Exit Berlin: How One Woman Saved Her Family from Nazi Germany / Charlotte Bonelli 293 pp.

Bonelli is an archivist who researched the letters of Luzie Hecht, a longtime employee of the American Jewish Committee, and in so doing uncovered an important wartime story.    Luzie was a 27-year-old Berliner, from a comfortable but not wealthy Jewish family.  In 1938, having for months seen her employment prospects dim in Germany, she left Berlin with the assistance of a wealthy American cousin, Arnold Hatch.  (Hecht, anglicized)  Over the next several years, she maintained copious correspondence with a host of relatives and friends in Germany, her file being distinctive because she kept copies of her own letters as well as those she received.  She made strenuous efforts to assist and advise this wide circle who was left behind, with no financial means of her own.

I sort of fell in love with Luzie while reading her letters. Although she succeeded in directing her immediate family to New York via an 18-month stay in Shanghai, most of her remaining correspondents would perish.  This was no fault of Luzie's, of course.  She was a penniless immigrant in New York who had only her distant relative in Albany to rely on.  It was her role as cheerleader to all those left behind, so evident in her letters, that was quite moving.  I can only imagine how important her many letters were to those who received them. Bonelli's arrangement and explication was far less interesting than the letters themselves; still I am grateful for her work in bringing them to light.

The Strange Library

The strange library / Haruki Murakami

After being invited to the special reading room, a young boy is taken prisoner by an old man who wants him to memorize books and eventually eat his brain.  The boy's guardian is the sheep man who is dressed in sheep skin but abused and controlled by the old man.  A beautiful translucent girl who visits his cell encourages the boy to escape and says she will join him. They make a break for it but are confronted by the old man.  I won't spoil the ending but will marvel at another interesting edition by Murakami.

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Trieste / Dasa Drndic 359 pp.

Drndic describes this novel as documentary fiction.  Using poetry, encyclopedia entries, photos, and archival lists, she assembles a faintly traced fictional story based on the true story of a German-Italian-Slovenian-Jewish woman who spends most of her life on the Adriatic coast near Trieste, a city in present-day Italy which, like Haya, has a Babel-like heritage.  Haya has an affair with an SS officer and later gives birth to his son.  At five months of age the boy is kidnapped to increase the ranks of Aryan-ish boys for the Lebensborn.  [From Wikipedia: Lebensborn e.V. (literally: "Fount of Life") was an SS-initiated, state-supported, registered association in Nazi Germany with the goal of raising the birth rate of "Aryan" children via extramarital relations of persons classified as "racially pure and healthy" based on Nazi racial hygiene and health ideology.]

So.  As confusing as the above is, it's crystal clear compared to Drndic's impressionistic approach to storytelling.  Which is not to say that it's not a brilliant piece of work, at least in part.  It demands a tremendous effort on the part of the reader, though, and in the end, the story itself is thin.  She's done something worthy, and certainly interesting, but it's hard to evaluate a work which is nearly a scrapbook.  Laundry lists of atrocities are not, in themselves, novels, at least I don't think so. And ending a 'novel' with a page of text from The Waste Land seems wrong, somehow.  

Nevertheless, I appreciate Drndic's reveal of the specific world of Italian Jews which is a story less told (at least in English) than some others.    

Anne of the Island

Anne of the Island by L.M. Montgomery, 244 pages

This is the third book in Montgomery's classic Anne of Green Gables series, and focuses on Anne's college years. It's just as sweet as the previous two, and just as idyllic. I'd not read the series before, and I'm enjoying these titles, which are an excellent palate cleanser between watching Game of Thrones and reading some Gillian Flynn.

Being Mortal

Being Mortal: Medicine and what matters in the end / Atul Gawande 282 pgs.

Atul Gawande writes a brilliant book about the end of life and how we are (mis)handling it.  He discusses nursing homes, assisted living, the role of doctors, the role of patient, and so much more.  I found the way he boiled down the indignities of aging great to explain the ideas of what we want for our elderly parents in contrast to what the elderly actually want. It is kind of eye opening to realize how "assisted living" is marketed.

In the end, we all just want to be happy.  We want things that are important to us to be respected and made doable if at all possible.  I'm not sure this book will get rid of all the oddness that surrounds death and aging in our culture but it sure did help me.

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The Monuments Men

The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves, and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History by Robert Edsel with Bret Witter, 473 pages

During World War II, the Nazis stole and hoarded thousands of priceless artworks and cultural treasures. While some were lost or destroyed during the years of the war, an astonishingly high number of these pieces survived, thanks to the work of an American and English collaborative unit, the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives section, also known as the Monuments Men.

Edsel's book gives a thorough examination of these unsung heroes in their earliest days, when only a handful of Monuments Men were working, without supplies and often on their own in combat situations, were attempting to save some of the most treasured artworks and cultural sites in Europe. It's a fascinating tale; though if this book has any fault, it's that Edsel crams too much information in. Any one of the original Monuments Men and their allies (particularly the astounding Rose Valland) could easily be the subject of his or her own book, yet Edsel's determination to shoehorn in all the original Monuments Men makes the story a bit muddled. That said, it's still worth a read, as this is a history that needs telling.

What if?

What if?: Serious scientific answers to absurd hypothetical questions / Randall Munroe 303 pg.

Have you got unanswered questions?  I think we all do.  If those questions are science related, you can ask them to Randall Munroe, the author of the webcomic xkcd and he might try to answer it.  Now he has put some of the questions and their answers into a book.  If, for example, you have been wondering what would happen if you started rising at 1 foot per second, how would you die?  Would you freeze, suffocate or something else?  This book has a whole chapter covering this topic.  The answers you get here are as interesting as the questions.  Who else would spend the time researching such thing?  Munroe is a gem and has a lot of librarian in him.

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In the Courtyard of the Kabbalist / Ruchama King Feuerman 259 p.

Isaac has moved to Jerusalem from the Lower East Side in middle age, seeking meaning.  He winds up connecting with a famous rabbi who opens his courtyard on a daily basis to those who seek his wisdom and spiritual advice.  As Isaac helps the Rabbi tend to this frequently ragtag flock, his eczema improves.  At least it does, until he meets Tamar, a flamboyant newly-religious woman seeking a religious man, and Mustafa, a disabled Palestinian custodian with a knack for finding sacred artifacts on the Temple Mount.

It almost sounds like a setup for a sketch comedy.  Instead, it's a genuinely sweet, thoughtful, and believable story of love and faith.  The characters are extraordinarily real, so much so that it's easy to forgive some occasional sentimentality.  The view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one-sided but humane.

The Sleeper and the Spindle

The Sleeper and the Spindle by Neil Gaiman and illustrated by Chris Riddell, 66 pages

In this short story, Gaiman offers up his take on Sleeping Beauty (with a bit of Snow White thrown in for good measure). But while you still get the beautiful dozing girl locked high in a tower that's surrounded by thorny rosebushes, it's far from a traditional retelling. I enjoyed Gaiman's twists, as well as the humorous asides that he throws in as narrator. The standout here, however, is Riddell's detailed pen-and-ink illustrations. They're so wonderful that, even though you can easily finish this book in half an hour, it's worth spending much much longer with the book just to scour the details of the illustrations.

Get Carter by Ted Lewis

Get Carter by Ted Lewis, 217 pages.

Ted Lewis originally published this as Jack's Return Home in 1970. The movie, Get Carter, starring Michael Caine was released the following year. Soho Crime has reprinted this book, as well as the other two in the series and has chosen to use the movie name for this novel (Lewis, according to the author info, died in 1982 at the age of 42, so presumably had no say in the title change).
Carter holds a position of some power and respect in a feared London crime organization. As this noirish book opens Carter is heading to his hometown in the north of England. It's an industrial town and it's grim and gritty. Carter is not really a character who believes in sharing unnecessary details with those around him (or with the reader).When he tells someone that he encounters that he works for Gerald and Les he expects to be taken seriously. The people he runs into in this book know what that means. They all inhabit the same bleak, immoral world of dilapidated bars, cheap strip clubs, and cut-rate gambling joints.
Carter's brother, Frank, was a different sort of person. Growing up, Frank and Jack were very close. Frank didn't play by the dirty rules that all the criminals he grew up with and around followed. He tried to live an honest sort of life and ended up hating his brother Jack. When Frank dies, apparently in a drunken car crash, Jack decides to look into it, despite warnings from Les and Gerald

Fans of the late crime fiction and of Richard Stark (Donald Westlake) will like this book, as will fans of Lee Child, at least those who don't mind a complete lack of conscience in a main character.
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