From the Kingdom of Memory: Reminiscences, by Elie Wiesel

I love Wiesel's words. The only problem with reading his books is that I don't want them to end. Even though this is a book of essays and speeches that were published decades ago, they remain telling and topical. After, nothing in history has changed--the Holocaust still destroyed his family--and, sadly, we still haven't learned how to stop hating.

I read this over the course of 7 months because I wanted to savor the words, listen to the stories of his childhood, and absorb the depth of each page. And now I'm done with it; perhaps I'll read it again....

A Secret Gift, by Ted Gup

This book has garnered all kinds of plaudits, and it's a well-deserved recognition for a topic that is pretty unique. However, it would have been even more delightful to read if the author and his editor had really worked together on tightening up the story: make sure people's names are spelled correctly (e.g., Brownlee or Browning? Same family, two entirely different names). There was just enough of this sort of thing to distract me from the whole point of the story: that Gup's grandfather anonymously gave 150 Canton, Ohio, families money at Christmastime 1933, a story no one but his grandfather and grandmother told anyone until much later. Gup tracks down a fair number of the recipients' families and interviews those willing to talk to him. Another couple of months of editing and this would be prize-winning.

The Bible : A Biography, by Karen Armstrong

Nice book that pulls together both Jewish and Christian strands on biblical writing and interpretation. Armstrong is a good writer and this book makes the history of the Bible flow very easily.

The Late, Lamented Molly Marx, by Sally Koslow

Chick lit meets The Lovely Bones. Funny, silly, lightweight with enough 'nutritional value' to keep me reading.

People of the Book, by Geraldine Brooks

Very interesting novel--cool structure.

The Yiddish Policemen's Union, by Michael Chabon (on CD)

A clever book that is ostensibly about solving the murder of a heroin addict living in the same SRO hotel in which the main character--a Sitka policeman--lives.

The set-up of the story is, however, that Sitka and environs was set aside in the 40s as a settlement for European Jews when it became apparent that Hitler was going to target them. As a result of this, fewer Jews were killed in the Holocaust, and Israel never became a country in 1948. The settlement is set to 'expire' just weeks after the murder in question, and the U.S. government wants all cases solved or dispatched to the cold case files before they take over.

The problem with this case is that the victim turns out not to be some faceless nobody, but the son of the most powerful rabbi in the area, a man once thought to be the Messiah.

And then the fun begins. It's a good book. A bit weird to hear what (to me) sounds like New York accents coming from Alaskans, but the man who did the reading did an outstanding job with voices and accents. One of the best I've listened to, actually.