With only one month left until September 1st, I can truthfully "fess up" that my 20 Books of Summer plans have gone bust. I have been reading, yes. But my working hours, and other household challenges, have made a shambles of what I hoped would be a good stab, at least, at my list of 20 Books.
I have just finished listening to An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s by Doris Kearns Goodwin. I'm so glad I listened to the audiobook first, which is replete with audio excerpts of speeches by JFK, RFK, LBJ, (many of those written by Richard Goodwin, Doris's husband), many of which brought tears to my eyes, and Martin Luther King's speech excerpts. So now, just this minute, I have ordered the hardcover, because I must return to this masterpiece of a book again and again and again. I don't know when a book has spoken to me, straight through to the heart, the way this book has. Hence, I've just this minute placed the order for the hardcover edition, which is selling now for only $20.99 at Amazon! I guarantee that this book will make the all the lists for Top Ten Books of the Year. The political and the personal--the personal and the political--all intertwined inextricably into this splendid mixture. I am so grateful to have been alive and totally aware during this decade. It matters a great deal to me to have experienced a period of such high idealism, integrity, and, well, intelligence!
And, in my last post, I was in the midst of reading The Nature of Disappearing by Kimi Cunningham Grant, which is set in the wilderness of the Idaho mountains. I was a bit uncertain during the first half of the book, but the last half was superb, and I really can say I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Somehow or other, I managed to get myself (miraculously) detoured onto a book I hadn't expected to read, which has really riveted me. Motherland: Growing Up with the Holocaust by Rita Goldberg, has been a genuine surprise. Very well written, exceptionally researched, it's the story of the author's mother's youth as a German Jewish immigrant in Amsterdam, and later in Belgium with the Resistance, and then in Bergen-Belsen. While in Amsterdam as a child, her parents were very close with Anne Frank's parents. Indeed, Otto Frank is a constant presence in this book, throughout her mother's life and after the war, throughout the childhood of the author, and largely because the author was his goddaughter. What has been most surprising to me is that this book, to my knowledge, has received very little acknowledgement, but it is excellent. And I have read literally hundreds of books dealing with the Holocaust.
Excerpt from Reviews: A groundbreaking second-generation memoir of
the Holocaust and its legacy by Otto Frank’s goddaughter—“The
extraordinary tale is heroic” (The New York Times).
Rita Goldberg recounts the extraordinary story of her mother, Hilde
Jacobsthal, a close friend of Anne Frank’s family who was fifteen when
the Nazis invaded Holland. After the arrest of her parents in 1943,
Hilde fled to Belgium, living out the war years in an extraordinary set
of circumstances—first among the Resistance, and then at Bergen-Belsen
after its liberation. In the words of The Guardian, the story is “worthy of a film script.”
SO! As you can see, I have been a totally serendipitous MOOD reader this summer. Reading happily, but frankly, with not anywhere near enough time to read! That is the only somewhat distressing aspect.
This has been a Summer!!! Ken and I feel we are constantly reeling from the news cycle. Fingers crossed, we're hoping and praying for the best. And then the tornados hit! Our climate is crazy. We never used to get tornados here, and now they're a threat whenever there are severe thunderstorms.
Well, wherever you are, I hope the weather gods will be kind(er) to you than they have been.
