Now a bookring:

1. tamarabk -- WA
2. branna -- Calgary, Alberta
3. carin626 -- PA
4. jessbess13 -- PA
5. bug007 -- MN
6. squirrel818 -- MN
7. iacby -- AZ
8. cobaltcat -- CA
9. palmerspal -- CA
10. back to me, quinnsmom -- CA

I just received this in the mail and I am very excited to read it and pass it on to the next person on the list. I am reading American Gods by Neil Gaiman now but I will start this one as soon as I am done.

I am glad I had the chance to read Wladslaw Szpilman's memoir. Perhaps the most striking thing to me about this book is the matter of fact narrative. Szpilman relates his story as though in a state of shock, recounting the amazing details of his survival in an almost emotionless prose. There is no indication in this book that he realizes how extrodinary his tale is. He has simply written down the facts for anyone who cares to read them.
This is an amazing story of survival. Included at the end of the book are excerpts from the diary of Captain Wilm Hosenfeld, the german who finds Szpilman in hiding toward the end of the war and brings him food on several occasions.
By contrast Hosenfeld's diaries are passionate examinations of the soul of a nation. He is so clearly tortured by the horrors that are unfolding around him that it is easy to see why in finding Szpilman he decided to help, even though he must have surely known he was placing his own life in jeopardy.
Thanks for including me in this bookring, quinnsmom, I will mail the book today to branna.