Agnes Humbert's Resistance

It is summertime in 1940 when Germany takes Paris. Soon after, Agnes Humbert bands together with a group of like-minded friends to publish Resistance - a French resistance newsletter. By the Spring of 1941 Humbert has been arrested, spends time in a French prison, and is then deported to Germany to a work camp. She suffers there until the end of the war, and while awaiting transport back to France, assists the Americans with their work in Germany.

Humbert wrote Resistance in 1946 shortly after the war, the beginning and end parts taken directly from her diary, the middle portion, by necessity written from memory, yet still in a diary format. This gives the book a strong sense of immediacy. I was feeling a bit lost in the opening pages of the book, there were many names and locations that I found difficult to keep track of. The story becomes quite intense when Humbert is arrested, tried and imprisoned. What is most striking in Humbert's writing is her sense of humor, her bravery, and her feistiness. Humbert finds herself working (slaving) in a rayon factory. I didn't know a thing about the manufacturing of rayon, but have discovered that it is quite dangerous and toxic. Humbert and her fellow prisoners are not given protective gear as the paid workers are, and the prisoners are suffering from terrible wounds, temporary blindness, and clothing that is disintegrating instead of covering them. Humbert suffers so much but never loses her sense of self and compassion for others.

Not only is Resistance an intensely personal story, it is an informative one as well. It was fascinating to read about the French Resistance and especially how its members were treated once imprisoned and charged. Resistance was out of print for many years, until Barbara Mellor the translator of this book, came across it and knew it was a story that transcended time. We have her to thank for bringing this story to our attention.

I end with a quote from Agnes Humbert from 1943, when she is thinking about her inanimate objects waiting for her at home:

I think about my books, especially: which one shall I open first when I get back? I can see my bookshelves, and the rows of my beloved books. By the time I get back I shall have quite forgotten how to read, and I'll have to start all over again by looking at picture books like a child.

Many thanks to Bloomsbury for giving me the opportunity to read and review this book.

Farmer's Market - September 27

This is the most amazing time of year at the market - there's so much to choose from! It's too bad that it's only open one more month for vegetable sellers. (The meat, egg, and honey vendors come on Saturdays through the winter.)



I had a little helper with me this week which is why you see flowers, mini-pumpkins to draw faces on, and honey sticks. Those flowers are lovely - can anyone tell me what the cabbage-look-alike things are called? - but were wilting by Sunday so I wasn't too impressed.

Everything just looks so vibrant and gorgeous to me, especially the peppers and cauliflower - you won't find anything like that at the store. The green leafy stuff on the left is sold as Chinese broccoli, and I'm not sure if it's the same as broccoli rabe. It was a bit bitter so my family wasn't thrilled about it, though I liked it. If a person were really serious about buying good food for their family at low prices, the market is a great place. There is so much available for one dollar - the Chinese broccoli, bok choy, beets, green onions, kohlrabi, and lots of other greens as well. Certainly other items cost more, but you can do it on a budget. We've cut back on our meat consumption quite a bit, but I crave a good flank steak every month or so. The animals are grass fed and the meat is so tender you can cut it with a fork.

WINNER - WHEN WILL THERE BE GOOD NEWS?

Thanks so much to everyone who entered this contest! Not only is it fun to 'meet' many of you and visit your blogs, but now I have a terrific reference for mystery books.

As determined by Random Number Generator, the winners of When Will There Be Good News? by Kate Atkinson are:



MELISSA

RAYCH

DANIELLE

Congratulations! I hope you enjoy this book as much as I did. I'll be in contact with you all. Many thanks to Hachette Books for sponsoring this giveaway.

Do come back later in October, as I'll be having another great giveaway.

The Pages in Between

A Jewish baby is born in a Polish ghetto in 1942. In an attempt to save her life, her father asks a Polish gentile woman to look after his young daughter, telling her that he'll be back after the war. Indeed he does return and these two are some of the only members of their family who survive the holocaust. The frightened little girl and her father, a stranger to her, go to Sweden for a few years and then on to the United States where this little girl grows up, marries, and becomes a mother.

Erin Einhorn, a reporter, must have known she had quite a story on her hands, or at the very least a fascinating family history, because the little girl in the story was her mother, Irene Rozenblum Einhorn. Despite her mother's long reluctance and disinterest in speaking of her past, Einhorn is determined to find out who this family is who saved her mother and made her own life possible. This story has become The Pages in Between, an honest and revealing memoir which winds up going in a direction that most holocaust writing does not. Einhorn moves to Poland and is surprised to find that in this country that was ten percent Jewish before WW2, Judaism has now become trendy. There are Jewish restaurants and trinket shops and tours one can go on.

Einhorn visits Bedzin, the previous home of her family, and quite easily finds the house they used to live in, and in it, the family that saved her mother's life, the Skowronskis. The woman who cared for her has died, but her son lives there with his family. He remembers the little girl he thought of as his sister whom they had always hoped would return for a visit. Einhorn visits the family multiple times, taking a translator with her, and over time some frustration on the part of the Skowronskis is revealed. Einhorn learns there is a problem with ownership of the house, and the Skowronskis want to collect on a promise made by Einhorn's grandfather during the war.

Einhorn tries to do what she can to help them, and it turns out to be a terribly complicated and potentially expensive legal matter. At the same time, Einhorn is struggling with the somewhat turbulent relationship she has always had with her mother as well as some life-altering news.

I found this to be a quite compelling story and I enjoyed Einhorn's personal tone throughout the book. I was very impressed with the degree to which she tried to assist the Skowronskis. I felt as though they were giving her a pretty hard time and it would have been easy for her just to walk away. It's an interesting question, really. After what happened in the Holocaust, do people really owe each other for saving a life, or was it just the right (and obviously brave) thing to do? Who should property belong to? The people it was stolen from over 60 years ago, or the people who have since made it their own?

I found this to be a fascinating and unique story and recommend it.

Blabbering

It occurred to me last night that what has been a pretty amazing week for me online and as a blogger has been completely overshadowed by my my fairly lousy 'real life' week.

Along with what went on last weekend (car accident, lying child) on Wednesday my hard drive crashed along with everything on it. We spent all evening on the phone with 2 guys from India (doesn't that sound like a movie?) and re-installed everything from the ground up. Fortunately we have an external hard drive. Unfortunately it hasn't been updated since May. So we lost a fair amount of music and possibly some photos. All in all, not so bad. I haven't gotten much (any?) reading done this week, in part from worrying, talking to folks in India, and reading Setting Limits with your Strong-Willed Child which should explain everything else. I recommend this title, by the way.

Whew. Enough of that. Let's look at the bright side.

I won two books from drawings this week! How amazing is that? I won Shoot the Moon from Bree and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society from A Reader's Respite. I also received the I Love Your Blog! award from Ti which touched my heart and I pass right back to all of you good people who have been giving support with your kind words.

I got a brand-new cookbook in the mail, In Season by Sarah Ravens, which is gorgeous, and has ribbon markers, and was free because I had gift cards from overstock.com!

I also received a couple of review copies of books, one of which is Immoveable Feast: A Paris Christmas. I think the gentleman who emailed me about this one read my mind: Christmas, cooking and Paris? What more could I want. Stay tuned, because there just might be a giveaway for this one.

Lots of books, and lots of blessings have filled my bookish and bloggish life this week, and I am grateful for that.

The 'Jects

In the late 1980's journalist Alex Kotlowitz researched one of the great stories of urban depression in our time. He befriended a family in Chicago's Henry Horner homes (HHH), the 'projects' or 'jects' as they were called. Along with other urban projects, the HHH were built in the late 1950s as a response to homelessness. They seemed nice when they were built but became run-down, gang and drug ridden, a neighborhood that police didn't even want to enter.

There Are No Children Here is the story of Lafeyette and Pharoah Rivers and their family, consisting of mother LaJoe, drug-abusing father Paul, their younger triplet siblings, their 3 older teen/adult siblings and a host of friends and family that pass through their first floor apartment of the HHH. Their apartment where the scalding hot water in the bathtub never turns off. Where there are no closet doors or proper beds. Where appliances break and never get fixed. Where they must run to the hallway to escape from gunfire. From where their mother looks for a job and cannot get hired. Where the only people that appear to be financially stable are involved with drugs and gangs.




This is the story of Lafeyette and Pharoah, boys of age 9 and 12, who are not, as the title suggests, children, for they have seen far too much to still have the minds and hearts of children. These boys see their own mortality at their young ages as they attend the funerals of young friends and neighbors. These boys have a bit of an escape in school, where Pharoah thrives, in a neighborhood that most people wouldn't drive though, their teachers leave valuables at home and hope for the best.

This is the story of life in the Chicago projects. It is not pretty. We do not want to believe that this goes on only blocks from where we live. We do not want to believe that children struggle so.

This is a difficult book to read, as my bookclub found when we discussed this book on Monday night. I veer from sadness to frustration to anger at this cycle that perpetuates itself. How badly these boys and their mother want to be 'normal' and live in a 'normal' home in a 'normal' neighborhood.

The fact that this book exists, that Kotlowitz got this story in the first place is truly amazing. The Henry Horner Homes are gone now, demolished along with other high rise projects. That does not make this story any less timely or important.


Above photo taken by Stephen Shames

GIVEAWAY - WHEN WILL THERE BE GOOD NEWS?

I am thrilled to be pairing up with Hachette Books again to give away THREE copies of Kate Atkinson's new book, When Will There be Good News? which is being officially released today.



I found this to be a fantastic read, and whether you've read Atkinson's work in the past or not, I know you're going to love this literary mystery.

The rules are simple. Just leave a comment on this post telling me what the best mystery/suspense book you've read so far in 2008 is. If you haven't read any, tell me something about yourself. There is one entry per person. You don't have to have a blog to enter, but please make sure I have a way to contact you if you've won. This giveaway is open to US and Canadian addresses only, sorry to those outside these areas. I will close the comments and draw the 3 winners on October 1. Good luck!