This book took me a long time to read, not because it dragged but because I needed to absorb every fascinating detail and digest the cruelty the human race is capable of inflicting. But still this was an immensely satisfying read. The research was excellent; the story of the rise and fall of one Jewish community beautifully written; the description of all the people the author meets on his quest so vivid and the education I received in what it means to be a Jew illuminating. Memoir and modern history all rolled into one marvellously readable book ( )

Finished it sometime before dawn (last night the 5th), followed directly after with the novel "The Reader" by Bernhard Schlink. Both of which I am still digesting along with "Everything will be illuminated" - Safran Foer. I need sleep before I can write anything more..


Konin Jews were very proud of their library and the subject comes up many times in survivors accounts. There's a quote by Paul Johnson in his History of the Jews; "Pious Jews saw heaven as a vast library, with an archangel as the librarian", and I like that idea. Theo Richmond adds to it, "Hell has a library too. Two days after the Jews of Vilna were driven into the ghetto, they opened a library".




Don't know why I bother with using the update thingy...useless for correcting typos. Obviously I meant Ukraine, not Unkraine.


18.dec 2010 = found again, back on the to-read list.

Currently have misplaced this book somewhere...;( haven't finished it yet.

shelving it till it's found again. ( )

An incredibly emotional journey of a man looking to find his Jewish roots. He travels back to a town whose Jewish population was practically wiped out by the Nazis. ( )

TBR