Being the avid Pinterester that I am, I have a large book album full of books I've loved, books I have yet to love, beautiful libraries and any book related things. I came across a small book challenge: 12 Books, 12 Months, 2012. I didn't come across this though until around November 2012, so I decided to start for 2013. This was the perfect book challenge for me. If you read my blog you know, I work in a book store, and have for 5 years now, during this time, I've met and made several friends who are huge book lovers as well. I generally try not to compare myself to other people, but I see my friends zip through book after book like it's their job - sometimes it literally is - while it took me 6 months to finish A Clockwork Orange, which is just slightly over 100 pages. In my defence, that book is written in a language of it's own and I found myself re-reading pages over and over to fully understand them. I would then give up and put the book down for 2 months and read something else. I'm generally not the type of person to set challenges for myself, as I lack motivation for small mundane things, but this challenge, I thought, was going to be something I would do, and I've been meaning to write about it for a while now.
So here goes, my first book was:
#1 Sarah's Key by Tatiana De Rosnay
I never officially wrote a review for this one having read it before I started my blog, so I will give you a mini-review now. I LOVED this book. If you do read my blog, you know I have a strong fascination for anything regarding WWII, more specifically, the Holocaust. I've read The Diary of Anne Frank, and Night by Elie Wiesel, both great books. Anne Frank's diary focuses more on hiding from the Nazi's during Amsterdam's German Occupation, it doesn't talk about the holocaust, because they were not very aware of what was happening. The book does contain a prologue as to what happened to the family after they were captured. Night however, is only about the holocaust. It is a first hand account from victim and survivor Elie Wiesel. He and his family were taken to Auschwitz, he then had to participate in the death march to Buchenwald. Sarah's Key was right on track to what I like to read. After reading it, I honestly can not believe it took me so long to do so, I had heard about it for some time, and came across a great condition copy at Value Village one day and did not even hesitate to buy it. Usually books sit on my shelves for a long time before I pick them up, having a very large stack to get through. But Sarah's Key only sat for a couple weeks before I grabbed it. It is a fiction novel, but it centers around the Vel' d'Hiv roundup in Paris in 1942. I vaguely remember hearing the words "Vel' d'Hiv" before, but it wasn't something I was very aware of at all. Generally during and after reading a book, I like to do research on any of the true things talked about, so this book opened my eyes to a new aspect of the war that I was not familiar with. Sarah and her parents are round up to the Vel' d'Hiv and taken to Auschwitz. Before they are taken, Sarah hides her little brother in a secret cupboard in their shared room and takes the key with her. During the whole trip her only concern is to get back and save her brother. Simultaneously we are switched back and forth to chapters of an American journalist living in Paris, Julia, who is given the task of writing of the anniversary of the Vel' d'Hiv. She discovers the apartment that her and her husband have inherited from her husbands grandmother, belonged to none other then Sarah's family before they were roundup. Julia then embarks on a journey to find out anything she can of Sarah and her family, and if they are still alive.
#2 13 Reasons Why - my review here.
#3 A Tale For The Time Being - my review here.
#4 The Story of The SS by Nigel Cawthorne
This book is exactly what the titles states. After reading so much about Jewish people and the Holocaust, I decided to learn a bit more about the people behind it, and we had a copy of this book on sale at work. While there are interesting parts of the book, one chapter devoted to the Holocaust itself, for the most part I felt as though I was sitting in high school history class again. WWII wasn't something I found particularly interesting in high school, and while I did very much pay attention to the video I remember my teacher showing, on holocaust survivor stories, most of the WWII part, and the entire semester was not something I looked forward to. This book has a lot of names and dates, that no one other then a history major, could remember. I found my mind wandering, and I'd have to pull myself back in to pay attention, other parts did get interesting, but for the most part, I found it dull. It is though, just a history collection on the SS itself. If names and dates are something that spark your interests, this book would be a great read, that being said there were several stories inside that I had never heard about before, so that made it worth the read to me. This book probably doesn't contain anything you couldn't find by doing some google searches of your own. I'm the type that googles EVERYTHING I find interesting, so next time, I may take that route instead.
So that's where I'm at right now, almost to the end of our 3rd month, I've finished 4 of my books, and I'm well into my 5th. I think that's pretty good so far. This 5th book is quite interesting, but you'll have to wait until I'm finished to find out what it is, a hint though: it has a movie coming out.