Teddy Rose Book Reviews Plus More


Book Description:


“The camp at Auschwitz took one year of my life, and of my own free will I gave it another four.”

So begins The Thief of Auschwitz, the much-anticipated new novel from Jon Clinch, award-winning author of Finn and Kings of the Earth.

In The Thief of Auschwitz, Clinch steps for the first time beyond the deeply American roots of his earlier books to explore one of the darkest moments in mankind’s history—and to do so with the sympathy, vision, and heart that are the hallmarks of his work.

Told in two intertwining narratives, The Thief of Auschwitz takes readers on a dual journey: one into the death camp at Auschwitz with Jacob, Eidel, Max, and Lydia Rosen; the other into the heart of Max himself, now an aged but extremely vital—and outspoken—survivor. Max is a renowned painter, and he’s about to be honored with a retrospective at the National Gallery in Washington. The truth, though, is that he’s been keeping a crucial secret from the art world—indeed from the world at large, and perhaps even from himself—all his life long.

The Thief of Auschwitz reveals that secret, along with others that lie in the heart of a family that’s called upon to endure—together and separately—the unendurable.


My Review:


I have read quite a few WWII books including concentration camps.  I can’t seem to get enough of them.  I know it happened but I find it hard to accept how our fellow human beings have been treated and in some places still treated.  So, when I was offered this book for review, I couldn’t resist.


Jon Clinch has written about life in Auschwitz, with a bit of a twist.  Max is only 14 years old when his entire family is sent to Auschwitz.  Luckily he looks older for his age so his father, Jacob tells him to say he is 18.  The two are sent to the same quarters.  Meanwhile, Max’s sister, Lydial is taken from their mother Eidel and sent to her death.  
Too young to be of any use.

Told in alternative perspectives, we find out that Eidel is a painter and a portrait of  Eidel is in a nearby antique shop.  Jakob finds a way to buy some time for the 3 of them, at least he can try to figure out how to get Max out of there and save his sister’s portrait.


I loved this book and didn’t want it to end.  The writing is fresh and the characters well thought out.  I felt like I was there with them.  I am amazed at how Clinch imagined situations and character unique to all the other book. I have read on the subject.  Seriously a breath of fresh air!


I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves a well written book, great characters, and WWII fiction!


5/5


About Jon Clinch:


Born and raised in the remote heart of upstate New York, Jon Clinch has been an English teacher, a metalworker, a folksinger, an illustrator, a typeface designer, a housepainter, a copywriter, and an advertising executive.

His new novel, The Thief of Auschwitz, is due on January 15, 2013 on his own imprint, unmediated ink.Howard Frank Mosher, author of Walking to Gatlinburg, calls the book “the best and most powerful work of fiction ever written about the Holocaust.”

Clinch’s first novel, Finn—the secret history of Huckleberry Finn’s father—was named an American Library Association Notable Book and was chosen as one of the year’s best books by the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, and the Christian Science Monitor. It won the Philadelphia Athenaeum Literary Award and was shortlisted for the Sargent First Novel Prize.

His second novel, Kings of the Earth—a powerful tale of life, death, and family in rural America, based on a true story—was named a best book of the year by the Washington Post and led the 2010 Summer Reading List at O, The Oprah Magazine.

Clinch has lectured and taught widely, in settings as varied as the National Council of Teachers of English, Williams College, the Mark Twain House and Museum, and Pennsylvania State University. In 2008 he organized a benefit reading for the financially-ailing Twain House—enlisting such authors as Tom Perrotta, Stewart O’Nan, and Robert Hicks—an event that literally saved the house from bankruptcy. A native of upstate New York, Jon lives with his wife in the Green Mountains of Vermont. They have one daughter.


Thanks to Kelley & Hall Book Publicity, I am giving away one print copy of The Thief of Auschwitz. Sorry, this giveaway is open to the U.S. only and ends on January 29, 2013.  Please use Rafflecopter to enter.

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Copyright 2007-2010: All the posts within this blog were originally posted by Teddy Rose and should not be reproduced without express written permission.

I LOVED Peter Geye’s first novel, Safe From the Sea, that I jumped at the chance to read his second novel!


Lighthouse Road moves back and forth between two different time periods, 1890’s and 1920’s.  In the 1890s, young Thea Eide, is sent on a voyage from Norway to Lake Superior, Minnesota.  She is to meet up with her uncle but finds out he has turned mad and it wouldn’t be safe for her to go to him.  With the help of one of the big men in town, Hosea Grimm , Thea lands a job as cook at a logging village. 


Soon, she finds herself pregnant and she has her son, Odd.  However, she dies soon after giving birth. Hosea Grimm takes over  custody of Odd and raises him, like a son.  He also has a “daughter”  Rebekah, who has her own very odd story.  As these four characters intertwine and tell their story, it becomes that nothing in this tangled story is as it seems.  There are many secrets and Hosea is at the center of all of them.


I am not going to go into much detail here at the risk of giving out spoilers.  Lighthouse Road is very different than Safe From the Sea.  Sure, it centers around character relationships and has great character development but that is where the similarities end.  The writing is colder in a way, as cold as the landscape described, yet still brilliant. 
Brilliantly different than anything I have ever read before. 


My recommendation:  If you want to read a Peter Geye novel, I suggest you start with Safe From the Sea.  It is written more like a typical well written novel and you most likely fall in love with Peter Geye and want to read more.  Lighthouse Road is definitely a more challenging novel so I recommend you read it next.  I cannot recommend both novels high enough and can hardly wait to see what Peter Geye has in store for us next!


4.5/5

Thanks to Caitlin Hamilton Summie of Unbridled Books, I am giving away one copy of Lighthouse Road.  This giveaway is open to the U. S. and Canada and ends on October 30, 2012.  Please use Rafflecopter to enter.

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Copyright 2007-2010: All the posts within this blog were originally posted by Teddy Rose and should not be reproduced without express written permission.

Set in depression era, Key West Florida, Mariella Bennet has even rougher than most.  She is only 18 years old and her fisherman, father recently died, leave her mother, two younger sisters and herself.  Her mother, still greiving is unable to care for the family, she just sits in her chair day after day smoking.  It is up to Mariella to care for and feed the family.


At first she was taking odd jobs on the docks and some of the fishermen who knew her father would give her a fish to feed the family.  However, her luck changed when she went to a boxing match at the area bar, Slopy Joes, dressed as a boy.  That was when she first met Ernest Hemingway.


He told her that he always wanted a daughter and that she should call him Papa.  They started going out together, he at 35 years of age but she also meets one of the boxers, Gavin from that night’s match.  Will she end up with either of them?


Finally, Mariella gets up the nerve to ask Hemingway for a job and starts working at his family estate.  His wife, Pauline isn’t too happy about it because she know her husband has his sights on Mariella.  However, now Mariella is bringing home pay every week and can better care for the family.


Full with a cast of both regular and eccentic charicters Erika Robuck makes use of a hurricane to build tensions in this book.  She examines Hemingway, the man in his habitat and shows though he did appear larger than life, he was just a man.  With warts and all.


I really enjoyed this book for the laid back summer read it was and warmed up to it more and more as I read more.  The story was written is an easy to read style.  I would have like the author to delve a bit deeper but like I said, I still enjoyed it.


3.5/5


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I received a copy of this book for my honest review.
Thanks to Heidi Richter Senior Publicist at Penguin Group ( USA), Inc., I am giving away one copy of Hemingway’s Daughter.  This giveaway is open to Canada and the U.S. and ends on October 11, 2012.  Please use Rafflecopter to enter.

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Copyright 2007-2010: All the posts within this blog were originally posted by Teddy Rose and should not be reproduced without express written permission.