Book Three

Hi girls - I'm back in town - hope you enjoy the new book.
Thanks for posting it Laurel! Jen Malin

Monster!

So, just got Monster of Florence today! Loving it! And now must plan a visit to Italy pronto stat!!! Can we make the book club also into a travel club? I have to say that the book club is such a great idea, it really is, and I don't even know how this got started, but I'm so glad someone had this great idea! (who was it?)......

I must say though Book Club is expensive for me, went to Borders also bought Skinny Bitch, and Naughty Girls on Top........diverse interests! LOL! Must go, have like 10 books to read, thanks for the new addiction. Now if I don't start eating bon bons while reading I'll be fine!

XO,
D.

Review and Info

Reviews

"The fascinating story unfolds with memorable characters and dizzying plot twists that could come off as far-fetched if the book was fictional. The writing is evocative, and the two collaborators skillfully weave the narratives back and forth to create, at times, a razor's edge of tension." from the Chicago Tribune.

The book received a B rating from Entertainment Weekly.

The Monster of Florence

Author Douglas Preston,Mario Spezi
Country United States
Language English
Genre(s) True crime
Publisher Grand Central Publishing
Publication date 2008
Media type Hardcover
Pages 336
ISBN ISBN 0-446-58119-4
Preceded by Blasphemy
Followed by
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Book Three: The Monster of Florence by Douglas Preston

Hi ladies. Ok, after MUCH internal debate I have selected the non-fiction crime story - The Monster of Florence by Douglas Preston. It has gotten rave reviews. I do not normally pick hardbacks because of the cost - but this one is available for only $15.59 on amazon.com (It was also an amazon best pick for June).

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0446581194/ref=s9subs_c3_at1-rfc_g1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=0B4Q0D7M81RHPH106NQ1&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=278240301&pf_rd_i=507846

Also for those of you that enjoyed the historical aspect of last month's book - I highly recommend "Night" by Elie Wiesel - amazing book about a man's survival of the holocaust. (Winner of Noble Peace Prize and Oprah book club book too)

http://www.amazon.com/Night-Oprahs-Book-Club-Wiesel/dp/0374500010/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1216863028&sr=1-1

I think we talked about meeting at Queen of Sheba for some Ethiopian food. I'll confirm that later this month. Thanks and I hope we love it!

Jennifer

Not your regular Holocaust story

How is it different from other novels that address the issues surrounding the Holocaust?

Ordinarily, Holocaust stories are nonfiction. At least that has been my exposure and understanding. Because this story is a work of fiction, the reader's perspective of the Holocaust is broadened in that here, nothing is being held back for any reason. Fiction has this way of liberating the author to allow the unthinkable to exist.

The Holocaust, unthinkable in itself, becomes a part of this world of fiction. The horrible reality meshes into the author's work, intertwines with her imagination, with her perception of the war, the treatment of the Jews, and what it might have been like to be a civilian, a German civilian, caught in the crossfire - so to say.

From this blooms the complex relationship of a daughter being saved by a mother's love. This theme of saving runs throughout the novel and would be interesting to look into.

Saving Perspectives

1. How would you categorize Those Who Save Us: as a war story, a love story, a mother-daughter story? Why? How is it different from other novels that address the issues surrounding the Holocaust? What new perspectives does it offer?

More than a war story or a love story I see Those Who Save Us as a mother-daughter story. It would be unfulfilling to read this expecting a love story. Certainly, though it does offer insight to the war, it cannot be considered a war story either. The story is about a mother and her daughter, and a daughter and her mother, and the invisible wall between them that for so long has kept them from knowing one another and from knowing about the past. As a mother, the wall is a form of protection, shielding the young. As a daughter, the wall is a barrier, keeping a very real part of who she is out of reach and off limits. As the reader, we see the great sacrifices the mother has made for the safety of her daughter. We also see the hurt that dictates the daughter's life because of her resentment for what she does not realize was her mother saving her.

Those Who Save Us Meeting

Good morning ladies! I hope everyone is having a marvelous Monday. Have you marked your calendar for Friday's book club meeting? I would love to invite you all over to my house for a nice cozy talk but I doubt Charlie would let us get much of anything done, so I hired a sitter. How about sushi instead?

Matoi Sushi
602 North Dale Mabry Highway
Tampa, FL 33609
(813) 871-3233
http://www.matoisamonjung.com/

Our reservation is for Friday at 7pm. Hope you can attend, but if you cannot please reply, "Sorry, next time!" You know the drill.

Looking forward to some great company, conversations, sushi, and oh yeah Those Who Save Us discussions.

sayonara, (or should I say...auf wiedersehen?)

(sayonara - a farewell remark; "they said their good-byes"
bye-bye, cheerio, good day, good-by, good-bye, goodby, goodbye, so long, adieu, adios, arrivederci, au revoir, auf wiedersehen, bye
farewell, word of farewell - an acknowledgment or expression of goodwill at parting)

About that 'who doesn't need to be saved..."

I finished the book and am off on another one - took a bit of searching - but then I got to the one that felt as though it should come next as it is also about the need to be saved.

So much more could be said here - but for those of you philosophical, introspective readers...blog with me - or talk to me about this need. I am not really sure that EVERY one does need to be saved.

The new book I am reading is called The Mermaid's Chair. Very Pat Conroyish. I am loving it.

Will be back in Tampa tomorrow to plan our next book meeting - maybe at a bakery?

toodles...Laurel

Tiny Words, Thin Pages

Ok, now maybe it is just me - but I am trying desperately to read this book in a timely fashion and somehow when it seems like I have 20 pages left, I check the numbers and in reality I have 100 pages left. How can this be?

With all of this page counting it might seem that I am not enjoying the content within the pages - au contraire - I am quite enthralled. But my soon-to-be sister-in-law has just given me a new book that I am dying to get into. It's called Water for Elephants. Have any of you read that one? She says it is great.

Muah!

ps. For those of you who are interested, here are book discussion questions from jennablum.com.

reading group guide
1. How would you categorize Those Who Save Us: as a war story, a love story, a mother-daughter story? Why? How is it different from other novels that address the issues surrounding the Holocaust? What new perspectives does it offer?

2. Discuss the novel's title, Those Who Save Us. In what ways do the characters save each other in the novel, and who saves whom? How does Blum play with the concept of being saved, being safe, being a savior?

3. In the beginning of the novel, what is Anna's attitude towards the Jewish people of Weimar? Does her attitude change? If so, where does this transformation occur and why?

4. While she is hiding Max, Anna thinks she would "pay a high price to be plain, for her looks pose an ever-greater danger to both herself and Max." Do you see Anna's beauty as a blessing or a curse? What role does it play in shaping her destiny? How do her looks affect her relationships with Max, Gerhard, the Obersturmführer, Trudy?

5. When living with Mathilde, Anna asks why Mathilde risks her life to feed the Buchenwald prisoners "when everyone else turn a blind eye." Why does Mathilde take this risk? Why does Anna? Do you think American women would react differently than German women in similar circumstances, and if so, why?

6. What are Anna's sexual reactions to the Obersturmführer, and what effect do they have on how she sees herself? How do they shape Anna's relationship with Trudy?

Do you see Anna's relationship with the Obersturmführer as primarily sexual, or are there places in the novel where their relationship transcends the sexual?

7. Do you see the Obersturmführer as a monster or as human? What are his vulnerabilities? To what degree is he a product of his time? If the Obersturmführer had been born in contemporary America, what might he be doing today?

8. Toward the end of the novel, Anna thinks that the Obersturmführer "has blighted her ability to love." Do you think he has forever affected her ability to love Jack? To love Trudy? What are Anna's real feelings for the Obersturmführer, and what are his true feelings toward Anna and her daughter?

9. Are Trudy's difficulties with her mother caused only by the secrets Anna keeps? If the past had not come between them, what would their relationship have been like? In what ways are Trudy and Anna typical of mothers and daughters everywhere? What parallels can you draw between their relationship and yours with your own mother?

10. Trudy has been familiar with shame all her life, both her own shame and Anna's. How does Trudy learn about shame from Anna? Does Trudy's shame stem solely from her suspicions about her Nazi parentage or from her German heritage as well? How has her shame manifested in her adult lifestyle?

11. Anna's consistent response to Trudy's questions is, "The past is dead, and better it remain so." Why does Anna keep her silence? Is this fair to Trudy? Were you surprised that Anna refuses to talk about her past even when she has been confronted and deemed a heroine by Mr. Pfeffer? In her position, would you do the same?

12. During his German Project interview, Rainer plays what he calls "a dirty trick" on Trudy by reading a prepared statement about his aunt's experience and eventual deportation to Auschwitz instead of telling his own story. Why does he do this? Why is Rainer so angry with Trudy? Is he angry with her? Do you think his anger is justified?

13. Why does Trudy get involved with Rainer? Is Trudy and Rainer's relationship a healthy one? When Rainer departs for Florida, he says, "I do not deserve this . . . . I am not meant to be this happy," a statement with which Trudy agrees. If Trudy and Rainer's relationship were not affected by their wartime pasts, would it have been happy? Would it have existed at all?

14. What does each of Trudy's interview subjects-Frau Kluge, Rose-Grete Fischer, Rainer, Felix Pfeffer-represent about German actions during the war and how Germans feel in retrospect? What does Trudy learn from her German subjects?

15. At the end of Those Who Save Us, the characters' fates are ambiguous; Trudy, for instance, is left in a "vacuum between one part of life ending and another coming to take its place." Why does Blum do this? What statement, if any, is she trying to make? Do you feel that the novel's end is a happy one for Trudy? For Anna? Why or why not? And what do you think has happened to the Obersturmführer?