd sidenote.My grandfather's family was from Bohemia and supposedly were Catholics.How strange to see what I thought were Bohemian words for pot roast and dumplings turn up here as Yiddish.Were the languages so fluid or similar or was a part of my family Jewish in the mid-1800s?Life can be a mystery.

A book that transports, but the editing could be better.
Having grown up Jewish in a secular house, with grandparents
who kept kosher and walked to shul on the holidays, this
book spoke to me.Ehrlich paints a wonderful picture of the
previous generation and the things that gave meaning not just to their lives but to the lives of the families they raised.
The recipes are a wonderful addition to the book and they
bring me back to both my grandmother's and my mother's kitchen.
I'm thankful to say my mother is still a wonderful cook and I
am collecting all of her recipes to pass on to my children.

My one criticism of the book is that it is poorly edited.I find some of the sentence structures to be very awkward. I almost didn't continue reading the book because I found the writing to be less than elegant but... the subject matter drew me in.It was a worthwhile read for me but I wish the writing were better.

Wonderful book and recipes
As one who has struggled with spirituality, the laws of kashrut, and being the one in my family to carry on the heritage of "Jewish cooking", I loved this book! I learned a lot about Jewish customs and laws (my husband did not believe me about burying your dishes until I showed him in the book) and I identified with the author in many ways. I learned to cook the way she did, and wrote down the recipes as she did (make a well with the flour . . .) so her descriptions were very meaningful. I've tried and loved some of the recipes. This book would be a wonderful newlywed gift, especially for someone converting to Judiasm or considering keeping a kosher kitchen!

Delightful!
This book was a joy to read.I loved reading a book about cooking, celebrating and raising a family. I feel that so often the importance of what women do as homemakers is undervalued.Its nice to read a book that honors this work.Miriam's is both funny and warm.I recommend it to anyone who dearly remembers their grandmothers.

A wonderful memoir, with some flaws
At its best, this is a wonderful memoir that affirms the role of women in preserving traditions and ritual, and celebrates the life of the author's Holocaust-survivor mother-in-law.It focuses on how we pass on traditions and ethnic identity via food. I loved the descriptions of the family holidays, which were rich with details about food preparation.
That said, I agree with a previous reviewer who said this book was too long by at least a third--I had to really push myself to finish it.The repetitive commentary on how difficult it is to keep kosher and strictly observe Passover were tedious--I got the points the first time they were made(and couldn't help thinking about the people in my life who do both and don't make a production out of it.) Additionally, I found the author a little annoyingly judgemental (i.e., if you don't keep kosher, you have broken the link between your children and their ancestors)--but hey, it's her book!Finally, I found it a little odd (or not well explained) that: 1) she became extremely observant in this one area, but did not seem to adopt many other traditional observances, and 2) she was faily accepting of the inequality of the sexes that can co-exist with orthodox observance.
Bottom line, the stories of Ehrlich's parents and in-laws were fascinating, while the story of her own journey needed some editing. ... Read more

Book Description

He walks with me through every day of my life, in that unsteady, faltering gait that so embarrassed me when I was a boy. Always, he is holding fast to the upper part of my right arm . . . As we make our way together, my father—I called him Daddy when I was small, because it sounded American and that is how he so desperately wanted things to seem—is speaking in the idiosyncratic rhythms of a self-constructed English.

So Sherwin Nuland introduces Meyer Nudelman, his father, a man whose presence continues to haunt Nuland to this day. Meyer Nudelman came to America from Russia at the turn of the twentieth century, when he was nineteen. Pursuing the immigrant’s dream of a better life but finding the opposite, he lived an endless round of frustration, despair, anger, and loss: overwhelmed by the premature deaths of his first son and wife; his oldest surviving son disabled by rheumatic fever in his teens; his youngest son, Sherwin, dutiful but defiant, caring for him as his life, beset by illness and fierce bitterness, wound to its unalterable end.

Lost in America, Nuland’s harrowing and empathetic account of his father’s life, is equally revealing about the author himself. We see what it cost him to admit the inextricable ties between father and son and to accept the burden of his father’s legacy.

In Lost in America, Sherwin Nuland has written a memoir at once timeless and universal. ... Read more

Reviews (12)

Searing memoir and eulogy of love
Whoa, this is a hard one. Lost in America, written by the gifted Nuland, is an ode to his father, a work of self-therapy for himself, a gift to his readers, and an offering to anyone looking for resolution and understanding of a difficult family situation.
Lost in America begins with the author admitting to coming under the grips of debilitating depression, and the writing of this book seems to have been his way of fighting out of that despair, of coming to terms with some of its causes, and of trying to explain all that went wrong with his father's life as a Jewish immigrant in America - and how those failures impacted Sherwin Nuland. The turning point comes with Nuland's discovery that his father suffered the mental and neurological effects of late-stage syphilis - and with his acceptance that happiness for him would be impossible.
Heartbreaking and oh, so beautifully written. But also difficult (on an emotional level) to read; you may find yourself putting it aside for a few days before wanting to continue. But persevere and read to the end. You won't regret it.

Moving, sensitive, beautifully written
I love this book. Dr. Nuland takes you on a journey with him to his past and his family, in particular his relationship with his father. He tells his story in a manner that is simple, clear, yet deeply moving. His characters are real people who I really cared about while I was reading. I've read his previous books and was very impressed; this one is even better. His description of his severe depression was gripping. How I wish I could describe mine as well. Thank you, Dr. Nuland for a heart-warming book.

Something was missing
I started reading the book and was thrilled by the content and writing style. It started out very strongly talking about his adult mental illness and then went back to his childhood dominated by loss. I could vividly picture Jewish New york for those in poverty. Although the childhood story was powerful and beautifully written, I was shocked that at the end it left too many unanswered questions about his life.

A Blessing
I had read How We Die, so I was anxious to read another book by this author. I tried reading this a few months ago and found it too bleak. Yet I picked it up again, and understood finally why it seemed bleak. It is a true story of life for an immigrant who suffers tragedies and losses and yet perseveres to eventually show love to his son and pride in his accomplishments. I almost cried at the end, even though I knew his father would die at the end of the book. It's a book of struggle to find one's own way. And it says a great deal about family influences. Well worth reading.

Long Day's Journey into Light
Great drama has character development, change, and carries the viewer to a climax where struggles come to some kind of resolution. One of the amazing properties of this book is how well the structure of drama is played out. Appreciation of sunlit heights is sweeter after slogging through enough rock strewn trenches. The attentive reader will be rewarded. In fact the cinematic climax would be hard to accept without a realization this is not fiction but fact. The drama here is not contrived, invented, or imagined - it arises naturally from the complexities of life. How nice for the author that subsequent chapters, unwritten, came out so fine! ... Read more

Book Description

"Perhaps in other places only a small amount of determination was lacking in order to prevent or decrease the atrocities. I never felt that this needed special courage. It required only the conviction and strength that anyone can draw from the depth of moral feelings that exists in all humans." --Major Karl Plagge, from a letter written in 1956

On April 11, 2005, in Jerusalem, Karl Plagge will be named a "Righteous Among the Nations" hero by the State of Israel. He joins Oskar Schindler and some three hundred eighty other similarly honored Germans who protected and saved Jews during the Holocaust.

While all "Righteous Gentiles" share the stamp of conscience, Karl Plagge’s story is of a unique kind of courage--that of a German army officer who subverted the system of death to save the lives of some 250 Jews in Vilna, Lithuania. One of those he saved was Michael Good’s mother. Karl Plagge first joined, then left, the Nazi Party. In Vilna, whose teeming ghetto held tens of thousands of Jews facing extermination, he found himself in charge of a work camp where military vehicles were repaired. Time after time, he saved Jews from prison and SS death squads, pulling whole families from theghetto by issuing them work permits as "indispensable" laborers essential to the war effort.

In this remarkable journey of discovery, Michael Good fills the missing pages in Karl Plagge’s life. He also reminds us all of the many ways human beings can resist evil. "I guess he was just a decent man," Pearl Good said of the man who saved her life when he didn’t have to. "There are always some people who decide that the horror is not to be."

Haunted by his mother’s stories of a mysterious, benevolent officer who commanded her slave labor camp, Michael Good resolved to find out all he could about the enigmatic "Major Plagge." For five years, he wrote hundreds of letters and scoured the Internet to recover, in one hard-earned bit of evidence after another, information about the man whose moral choices saved hundreds of lives. This unforgettable book is the first portrait of a modest man who simply refused to play by the rules.

Interviewing camp survivors, opening German files that had been untouched for more than fifty years, and translating newly discovered letters by Plagge, Good weaves an amazing tale. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Life Changing Read
This exremely well written,readable book is a first for me ---I simply dont easily read books about the holocaust. To my great surprise, it was a page turner.Not only was I spellbound by the unravelling mystery of who Karl Plagge was but alsowas deeply moved by the stories of those he touched.

What an impossible position to be in-- a Nazi who doesnt agree with the party line is a mighty fine tightrope walk. He had every reason not tolet anyone know what he was about. It was also fascinating to ponder from a psychological viewpoint who would recognize his intent. This is a studyof the human drama in the camps;Plagge's sparse, exacting words and simple acts take on huge and different proportions when visaged from the inside of a panic-filled so-called labor camp.This is the language of the heart. Told by Plagge with a poker face.

Goods' question on "Who is a hero"has relevance for all time-- that those who are NOT in power can really make a difference. In my own life this fact helps me keep my eye on the ball-- doing what is morally right can go a long, long way.

A masterpiece of writing and moral significance.
This well-written, gripping story about Major Plagge should be read by everyone, and studied in high schools and colleges. Surely one of the lessons of the horrible atrocities committed in so many places during the twentieth century is that the progress of the human race may depend more on learning moral fortitude than scientific or academic knowlege. Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot personally killed or tortured relatively few people. However, they accomplished unfathomable evil because so many "ordinary" people lacked the willingness to listen to their consciences and to resist their commands. All of us ordinary people need to study the lives of heroes like Major Plagge so that when we face life's frequent tests of moral courage, both small and large, we won't fail. We desperately need books like this. I strongly recommend it both for its wonderful style and moral importance. ... Read more

Book Description

CHILDREN OF THE SHOAH tells the story ofthree young girls who survived Adolph Hitler's most notorious death camp and a young Polish Jew who defied Hitler by masquerading as a Catholic fighter in the Polish Resistance. During World War II, Hitler murdered about one and a half million men, women and children at Auschwitz - the Nazi's largest extermination complex.Most of the victims were Jews.As Soviet forces advanced on Auschwitz in the winter of l945, the SS began evacuating the camp, force-marching 60,000 prisoners to Germany.About a fourth died from starvation and exposure or were shot by the SS for falling behind.In January, the Soviet army entered Auschwitz and found 7,000 prisoners alive.Among them were three young children from Tomaszow Mazowiecki, a town in central Poland. Tova Friedman, 6, Rachel Hyams, 7, and Frieda Tenenbaum, l0, had not only survived the Jewish ghetto in their town but two slave labor camps.They even survived the so called "children's camp" at Auschwitz, which in reality was a holding area for the gas chambers.CHILDREN OF THE SHOAH is a haunting first person memoir of these three girls, their accounts combining the immediacy of the child's experience with the sophistication of adult hindsight.These intensely moving stories are a remarkable gift of insight into the Holocaust years and its implications for all of us.The dramatic and moving photographs throughout the book add to the powerful and lasting emotional feeling that the readers will take with them."NIEUWSMA, HAS DONE AN IMPRESSIVE JOB OF CAPTURING THEIR VOICES AND PRESENTING COHERENT ACCOUNTS OF THEIR EXPERIENCES."-PUBLISHERS WEEKLY"THE BLACK AND WHITE PHOTOGRAPHS THROUGHOUT ARE A TESTAMENT TO THE PEOPLE WHO BECAME NUMBERS DURING THE WAR." - SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL"HEARTRENDING�AN IMPORTANT PIECE OF HOLOCAUST LITERATURE." CHICAGO TRIBUNE"ORAL HISTORY BECOMES AN ART FORM�A COMPELLING ONE-SITTING READ." - FOREWARD MAGAZINE"THESE INTENSELY MOVING STORIES ARE A REMARKABLE GIFT OF INSIGHT INTOT HE HOLOCAUST YEARS AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR ALL OF US."- THE HORN BOOK"AN EXTRAORDINARY,SENSITIVE LOOK AT THE CHILDREN OF AUSCHWITZ." - AMAZON.COM"HEARTWRENCHING AND HORRIFYING." - LOS ANGELES TIMES

Reviews (1)

Previously published as "Kinderlager"
Previously published as "Kinderlager" (1998), "Surviving Auschwitz: Children of the Shoah" is the companion book for the PBS special of the same title.In 2001 "Surviving Auschwitz" was named to the Top 10 List of Holocaust Books by the Institute for Higher European Studies in The Hague.For more reviews and comments see "Kinderlager: An Oral History of Young Holocaust Survivors." ... Read more

Book Description

Replete with facts, figures, and statistics, this revised and updated edition of Great Jews in Sports documents the contribution of Jewish athletes to the world of sports over the past two centuries. From home-run king Hank Greenberg, star of the 1930s and 1940s, to figure skater Sarah Hughes, surprise winner of the gold medal at the 2002 Winter Olympics, this new edition of a perennial favorite presents intriguing portraits of sports stars from around the globe.

Bestselling author Robert Slater’s more than 150 major profiles and thumbnail sketches include such a fascinating and diverse mix as gymnast Kerri Strug, gold-medal winner at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics; Daniel Mendoza, the father of modern boxing; Esther Roth, the first Israeli to reach the Olympic finals; Sidney Franklin, the first Jewish bullfighter; Sandy Koufax, the youngest player ever to be admitted to the Baseball Hall of Fame; Hungarian gymnast Agnes Keleti, who earned an impressive five gold medals in the 1930s and 1940s; and power swimmer Lenny Krayzelburg, who won two gold medals for the United States at the 1998 World Championships in Perth, Australia.

For those particularly interested in the Israeli sports scene, Slater devotes an entire section of biographies to outstanding Israeli sports figures, including pole vaulter Alex Averbukh, figure-skating couple Galit Chait and Sergei Sakhnovski, tennis player Anna Smashnova Pistolesi, and track and field stars Zehava Shmueli and Uri Zohar. Also included are lists of the winners of the Maccabiah Games and of members of the Jewish Sports Hall of Fame.

First published in 1983, Robert Slater’s new edition of the classic Great Jews in Sports will continue to delight seasoned sports lovers while introducing a whole new generation to some of the finest athletes of all time. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Encyclopedic!
Outside the names of Sandy Koufax and Mark Spitz, it's hard to rattle off a list of great Jewish athletes. For me, this encyclopedia of Jewish athletes (complete with photos) offered encouragement in the field of athletics, and I think this can be a very empowering book for aspiring Jewish athletes in any sport. It's fun to flip each page and learn about another exciting career! ... Read more

Book Description

The "unwritten" final chapter of Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl tells the story of the time between Anne Frank's arrest and her death through the testimony of six Jewish women who survived the hell from which Anne Frank never retumed. ... Read more

Reviews (5)

These women are the definition of courage
This is one of the best books I have ever read. A must read for all ages. These ladies are some of the most courageous people in the world. They perserved knowing that their demise could be any day. But living was too important to them so they dug deep within themselves to keep their spirit alive and they succeeded. Hooray for them!!! Miep Gies is also a very courageous person. She is right up there with these ladies. "Anne Frank Remembered" by Miep Gies and Alison Leslie Gold is also a wonderful book. If you are looking for excellent reading and a time frame for the life of Anne Frank, then by all means read this book. I don't know if I could handle the pressures that these ladies went through to live, and I hope that I never have to endure their suffering, but if I do, I will take these 7 women with me and draw on their strengths and spirit to keep me alive.

Anne Frank the Girl the Legend
After reading Anne Frank the Last Seven Months, I relized how difficult it was for the jews and for any person during this time. I like this book a lot and I recommond reading it if possible. This book makes you feel like you new exactly how that person was feeling. It put you inside the stories the people told. It was a sad story to read because of all the people that died of other peoples differences. That the samething happen to every person that was a 'jew" that the story didn't change. People were hiding out of years before they were sent off to a death camp. They lived in fear of the next day hoping that the Green Police weren't find them. Once they were found they didn't know if they would live to see there family again. The Nazis killed so many people and so many people got disease and got sick. Everyday more love ones were dying and if you were lucky you could be with them as they die as for some was sent to different death camps, you had no idea if you wife, husband, son, daughter, or best friend since were in third grade had died.

Get it!
I read Anne Frank's diary again during my first trip to Amsterdam recently to prepare myself to a visit to the Secret Annex. But the book (and the corny Hollywood adaptation) left me wondering what happened to her after the diary. This book about her last seven months at the concentration camps gives a clear picture of what Anne's life was like through the accounts of the women who encountered her there. I could not put this book down and would sleep at 4 in the morning, read it in bed, in the bathroom, in the car, sometimes it would leave me crying. I am not Jewish and I am only in my 30s but this book touched me a lot (just like Schindler's List) and left me wanting to know more.

Steven Speilberg: here's a perfect movie for you
It's been a few years since I read this book. However, I recently watched the video interviews (Anne Frank Remembered) of the same concentration camp survivors that the author quoted in this heart-wrenching book. This book adds information not before known and is worth reading by anyone who is curious about what life was like for Anne Frank and her family after the diary. Along with Ernst Schnabel's book Anne Frank: A Portrait in Courage, it could form the basis of a great movie which for the first time would show what happened to Anne Frank post-Diary. (written on June 12, AF's birthday)

Touching stories of courageous women.
When I finished reading the diary on Anne Frank I needed to know more about the rest of her life. The Last Seven Months of Anne Frank are stories of women who knew Anne in the concentration camp. It is more about other womens stories than Annes but sometimes includes a bit about her expieriences. ... Read more

Reviews (7)

An Important and Entertaining Memoir
The Reawakening opens in January 1945, when author Primo Levi is released from a Nazi concnetration camp by Russian troops. His health almost ruined, suffering from unbearable knowledge of the crimes committed in the camps, Levi re-enters the world to find that it has been turned upside down by the war. Improbably - he explains in an afterword that it is not in his nature to hate - he finds in himself a capacity to see the world afresh, almost as a child would.

In the rest of the book, we accompany Levi and his companions on a picaresque through postwar Europe and Russia as they try to make their way back to their native Italy. While their sufferings are legion, Levi takes great pleasure in food, in his fellow man, and in nature. In particular, he displays a fine appreciation for the absurdities visited on the refugees by their well-intentioned but inept Russian rescuers.

This book is an entertaining read. Beyond that, it is an important document of the Holocaust. And beyond that, it is an important resource for modern readers who are finding their own way through an often absurd world. Highly recommended.

A Great Work
This is just one of the many brilliant writings of Primo Levi but it tells a tale of Holocaust survival that is often overlooked. Most narratives seem to end at liberation and this one gives us a detailed view of what happened afterwards. This is the book that the movie "The Truce" (which is also the title of this book in Italy)is loosely based on. I don't think the movie did the book justice at all and so I would especially recommend this book to anyone that has seen the movie. Like all of Levi's works it is written in a sparse yet fantastic style and it really is a great follow up to "Survival In Auschwitz".

Carnival World
Like Survival in Auschwitz and The Periodic Table, The Reawakening is populated with Levi's brilliant language and fascination with character. In Survival, Table and Reawakening, Levi is careful not to force facts into a satisfyingly explanatory story. The Reawakening is a picaresque without the moral center. Levi travels home through a carnival world, a Europe simultaneously stunned and ecstatic, a landscape of displaced characters, Greek villagers in Polish refugee camps, complicit Germans sitting down to the first course of horrific recent history and guilt, cadaverous lager inmates staggering into a world forever altered. It is a world populated with impresarios, rakes, opportunists, suicides, daredevils and rubes. But, more than anything else, The Reawakening is brimming with life; Levi makes his way home eyes forward.

I found myself thinking of two other books while reading Reawakening--Kosinski's The Painted Bird and Wolfe's Look Homeward Angel. Like Kosinski, Levi reminds us that much of rural eastern Europe was cruel and primitive before the Nazi's made a virtue of these qualities. And, like Wolfe's Gant family, the characters in Levi's account are often exuberant to the point of mania.

I think that Levi is one of the great writers and thinkers of our time. In this way, I'm not a reliable critic. Reviewing The Reawakening is akin to reviewing Hamlet for me.

Troubles overcome are good to tell
Published in 1963, "The Reawakening" is a narrative of Primo Levi's tortuous journey back to Turin after liberation from Auschwitz. In fact, it is a follow-up of "Survival in Auschwitz." As stated by Primo Levi, "after Auschwitz, I had an absolute need to write, not only as a moral duty, but as psychological need, to free myself from anguish." Out of 650 Italian Jews who journeyed to Auschwitz, with Primo Levi, only 20 left the camp alive.

Levi assumes the calm, sober language of the witness, with no manifested hate and purpose of revenge, devoid of bitterness. His prose is precise, clear, with no embellishment, lively transmitting his bewilderment of the simple fact that he had survived.

The reader cannot help be amazed by the details recorded in Levi's memory, places, names, characters, personalities, it is as though he wrote everything in locus. His memory was a blessing... but might have also been his tormenter... After a long period of depression, Levi died after falling from a stairwell in his Turin home. The question will always remain whether it was or not suicide. Levi, through his writings, symbolizes the triumph of reasoning and humanity over madness and cruelty.

An amazing journey with Primo Levi
An really good book. I read it immediately after his previous book (Survival in Auschwitz : The Nazi Assault on Humanity) and where the first one is extremely sad and depressing this second one is an incredible insight into the mixture of characters that Levi encounters on his way back from Auschwitz. Although set in a completely ruined Eastern Europe I found the book positive and intriguing to read. His friends the Greek, Cesare, il Moro etc. are all amazing characters to read about and his whole journey through the Russian bureaucracy is just as fascinating to experience as well. ... Read more

Book Description

The acclaimed #1 New York Times bestseller, written by a brilliant legal mind, on what it means to be a Jew in America today. Dershowitz discusses the changes they've witnessed, changes they've created, and the changes that must still take place. He examines anti-Semitism, the Holocaust, assimilation, Zionism, civil rights, changes in eastern Europe, and turmoil in the Middle East. 8-page photo insert. ... Read more

Reviews (7)

Engaging and Biased
The essential question is... Are his people persecuted because they are obnoxious or are they obnoxious because they are persecuted?

Too much venting, too little substance
Overall, I am a huge fan of Dershowitz's books. I thoroughly enjoyed the Best Defense, From Genesis to Justice, and even his novel, A Just Revenge. I felt, though, that Dershowitz went a little overboard with his views of Jews in America. In many ways, I am almost embarassed to be viewed in the same light as him (As a Jew) because of his extreme views. He made it seem as if the world was out to get Jews, even in America. He does make many good points about Jewish identity in America, but to me he comes across as whining more than discussing.

He does use some great arguments and has a pretty clear account of Jewish history in America. His description of his family and neighborhood is nice to read to understand where he grew up and what his background is. I especially liked his description of his own family as I was reminded in many ways of my own.

I gave the book 2 stars but that is compared with his other books. It is not a bad book or a bad read. In many ways, I found it very informative but I would choose one of his other books rather than this one.

Readable, Clear, and full of Chutzpah
Dershowitz's succinct analysis and flowing prose make for a powerful read. The author recounts his Brooklyn youth, law school, and his career at Harvard University. He also examines anti-Semitism, separation of church-and-state, assimilation, and other facets pertaining to Jewish and non-Jewish life in America. Dershowitz emphasizes that American Jews must stop maintaining low profiles or feeling anxious about our success (and non-success), as doing so is the essence of second-class citizenship. His point is well taken, but perhaps newly arrived immigrants from Russia and other anti-Semitic lands will doubt his premise. I didn't always agree with the man's pro-Israeli views, but on balance this is a very thoughtful and informative book.

POWERFUL WRITING AT THE SERVICE OF A MAXIMALIST STANCE
The well-known liberal attorney and Israel advocate Alan Dershowitz maintains in this book that Jews should be more self-assertive. They shouldn't feel "shenda fur de goyim" (Yiddish for "shame before the Gentiles") as they did in the past. They should be proud of their achievements, instead of begging to be forgiven for them. They should abandon their "sha'a shtil" ("remain quiet") attitude and loudly denounce the faintest hint of anti-Semitism they might detect either in their personal experience or in society at large. And, most important of all, they should have no mixed feelings about supporting the state of Israel, regardless of this country's human rights record.

Dershowitz' writing is powerful, expressive - and flawed...

When it comes to discussing Israel's policies, Dershowitz adopts a maximalist stance. Israel is almost always right-and when it isn't, it doesn't matter. This civil rights advocate fails to find much wrong in a country where atheists do not enjoy the right to get married. He fails to clearly denounce the administrative detention (i.e., imprisonment without a charge) of Palestinians, on the grounds that all detainees are known to be terrorists or terrorist contacts; in other words, since they are anyway guilty, it doesn't matter so much whether they enjoy legal guarantees or not. He believes torture may in some cases be necessary to extract critical information, as of terrorist attacks, and therefore condones some instances of the government-approved use of torture in Israel, against international law which forbids any kind of torture...

The bottom line of [this] book is that because Jews were formerly persecuted, they should be allowed to practise some bigotry without being criticized. Fortunately, Jews around the world do not share this view...

This book will be enjoyed by... [those] who see Israel's legal and practical discrimination of Arabs as a first step towards ethnic cleansing, and who will be delighted to learn that a liberal Jew finds such discrimination tolerable. It will be far less welcome, however, by those Jews who, like the author of this review, don't like to be told what they should think about Israel in order to be good Jews.

Outspoken, wonderful, full of chutzpah
I love this book. Not only is it the story of Dershowitz, it is very insightful to Judaism in America. Even if you're not Jewish, you should read this, because it can be enjoyable, witty, frustrating, and a real wakeup call. ... Read more

Book Description

She found the diary and brought the world a message of love and hope.

It seems as if we are never far from Miep's thoughts....Yours, Anne

For the millions moved by Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl, here at last is Miep's own astonishing story. For more than two years, Miep Gies and her husband helped hide the Franks from the Nazis. Like thousands of unsung heroes of the Holocaust, they risked their lives each day to bring food, news, and emotional support to the victims.

From her own remarkable childhood as a World War I refugee to the moment she places a small, red-orange, checkered diary -- Anne's legacy -- in Otto Frank's hands, Miep Gies remembers her days with simple honesty and shattering clarity. Each page rings with courage and heartbreaking beauty. ... Read more

Reviews (26)

WHAT WOULD THE WORLD BE LIKE IF WE WERE ALL LIKE MIEP?
Be prepared. This book will take your mind and body back to the war years. You will feel the suffering, not only of the Jews, but the Dutch people under German occupation.

It also serves as an independent witness to many of the events Anne described in her Diary. This was dramatized in a made for television movie about 10 years ago.

Miep and her husband Henk opened their home and hearts to Otto Frank for seven years after the war. They helped preserve his post-concentration camp sanity and gave him strength to live.

Had Miep read the Diary after Anne's capture, she states that she'd have had to burn it since it implicated people as hiders of Jews. Thankfully, Miep did not read it until years later. Even with Otto Frank's post-war encouragement, it was simply too painful for her to read. The miracle of the Diary's survival and gift to the world is due to Miep's remarkable courage and mysterious fate.

A Keeper!
Everyone that has read the Diary of Anne Frank has a pretty good handle on what life was like hiding in 'het achterhuis', but this book describes those 2 years from a different angle; from that of a protector. This book takes you through the life of Miep Gies from her days in Austria, to when she gained her Dutch citizenship and when she, along with the other office staff, hid the 8 Jews in hiding. This book is a must for anyone that has ever read any of Anne Frank's works.

Would you?
I think many of us would like to think that if a family that we know well is in dire need, we would go to extreme measures to help them in any way we can. But if it came down to a life-and-death decision, I wonder how many people would have made the same decision that brave Miep Gies made to help out the Franks. She details this decision, and her years of helping the Franks hide in the little apartment behind her office, in her well-told book "Anne Frank Remembered".

Part memior, part rememberance of Anne herself, this book details the life of Miep, from a little girl born in Vienna, to her migration to Amsterdam. She becomes an office worker in Otto Frank's pectin business, and her history is now set. Soon, due to Hitler's oppresive policies against the Jews, the Franks must go into hiding to survive.

Miep recounts details of her assistance in helping keep the Franks, the Van Daans and Albert Dussel alive. In fact, this book is a brilliant piece of writing to accompany Anne Frank's diary. While Anne details life inside the Annex, we find out from Miep what she was doing outside. Together, they paint a complete picture of the horror and danger of their daily lives. And when Anne's diary stops before that faithful day, Miep's story continues. She bravely tries to bribe the Franks out of captivity to no avail.

Whereas Anne is probably the most "famous" Frank, Miep does talk about her from time to time, knowing that we would want to know her impressions of the little girl. She offers some touching, poignant insights to Anne, making her seem more real, if that's possible. Detailing Anne growing out of her clothes, which Anne domcuments herself in her diary, is a particular moment that shows us Anne having to grow up, imprisioned becuase of her religion and for her safety.

Without a doubt, Miep and all of the people who aided the Franks in the Annex are heroes. This time of history had many thousands of heroes, many of them unsung. Fortuantely, we have a well-documented life of Anne and we can spend as much time as possible with them, thanks to these books.

a way too long novel
do not read this book if you are a surfer and don't want to read a long book. Ya, it was touching but, it was long...

Such a strong woman...
Miep Gies should be remembered as one of the greatest women of all time. Out of sheer love, love for people, she helped in hiding the Frank family along with a few others.

The book tells the entire story of Miep Gies, from her first employment by Anne's father until the final liberation of Holland. The story is told honestly and without a feeling of ego or of her deliberately sounding like the brave woman she was. And it's told in such a way, that you feel a kind of suspense as if you didn't know of the tragedy coming.

Miep is unrelenting in her portrayal of the grimness of life during the German occupation of Holland. It was worse of all for the Jewish people, but it was also hard on the Dutch people. Reading this is an education for those of us who have no idea of how it is to live in an occupied country.

However, you feel the hope in the ending. Also, one realizes how truly important a book that Anne Frank's diary was. This is a very moving and a most important book on its own. ... Read more

Book Description

A New York Times bestseller in hardcover, this is the mosthighly regarded biography of Freud ever written. To read this book is toenter the world of Sigmund Freud as never before: his family, his city,his professional struggles, his long fruitful and embattled life. Drawingon a vast store of unpublished documents, including hundreds of hithertounknown or inaccessible letters, Peter Gay deals frankly with thecontroversies that have long swirled around Freud's impassionedfriendships, his love life, and his theoretical innovations which, asFreud himself put it, agitated the sleep of mankind. ... Read more

Reviews (8)

Very complete biography
This biography on Sigmund Freud proves to be a total integration of all aspects of Freud's life. Everything from his psycho-analysis works to his family life, Jewish background to the political climate that surrounded his life were all integrated in this book in one massive volume. The book proves to be well written and relatively objective in outlook as the author maintain an even kneel toward his subject. I found the book to be quite informative and full of interesting insights on Freud's motives and actions.

It seem to the author that Freud's life really didn't start until he published his famous book, Interpretation of Dreams. Roughly a hundred pages covered his life prior to that and rest of 550 pages covered his life after that. There is another 150 pages of source materials and index just to let you know how thick this book can be. (Hardback)

It should be warned that due to an overwhelming amount of information provided in this book, most of the first time readers into Freud's life would probably suffer from information overload. Many of the technical terms used in Freud's work were not meant for casual readers. This biography is quite complex in nature and content. I would recommend reading couple of shorter and simpler biographies on Freud before moving up to this book. If not, you will just slog through this book like being stuck in a giant swamp of information.

Excellent writing
Peter Gay has given us yet another intelligent and stimulating work. The book was highly praised in a review and although I would have never thought it possible, the writing transported one back to the Europe of the early 20th century. In many aspects Freud was a typical bourgeois Jew - intellectual, deeply opinionated, haughty, wealthy, well-mannered and hard-working.

His group-breaking advances are explained in detail as well as his ideas on several modern practices he patented - therapy, the id, ego and superego, guilt, eroticism. It was the latter on which he rested his claim for in his exploration of sexuality he thinks he has discovered the core of each of us. We are, he states, sexual creatures and all our decisions and thought processes are geared around that fact.

The triune history - Freud's, psychotherapy, Europe - combine to form a dazzling work in which the author shows a real empathy for his subject. One of the best around.

Fine intro to the man who REALLY "gave birth to the 20th C."
Gay writes a biography that is carefully aware of its own limitations (Freud had this nasty habit of periodically burning all his notes and papers) and equally careful to be sympathetic to the man without idolizing him. This is probably the condensation of Freud's life and work that best balances the sheer volume and importance of it against the need for (relative) brevity.

Fan Fodder
I like to read good biographies of the most influential and interesting people of Western history( previous two biographies read were Desmond & Moore's great biography of Darwin, and Solomon's fine Mozart). I had never read a Freud biography and considered this book as a starting point. Since I bought the book with the hopes of reading a reasonably straightforward, unbiased biography of someone who has undoubtedly greatly influenced twentieth century thought, I found myself very disappointed. This 'biography' is

simply a fan book written by a Freud fan. From the very first chapter and throughout the book, Freud is admired and praised as
if the book had been written by Freud's doting mother instead of
an academic writer. In fact, Gay implies throughout that Freud's
"heroic" character had only one serious flaw-- that being self-criticism(!)-- and that anything questionable in Freud's character
was justified by his achievement and reknown in the development of psychoanalysis. Fine for avid Freudian types, but I suggest to anyone who is not a Freud cheerleader to avoid the rah-rah-rah
of this long fan letter.

Gay's life of Freud
This is an excellent short introduction - yes, short - to the life and work of Sigmund Freud. In recent years, Freud has been subject to endless ridicule and reassessment, but there is no doubt that his mind created a intellectual whirlwind that we are still living within. Think of our age's obsession with sex and you gain a glimmer of the impact of this man, who looked beneath the polite surface to the dark underpinnings. It is fascinating to read the life of the man who changed we think about ourselves forever.

In particular, I admired his scrupulous work habits and his intensity at task. Gay has written a daunting and impressive biography. I would have liked more information about the imapct of his ideas and the way they are received today, but then again that may have filled another book. Apart from that, I cannot fault the research that went into this book and the style with which it is written. ... Read more

Reviews (25)

One of the best Holocaust accounts ever written
This book was first published in English in 1947. It presents life and death in Auschwitz in great detail, and offers an excellent overview of the concentration camp world. The author's own story is gripping and heart-wrenching. The early date, 2 years after WWII ended, ensures that the author's memories of the camp are still lucid and the details very precise. Olga Lengyel studied to be a physician, and her informed analysis of the treatment meted out to inmates make this book special. I view this book as a Holocaust Studies "benchmark" - other accounts often fall short of its quality and level of detail. It is also significant as an account of a woman's experience. Until recently, women's Holocaust experiences were a rather neglected area.

A gripping account of life and death at Auschwitz
This book was first published in English in 1947. It presents life and death in Auschwitz in great detail, and offers an excellent overview of the concentration camp world. The author's own story is "gripping" and "heartwrenching." The early date, two years after WWII ended, ensures that the author's memories of the camp are still clear and the details very precise. Olga Lengyel studied to be a physician, and her informed analysis of the treatment given to her and her inmates make this book special. Other accounts of the Holocaust often fall short of its quality and level of detail.

Keep the truth alive--everywhere we look are others
I'm very sorry for the reviewer that uses "gruesome" to describe such an example of someone who survived to bear witness. I have probably one of largest private collections of books on the Holocaust that runs into the hundreds. I am 70 and have known many of the survivors (especially since many were children who were 10 or more years younger than soldiers). Some would share their story with me, some could not, but I believe that one thing that kept many alive was the need TO BEAR WITNESS. One book on this subject is like one book on a bloody battle of WWII, it is ugly--as war usually is--but it doesn't begin to help understand the war (or the Holocaust). There is the individual, the killers and collaborators, the governments, the people on both sides, all of which, if studied for the deep meaning, tells us much about the "human" race.

wow
this is an unbelievably touching and shocking book. it kept me reading constantly. i highly recommend this book for anyone who is just starting reading about the holocaust or is a seasoned veteran on the subject. it will leave you speechless. this book is about one of the most couragous women i have ever heard about. these people were heroes ...every one of them.

Difficlt to read but should be read
The cold truth comes out in this book. How she survived (among others) is still a mystery of human spirit. Excellent account of the holocaust. The author brings up the important point that not only Jews were victims, people from many lands and religions suffered, even the Germans. ... Read more

Book Description

One of a handful of Jews in the WASPish enclave of Greenwich, Connecticut, and undersized at that, George Tabb was routinely kicked around by the other kids - one blind, another one with one arm - as well as by his father. Playing Right Field refers to an early experience of the author and his brother, Lloyd, who played Little League together; they were forced to share one team T-shirt because their father the multimillionaire was too cheap to buy one for each of them. George and Lloyd chose right field because hardly any balls ever got hit out there and they thought it would be safe and provide them with lots of space. This book is a series of vivid remembrances - morality tales with an absurdist edge - that trace Tabb's growing sense of isolation and rebellion. Each is illustrated by noted underground cartoonist Fly. ... Read more

Reviews (12)

Write-On George Tabb!!! Can't wait for the next book!
I'm so glad to own this book! This is the best childhood memoir I've ever read. Mr. Tabb's intimate writing style pulled me right into 'his world'... right into these wonderful, illustrious, true stories from his rocky childhood. Each chapter is a self-contained story, conjuring up a wide range of emotions from the reader. Many times I felt guilty laughing at such tragic happenings, but I laughed on! I imagine that's what the author wanted. And that's what we got!
Thanks Tabby!

The Travails Of A Rich And Once Young Man
So what do you do if you are the son of a very wealthy man who showed you a radical lack of the sensitivity and understanding necessary for experiencing a proper and happy childhood? Well, if you're George Tabb, you wait until you are well into your 40s and commit your vast store of cherished childhood pain to the pages of a family gossip tell-all book.

But I have to level with you, do the childhood problems of a privileged yet troubled lad, relived several decades later, sound like the premise of anything unique, or even interesting, to you? No, me neither. Perhaps if the author had broken away from this cruel family and social predicament and struggled to make it on his own in a heroic bid for the freedom and self-respect this nasty situation obviously called for, well, then maybe there'd be something to hang your sympathies on. But apparently for this author the solution was to move into his mom's place in Manhattan, form a series of failed punk rock bands, write for the fanzine and weekly arts and leisure press, all the while continuing to live on the family dime for the next two decades.

There comes a time in everyone's life when you must put aside childish things and accept the burdens of adulthood. We can only hope that such a moment will someday arrive for Mr. Tabb.

what a book!
When i started reading it i seriously could not put this book down. It has everyhting needed to be the perfect book. When reading this book you really have to feel bad for George Tabb. He was beat up every day on the bus jsut for being Jewish. His dad was horrible too him( when he played on the baseball team his dad would only buy one shirt for him and his brother). He was even beat up by a blind kid (he wouldn't hit him) and people thought he was making everyhting up. He was punched in the face just for defending a retarded kid. George Tabb is in Furious George a really punk band.

This book was great
"Playing Right Field" is about George Tabb (the author) and the
various highlights of his childhood years. Things that were funny,sad, whatever. He lives in a town that hates Jews and with him being a Jew it makes for a great book. I especially liked all the blatantly disgusting and funny parts like the slaying of Gamera, the goat-eating turtle beast, and the time a neighbor's dog turned George into his bitch. It only took me part of a day in summer school to complete it and I never stopped laughing throught the whole thing. Overall, this is probably the funniest book I've ever read. I'd think it would be great if Tabb would write more books, and I'd definitely look forward to them.

It is on Soft Skull books and I got it at Borders in Winter Park.
Actually, I got my copy from a friend's mom.(...)

--Robert

I laughed... I cried......... but mainly I laughed.
Not only was this book able to hold my attention for longer than 30 minutes, but I read through the book in 2 days because I couldn't put the damn thing down! Every story is told in such detail, I would forgot that these things happened to him - not ME! Just don't hate him when his writings appear in the 22nd Century Edition Bible.

George Tabb is an absolute genius.

I know this book is going to be part of a series and I can hardly wait for the next one to come out. So get a move on it George. ... Read more

From the Publisher

When the prime minister of Persia decides to destroy all the Jews throughout the kingdom, their fate seems to be sealed. Only one person stands in his way -- a young Jewish girl named Esther. Internationally known folklorist Diane Wolkstein brings to life the story of Esther, the compassionate queen who risked the wrath of a king to save her people from destruction. Award-winning illustrator Juan Wijngaard reflects this biblical heroine's majesty and humanity with his Jewel-like illustrations. Together, these two masters have created a picture book of rare beauty that honors Esther, whose courage and wisdom are celebrated the world over during the joyous feast of Purim. Ages 7 up. ... Read more

Reviews (7)

Esthers Story
Esther's Uncle Mordecai is the gate keeper.He raised Esther from a baby. My favorite part of the story is when Esther becomes queen of Persia. My favorite part of the story is when he laughed. When he was done laughing, he said "Esther, you are now queen of ersia". I like the book Esther because it is taken from the Bible. The comments are the same as in the Bible. If you really like the Bible story, I insist that you read this book!

Esther
I like this book of Esther because it is all what God knew what was going to happen. My first favorite part is when the king crowned Esther Queen of Persia. That was God's plan. Later, a man named Haman wanted all the Jews killed. God wanted Esther to save her people. My second favorite part is when Esther shows up to the king uninvited. Esther had the courage to do that. But, will Esther save her people in time? Read this book to find out.

esther's story
Esther was an ok book. It is easy to read. It was about
this girl named Esther and how she became a queen and
saved her people. I recommend this book to anyone.

Esther
I've always loved the biblical heroine Esther. She dares to take risks and thus makes a difference. This beautiful book portrays her vividly and in a sympathetic way (not as a larger than life character).

In lovely but simple language Diane Wolkstein tells how Esther is chosen by the King of Persia to be his queen. And how she will defy the evil Haman to save her people. Thus the reader gets familiar with the origins of what the Jews celebrate as Purim.

The illlustrations are absolutely breathtaking and Mr. Wijngaard certainly did a thorough research for it.

Really a treasure in one's library!

"Must reading" for any Jewish girl
I have read dozens of Jewish books to my kids, and this stands out as one of the few that I am going to keep for THEIR kids. The reason? It portrays Esther as a real person that girls can truly identify with, while not straying from the honest Torah understanding of the holiday. Additionally, the combination of realistic text (presented in the form of Esther's diary) and stunning illustrations make this book a literary treat. I wish this author-illustrator team would get together to create stories about all the Biblical heroines! ... Read more

Book Description

In March 2000, a suitcase arrived at a children's Holocaust education center in Tokyo, Japan. On the outside, in white paint, were these words: Hana Brady, May 16, 1931, and Waisenkind—the German word for orphan. Children who saw the suitcase on display were full of questions. Who was Hana Brady? What happened to her? They wanted Fumiko Ishioka, the center's curator, to find the answers.

In a suspenseful journey, Fumiko searches for clues across Europe and North America. The mystery of the suitcase takes her back through seventy years, to a young Hana and her family, whose happy life in a small Czech town was turned upside down by the invasion of the Nazis. ... Read more

Reviews (4)

A well-written, intensely moving account
Aimed at a pre-teen, early-teen audience, Hana's Suitcase appeals to all ages. I read the book with my 11 year old over a few nights: he was riveted by the story in a way I've rarely seen. Other parents report similar reactions. The book is illustrated with many poignant family photos and original documents. Hana's Suitcase will greatly advance your child's undertsanding of the Holocaust and of humanity's capacity for both great evil and tremendous compassion. I've recommended the book successfuly to many others; my son's class will soon study it. Be forewarned, especially if you are a parent: you may find the final chapters impossible to read without losing your composure. It is a story of unbearable loss and ultimate healing. The book follows an original radio documentary, which can be heard at the website of CBC Radio.

Not only for children
Even if the targeted audience is children, but this book is also much interesting for adults. It's so well written that you'll feel somebody is telling you this story lively. I've a better understanding of the impact of war from this book. The ending is rather sad, unluckily it's also a true story.

seamless connection between then and now
Youngsters ages 10-14 will enjoy the suspense that Levine builds as we follow Japanese curator Fumiko on her quest to find the owner of a Jewish child's suitcase entrusted to her Holocaust Museum for a children's exhibit. Levine weaves the mystery and intensity of Fumiko's modern-day search with touching, but not overly sentimental, stories from Hana's past from 1938-1944. We begin to care for Hana and her family, while simultaneously unravelling the clues that lead Fumiko into the past.

Children will enjoy the simultanous stories, which are easy to follow. Teachers or parents will love to see their children watching Fumiko at work, bringing alive the real work of historians, and bringing little Hana's legacy to life. Inclusion of Hana's drawings made in the Terazin ghetto, as well as photographs of Hana and her family in Czechosolvakia, and photos of Fumiko and her children's group, give the book something extra special. Over 60,000 people have seen the museum exhibit that inspired the book, and I'm sure that it will be millions once this book is *truly* discovered!

Great book about a girl from the Holocaust
This book was so sad! It is about this suitcase that arrives to a Holocaust Center in Japan and the story behind the little girl who used own it. The curator Fumiko crosses half the planet to find out what happened to Hana as she was taken from her home and killed just because she was Jewish. I really didn't understand what happened at the Holocaust until I read this book. Hana Brady had a normal life until the war started. Do we really need to destroy people's lives with a war, again? ... Read more

Amazon.com

Written immediately after the end of World War II, this morally complex Holocaust memoir is notable for its exact depiction of the grim details of life in Warsaw under the Nazi occupation. "Things you hardly noticed before took on enormous significance: a comfortable, solid armchair, the soothing look of a white-tiled stove," writes Wladyslaw Szpilman, a pianist for Polish radio when the Germans invaded. His mother's insistence on laying the table with clean linen for their midday meal, even as conditions for Jews worsened daily, makes palpable the Holocaust's abstract horror. Arbitrarily removed from the transport that took his family to certain death, Szpilman does not deny the "animal fear" that led him to seize this chance for escape, nor does he cheapen his emotions by belaboring them. Yet his cool prose contains plenty of biting rage, mostly buried in scathing asides (a Jewish doctor spared consignment to "the most wonderful of all gas chambers," for example). Szpilman found compassion in unlikely people, including a German officer who brought food and warm clothing to his hiding place during the war's last days. Extracts from the officer's wartime diary (added to this new edition), with their expressions of outrage at his fellow soldiers' behavior, remind us to be wary of general condemnation of any group. --Wendy Smith ... Read more

Reviews (67)

A classic!
Its been years since I have read such a lovely and complete book. A story albeit very poignant and gripping offers so much more. It takes the reader through the struggle and triumph of one man, Szpilman, who defied fate and destiny and survived during the most toughest of times in the ghetto in Poland and the darkest in human history - the holocaust ! His writing is simplisitic and without any of the unnecessary exploration of character or literary verbosity..he tells it as he saw it and as he lived it! It is far more engrossing than any murder mystery because you want to know how he beat the odds and about how he survived without any martyr-like tactics. Miraculous though it might be..it gives way to a subtle yet knowing feeling that there is still someone up there, who can change your destiny and bless you with luck just when you have given up hope.It is a spiritual inspiration and exploration. An ordinary man with an extraordinary tale to tell..god bless him and the german officer, who showed that you can still wield power by saving lives and not by merely taking them!!

The Pianist- An Inspirational story of survival
The Pianist is a true and inspirational story of one mans survival in Warsaw during the German Occupation in WWII. Wladyslaw Szpilman was a young pianist who performed pieces on polish radio before the Germans invaded his home in Warsaw. Although Szpilman's endures prolific hardships he manages to forgo the fate of so many others around him and ultimately live to tell about it. While the world around him is desecrating Szpilman, a young musician, relays on intuition and talent to get him through each day. Despite the loss of his entire family Szpilman conjures the courage to survive, which was perhaps the hardest thing to do in the Jewish Ghetto.
The degree of hope that Szpilman has is displayed in many instances. One remarkable moment in the memoir occurs when Wladyslaw is being supervised by the Germans while working in the cold. Being so small he is worried about not being able to perform the work properly which could consequently lead to his death. However, the amazing thing about the situation is that he is more worried about his fingers freezing up in the brutally cold weather. His hope throughout the entire book is that he will someday be able to run his fingers across a piano again and play the music that he once loved. This is truly an inspirational moment in the novel that proves his continuous hope in the future.
Another element of the story that I appreciated was that throughout the entire novel Szpilman never expressed hatred for the German people. Not to say that he held no discontent with the way things were, but he in no way droned upon the fact. He told the story the way it was, and that meant exposing the atrocities of the Germans but not relying on the element to carry the novel. He told a story of survival, one that focused on his life and how he found the courage to make it where so many others had fallen.

Great Book For All
I was thirteen when The Pianist movie was made. I begged my parents to let me see it, and I finally watched it at age fourteen. That night, I could not sleep. I had heard of the Holocaust before and we had studied it in 8th grade and I had seen movies about it, but there was something so gripping about this man's story that it seemed to be in another league of any Holocaust story I had ever heard about or seen.
The movie piqued my intrest in the Holocaust and also in this incredible man who survived all odds. A few months after I had watched the movie, I went out and bought the book. After I started the book, I could hardly put it down. I finished the book in two days, facing another two sleepless nights, haunted by his passages from Dancing on Chlorea Street, and feeling his emotions as he ran into Captain Wilm Hosenfeld for the first time.
I would recommend this book to anyone, no matter the age. The book is truly haunting and Wladyslaw Szpilman's words and memories are bound to stay with you.

Seen through the eyes of the truth
I am a student at Hunterdon Central Regional Highschool in Flemington New Jersey. My Critical Issues in Literature was coerced into picking books to read, or else we would be severly "failed" if you will. But let me start off by saying. Books are written in 1st or third person. The perspective given in this peice of devine literature is of its own class. One can describe a detail or event, but for one to emmerse its reader into the horrid scenes of death and violence is simply amazing. This book captures the falling artillery punding the ground and the crumbling of the buildings, falling around Wladyslaw. It captures the beautiful exqusite elegance of his jittering fingers as they unleash the melody held within the Piano. The historical signifigance this book witholds is of biblical proportion. Only can one truly feel the situation of Wladyslaw through reading this book. I do also recomend renting the movie. For the visuals are simply dark and gloomy and bring the book to life through a different dimension if you will.

a great story and a brave man
This book is about a real survival story in World War II. Although the author himself was not a professional writer, this cruel and dramatic history really doesn't need any kind of exaggeration or decoration. His writing style is plain yet true to the fact. I was so absored by his story that I finished the book within two days! ... Read more

Book Description

Edward Cohen was among the tiny minority of Jews in Jackson, Mississippi, the heart of the Bible Belt. As a child, he grew up singing “Dixie”in his segregated school and saying sh’ma in synagogue. And in his powerful, luminous memoir, Cohen tells a story as universal as it is particular, at once a deeply personal account of growing up an outsider and a vibrant family story of three generations of American Jews.

To Edward Cohen, it seemed the entire world was Jewish. Then he went to school, wh