Double-Stacked Bookshelves

Teaser Tuesdays:  The Story of a New Name Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly meme hosted by MizB @ Should Be Reading . Here are the rules: grab whatever you're reading, open to a random page, select no more than two sentence (NO SPOILERS), share the title and author, and GO! And...for your reading pleasure...today's teaser! "When they came home, exhausted, her husband made a scene and Lila did her best to provoke his fury.  She shouted that if he wanted someone who obeyed, and that's all, he was out of luck; she was not his mother or his sister, she would always make life difficult for him" --page 116           ----- The Story of a New Name by Elena Ferrante Happy reading!

Happy Thursday, fellow A-Zers, and welcome to the letter C.  Today is all about:  Paul Celan and Italo Calvino. Paul Celan (1920-1970) A Romanian poet and translator, Paul Celan is best known for his Holocaust writing, especially "Todesfuge," and his belief that writing in the German language was the only way to effectively address the atrocities suffered during the war.  Both of Celan's parents died in labor camps and he was imprisoned from 1942 to 1944 when the Russian army evacuated all Romanian camps.  Celan suffered extreme guilt in regards to his parents' deaths and used his writing as a way to convey these feelings.  He would eventually flee Eastern Europe, settling in Paris where he published his first collection of poetry, Der Sand aus den Urnen ( The Sand from the Urns ), in 1948.  At the time, many found his poetry too harsh sounding, but Celan eventually became known as the Holocaust writer.  He committed suicide jumping in to...

I've had Teresa Neumann's Bianca's Vineyard for a while now, thanks to my grandmother, but have been skipping over it to read other books.  I don't know why I did this because it was actually a great read.  Neumann is a local author who decided to write a novel about family history.  The majority of the novel is based on factual evidence and personal family interviews.  There is one portion, which I won't give away, that is only speculated at by Neumann, but what she does choose to speculate is a highly probably scenario. The book is written in a way that suggests it is being told to the reader, as well as Egisto's son and his wife, through flashbacks from Bianca in her 80's.  We know this because the font and boldness of these sections gives personal reflection from Bianca and foreshadows what she will eventually reveal.  She takes you back to the beginning of what changed the course for this family, mainly one brother of the Bertozzi family moving to A...

I had to check David Besmozgis's The Free World out twice just to finish it (stinking two week limit and other responsibilities).  I just got it back this past Thursday and finally finished the last 200 pages or so and I have to say that I really enjoyed this book. The novel centers around the Krasnansky family; three generations of Russian Jews.  Their goal throughout the entire book is to escape the Iron Curtain and make it to the West and the "Free" world.  The story is told from several different perspectives; mainly Samuil, the patriarch of the family, Karl, the straight-laced oldest son, Alec, the charismatic playboy and youngest son, and Polina, Alec's wife.  There are other members of the family who've made the journey:  Emma, Samuil's wife and Karl and Alec's mother, Rosa, Karl's wife, and Zhenya and Yury, Karl and Rosa's sons.  The journey they go on eventually lands them in Rome, Italy.  It is here that the majority of the story plays...