Welcome to Litsy!

This was interesting. British Colonel and his wife in post WW2 Hamburg. Lewis - strongly of the view that reconstitution is going to need kindness more than strong arms agreed to share his requisitioned home with its owners a widower and his angry 15 year old daughter. The set up was fascinating and I appreciated the colour of both Hamburg and the period but found the characters quite flat. There were other perspectives I would have liked to see

This book is part author‘s memoir,intermingled with discussions & interviews with her grandmother,Helga, archival material from Nazi &Jewish organizations,family mementos,letters,files,& journals her father kept.She writes,”For…Helga, remembering has become a sport– race against oblivion”(21).The author‘s great grandparents & one son perished in a concentration camp.The other son Hans,hides in plain site with his later adopted grandfather,Pepi.⬇️

#5joysfriday

1) Finally won a Table Topics at Toastmasters.
2) reading at the pool.
3-5) Day trip to Santa Barbara—gardens & library. At the library, I saw my favorite childhood book sitting on the shelf. :)

I created a special cubby on my bookshelf filled with some of my nephew‘s books. Some were in his backpack when he died, others were ones we had bought together or I had gifted him. The framed item is his Ex Libris stamp. The flowers from one of the funeral bouquets we were sent. It‘s a sweet way to be reminded of him every day since we connected so deeply over what we were reading.

I might have this one, but I like this cover. 😍 Did a swap 🥰

5✨ I absolutely love Hannah‘s storytelling, and this is only the second book I‘ve read! This historical fiction gutted me with the raw emotion based on true events happening in WW2 in France. It followed two sisters and their fight to do the right thing when war caused the horrible events that occurred. While one sister helped soldiers, the other helped her Jewish friends. It provided different perspectives that would have been seen by the women.

Fantastic book! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Starting this before dinner. Have had this on my shelf several years. “
“Why would you return to a city that tried to murder you?” ( cover,Kirkus Review).Anna, the author of this book,is the granddaughter of two Jewish doctors who came to the U.S in the early 1950s. Her grandfather lost his entire family in a concentration camp,while her grandmother was a concentration camp survivor. #porchlife

#preorderbookclubchallenge
This engaging dual time line story(1943/1953)kept me riveted throughout.It‘s fast-paced,a tale of love, survival, & the challenges of war. Two woman are the protagonists, Helene is a POW living and working in the Levitan,a department store in occupied Paris. Her job is to sort confiscated Jewish goods for resale to Nazi officers.Louise, once a Red Cross volunteer who delivered packages to POWs during WWII,is now a ⬇️