The History of Love
4 journalers for this copy...
Heather made me buy this one :) I had fun spending a gift certificate from a very nice man to get it!
And I'm charmed by the dedication page. It says:
For My Grandparents,
who taught me the opposite of disappearing
And I'm charmed by the dedication page. It says:
who taught me the opposite of disappearing
So . . .as part of the BookCrossing volunteer team, I sometimes get horrible assignments. Like this one, for example. I was forced to read this book. This delightful, interesting, intriguing book :) Yes, the team at large was asked if any of us could read it, to see if there was any way to do a tie-in with the BookCrossing concept.
Well . . . I laughed because my first thought was what the title of the article would be: "If only it had had a BCID!"
Anyway, this was a very unique Holocaust survivor story. It's a book-within-a-book, where there is a manuscript sent from Poland to New York via a boyfriend's letters to his girlfriend and a book found in a second-hand bookstore by a young man in love.
This is written from two very unique points of view, sort of in the form of journal entries. One of the speakers is an old gentleman, Leo Gursky. The other is 14-year old Alma Singer.
The writing in this book is just beautiful. Here is an example that charmed me: Once upon a time there was a boy who loved a girl, and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering. I had another spot marked, but my grandmother lost my place when she picked up the book on a recent visit, and after reading the first 30 pages, almost refused to return it to me! Fortunately, I found another copy, which I'll take when I have lunch with her on Sunday :)
I can't say much more about the book as I don't want to give spoilers, but I really liked this. If I didn't have so many other books on my TBR, I'd re-read it :)
It's a cliche, but some books actually do do this: I laughed, I cried, and my heart was touched.
Well . . . I laughed because my first thought was what the title of the article would be: "If only it had had a BCID!"
Anyway, this was a very unique Holocaust survivor story. It's a book-within-a-book, where there is a manuscript sent from Poland to New York via a boyfriend's letters to his girlfriend and a book found in a second-hand bookstore by a young man in love.
This is written from two very unique points of view, sort of in the form of journal entries. One of the speakers is an old gentleman, Leo Gursky. The other is 14-year old Alma Singer.
The writing in this book is just beautiful. Here is an example that charmed me: Once upon a time there was a boy who loved a girl, and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering. I had another spot marked, but my grandmother lost my place when she picked up the book on a recent visit, and after reading the first 30 pages, almost refused to return it to me! Fortunately, I found another copy, which I'll take when I have lunch with her on Sunday :)
I can't say much more about the book as I don't want to give spoilers, but I really liked this. If I didn't have so many other books on my TBR, I'd re-read it :)
It's a cliche, but some books actually do do this: I laughed, I cried, and my heart was touched.
Sending to Ethel and Bumma, who I think will like it too :)If there's anyone else on the Support Team who wants to read it after you're done, please share with them. Otherwise, do with it what you will!
(pictured is my own favorite immigrant, my dad, sometime around 1991-1992, with his first grandchild.)
Ooooohhhh! I 'd forgotten this was a-comin'! What a treat to look forward to! Bumma has pronounced it an "interesting title". I know what that means, and have scuttled the book away in a safe spot until I can read it. Then, I'll pass it on to her!
A daughter's work is never done.....
Thanks Lucy!
A daughter's work is never done.....
Thanks Lucy!
Once upon a time, there was a book, about a book, about a girl. And yet.
What a book! I tried to write about it, but found myslef in a poor echo of the B&N review, which I shall place below. The writing in this book is fabulous. Smidgeons and phrases resonate with a fullness that is astonishing. Several tales wrapped up in one, interweaving and yet independent. The depth and glory of first love, the rememberances of an old man, who has survived things that never should have been, the struggles of being a child...
I can think of about a half dozen folks to recommend this to, and that's before even drawing a breath.
Thank you ant for sending it. Do you think I liked it? I read it in a day!
The Barnes & Noble Review from Discover Great New Writers
"Once upon a time a man who had become invisible arrived in America." An unlikely and unforgettable hero, Leo Gursky is a survivor -- of war, of love, and of loneliness. A retired locksmith, Leo does his best to get by. He measures the passage of days by the nightly arrival of the delivery boy from the Chinese restaurant and has arranged a code with his upstairs neighbor: Three taps on the radiator means, "ARE YOU ALIVE?, two means YES, one NO." But it wasn't always so. Sixty years earlier, before he fled Poland for New York, Leo met a girl named Alma and fell in love. He wrote a book and named the character in it after his beloved. Years passed, lives changed, and unbeknownst to Leo, the book survived. And it provides Leo -- in the eighth decade of his life -- with a link to the son he's never known.
How this long-lost book makes an extraordinary reappearance and connects the lives of disparate characters is only one of the small miracles The History of Love offers its readers. Rich, inventive, and continually surprising, this is a novel about lost love, found love, and rediscovered love; it is about where we find love when it seems all too elusive and what happens when we do. In short, it is a triumph. (Summer 2005 Selection)
What a book! I tried to write about it, but found myslef in a poor echo of the B&N review, which I shall place below. The writing in this book is fabulous. Smidgeons and phrases resonate with a fullness that is astonishing. Several tales wrapped up in one, interweaving and yet independent. The depth and glory of first love, the rememberances of an old man, who has survived things that never should have been, the struggles of being a child...
I can think of about a half dozen folks to recommend this to, and that's before even drawing a breath.
Thank you ant for sending it. Do you think I liked it? I read it in a day!
The Barnes & Noble Review from Discover Great New Writers
"Once upon a time a man who had become invisible arrived in America." An unlikely and unforgettable hero, Leo Gursky is a survivor -- of war, of love, and of loneliness. A retired locksmith, Leo does his best to get by. He measures the passage of days by the nightly arrival of the delivery boy from the Chinese restaurant and has arranged a code with his upstairs neighbor: Three taps on the radiator means, "ARE YOU ALIVE?, two means YES, one NO." But it wasn't always so. Sixty years earlier, before he fled Poland for New York, Leo met a girl named Alma and fell in love. He wrote a book and named the character in it after his beloved. Years passed, lives changed, and unbeknownst to Leo, the book survived. And it provides Leo -- in the eighth decade of his life -- with a link to the son he's never known.
How this long-lost book makes an extraordinary reappearance and connects the lives of disparate characters is only one of the small miracles The History of Love offers its readers. Rich, inventive, and continually surprising, this is a novel about lost love, found love, and rediscovered love; it is about where we find love when it seems all too elusive and what happens when we do. In short, it is a triumph. (Summer 2005 Selection)
So moving, so poignant,so beautifully written and so strange.
This book has been given to TheSIL, who is sending it on with some other books to her home in India, to await her return there. She's new to BookCrossing and will journal on it eventually, as well as read it and pass it on /release it. Wish I could travel with the book!
I only rated this book a 9 instead of a 10 because it doesn't go on forever. It was one of those very rare reading experiences that truly opens your mind. I can't say how many times I thought, "I never imagined you could write THAT..." It kept on giving my imagination new space to soar around in. It delighted me, it moved me, it interested me and pained me, but most wonderful of all, I kept feeling, this is about something Real. It had that most rare and captivating quality of being a book that mattered. I remember finishing a Japanese book once (Musashi) and thinking, "That wasn't a book; that was an experience." I felt the same about this book. And whatever you go through with Leo and Alma and Zvi and Bird, the author doesn't let you down in the end.
It also makes me look at frumpy old men in a whole new way. For a moment, it made me look at PEOPLE in a whole new way. Now that's a great book, in my book. Thank you Bumma and Bookczuk for this irreplacable present: a book to savor and then to read again and maybe even again. Plus for all those sentences to die for!!!! "There's even a moment when it becomes exhilarating to realize just how little needs to stay the same for you to continue the effort they call, for lack of a better word, being human."
It also makes me look at frumpy old men in a whole new way. For a moment, it made me look at PEOPLE in a whole new way. Now that's a great book, in my book. Thank you Bumma and Bookczuk for this irreplacable present: a book to savor and then to read again and maybe even again. Plus for all those sentences to die for!!!! "There's even a moment when it becomes exhilarating to realize just how little needs to stay the same for you to continue the effort they call, for lack of a better word, being human."
