No comments about Daring Destiny.

No comments about Falling Leaves from the Family Tree.

No comments about Carolina Comfort.

No comments about Pollys Contraption.

No comments about Look After the Bairns: A Childhood in East Lothian.

4 comments about And God Was Our Witness.

1. Great read! Couldn't put it down until I finished. The author's personal experiences with family & first love,remind you of your own. Her uncanny ability to describe details that occurred more than 60 years ago will rivet you. A testament to the human spirit. Only 216 pages but packed with emotions we've all felt at one time or another. An excellent adventure from a first time author.



2. In this fascinating and revealing book of the memoirs of a young Polish girl during World War II, the author recounts the emotional, haunting and sometimes whimsically humorous events that took place during the three years she and her family were forced to work as slave laborers in Soviet Russia. With a charming "foreign" narrative she describes what it takes to survive and champions the spark inside all of us, when we ask ourselves, "how can I go on?" Read this and find the courage and lest we ever forget how man's inhumanity to man can surface at any moment --- you must read this book.



3. I allowed myself only 20 minutes of sleep during an overnight transatlantic flight because I didn't want to stop reading this fascinating book. This is an important, too-little-reported portion of the history of World War II, and the amazing details of this story never fail to evoke an emotional response.



4. And God Was Our Witness is the personal testimony of Alicja R. Edwards, a Polish woman who, along with her family, was forcibly taken from Poland and condemned to slave labor in 1940. Her story, and that of other Polish war victims, is recounted in vivid, candid, personal detail, shedding light on Russian atrocities, which in addition to those perpetrated by the Nazis, were to devastate the Polish people both during and after the turbulent years of World War II, and which must never be forgotten. And God Was Our Witness is a highly recommended contribution to the growing library of first person accounts and autobiographies documenting and detailing the atrocities committed upon the Polish population, especially those committed by the Russians and their supporters.

1 comments about HELL WAS EMPTY: A BIOGRAPHY FROM THE THIRD REICH.

1. Hell Was Empty: A Biography From The Third Reich by Dieter W. Gombert, AuthorHouse, 557p.
   
   In the opening pages of this book, Author's Reflections, Dieter Gombert states "much has been reported about the Holocaust and the incredible sufferings of the Jews, but they were not the only victims of the monstrous Nazi Regime. Many German gentiles, who were social Democrats, Communists, or plain dissenters, were tortured and murdered. Those perilous times brought out the best and the worst of human society." This is the only insight into the book's contents since there is no cover overview or description, nor is any provided by listings with book distributors. What follows is a story told by the author about his German father and Jewish mother and his own experiences. The beginning of the book covers father, Wilhelm Gombert, a recognized opera performer, who encounters problems because of his marital situation. Most of the book, however is mainly devoted to Dieter Gombert's personal experiences from 1933 until 1948. It is better classified as an autobiography rather than a biography. The book is well illustrated with pictures of family and friends, various residences of the family, and the personalities referenced in the book.
   
   Hell Was Empty is published in larger than average print size and the style is very informal. This may have been done to give the presentation a personalized feeling, but this reader felt as though he was reading a diary or informal ramblings. Unfortunately there are many spelling and typographical errors.
   
   Mr. Dieter is continually in search of himself, and, while he attempts many activities, his main objective seems to be a theatrical career with emphasis on acting, dancing and singing. This brings him into contact with a variety of people whom he always describes very clearly as to physical features and attire. He has very strong opinions about the people introduced and offers insights into their past activities, making future references to them when they are affected by the war. He is clearly a womanizer and describes many affairs during his discourse. At times his adventures almost sound like a travelogue with details of places visited on bike rides and other excursions. Life seems to go on despite the war and this appears to be his purpose in such descriptions. These scenarios are periodically interrupted with a statement or two about the political and war situation. These are situations that required additional comment, but are only addressed by personal wishes that Hitler would be ousted. It is clear this was not a national desire.
   
   The War is covered in more detail as the United States enters the conflict toward the latter part of the book. The effects of the bombings on civilians and the encounters in the bomb shelters as well as the devastation have a very emotional impact. His efforts to leave Germany and go to Sweden become the main theme of the book as he encounters the obstacles presented by Nazi officials and border crossings. He is continually at odds with the United States for not ending the war and offers some armchair advice for reaching that objective. He finally succeeds in reaching Sweden, where the family is eventually re-united. In 1948 he immigrated to the United States.
   
   Mr. Dieter has a story to tell. There are many apparent remembrances and dangers he experienced as a resident in Germany during World War II. He was not permitted to serve because he was not a pure Aryan and his Jewish status was a constant barrier to his activities. There are many materials available today on the subject of the Holocaust and those who opposed Hitler's regime, but the depth of such resistance is not presented in this book in a readable and convincing manner. Much of this has to do with the writing style and rambling of much of the text. There is also a failure to expand on discussions with family and friends without detail which would better help to understand conditions, in general and viewpoints in Germany at the time. .

2 comments about Today I Am a Boy.

1. This is one of those books that you could borrow from your library, or from a friend, but you will likely need to buy your own copy since there are so many passages that are either so wise, so funny, or so meaningfully touching that you will need to use your pencil in order to happily jot checkmarks, brackets, and asterisks throughout the book. I know that I did.

   David Hays has a surfeit of academic, personal, and professional accomplishments. In his sixties, he was semi-retired, kids grown, had good health and a happy family life. His mind is unquestioningly fertile (yet organized) and he seems to embrace new experiences. As a child he gazed into a mud bubble, and glimpsed eternity. As an adult he throws himself into the grass in his back yard, in order to look more closely at the earth. His life was full, and meaningful, but he does not brag, and he is likable from the outset.

   Rather than rest on his not inconsiderable laurels, he decides to become a Bar Mitzvah, joining a class of local eleven and twelve-year olds - in order to devote himself to study with his congregation's rabbi, Doug, for more than a year. It is this journey - and there is a steady unfolding, with no outburst of religiosity - that forms the starting point for this wonderful narrative.

   Hays has an ability to tell you a lot about himself by telling you about other people. He respects himself, and he respects others. He is never boring. His parents, in-laws, grown children, grandchildren, his wide circle of friends and acquaintances, and his classmates are interesting to him, and worthy of reportage. He lets you in on these people and their lives and their histories with unstinting (and never maudlin) respect, even awe. In doing this you find out a lot about Hays and his subjects. Their privacy is never violated, and their dignity is sustained.

   There is uncloying, laugh-out-loud humor throughout. Family lore emerges, and it is often funny. Hays delights in his wife Leonora's knack of elegantly summing up a situation with a trenchant malapropism. Of his new-found fervor for religious study, she says, "He hooked, line and sinker!" Of the Bahamas: "It's a third-war country." He also shares his family history, including a terrific (true) story, "How my family saved Israel." His feelings and observations as a sensitive member of his class (of the kids at recess he marvels, "They always know where to go.") - and his relationship with his wonderful rabbi - are a pleasure to watch unfold.

   Hays includes a piece on Anne Frank that is dramatic, thoughtful, and not at all funny. It is appropriately included, given that the concerns of an adult approaching his bar mitzvah are different from those of a child. And at one point, he attends a Harvard reunion - which maybe could have been left out of this book, with no loss of substance to this great story.

   In all, a wonderful book.




2. The topic of this book as stated is highly misleading. Yes, Mr. Hays traces some of his experiences on becoming a Bar Mitzvah at age 66. However, he digresses so much from this theme that it was downright annoying!

   I was really looking forward to reading about a 66-year-old man's journey into spirituality and rediscovery of Judaism, rather than a name-dropping autobiography.

   What little Mr. Hays did write about his spiritual journey back into Judaism was sparse, and even his way off-topic autobiographical sections didn't include much of his family's, friends',or peers' reactions to his becoming a Bar Mitzvah, which to me would have been very interesting.

   He also didn't talk much at all about contemporary Jewish renewal and problems of assimilation and how others might, as he did, find meaning in a religious path they've ignored or rejected.

   Why, instead, should I care that he went back for a school reunion and one of his class members won the Nobel Prize? Why should I have to wade through the life stories of some of his uninteresting relatives who are not even marginally part of his spiritual story?

   In this catch-all manuscript, Mr. Hays also tangentially subjects the reader to an entire fantasy theatrical piece he has imagined about a grown-up Anne Frank (for which I wouldn't buy a ticket, BTW).

   What we also get is too much information and commentary about the 12- and 13-year-olds in his class, including an inappropriate (IMO) dwelling on one of the pubescent girls about whom Mr. Hays admitted over and over he had major sexual fantasies.

4 comments about Lost and Found: A Daughter's Tale of Violence and Redemption.

1. This is a book I couldn't put down. Babette Hughes' story is tragic and devastating, yet redemptive and triumphant. The dichotomy of her relationship with her mother is eloquently depicted; I could just hear and feel her saying, "yes, I love her--no, I don't." It must have taken great courage to overcome her fear and then lay it open for all of us to share. It is the kind of life that should make all of our marginally disfunctional lives seem perfect in comparison. I'm recommending this book for my book group and anyone else I know who reads.



2. 
   The reconstruction of an evidently miserable childhood and equally miserable marriage results in a rather tedious memoir, Lost and Found: A Daughter's Tale of Violence and Redemption.
   
   Adding to the current spate of dysfunctional family tell-alls, Ms. Hughes weaves the story of her life to date by alternating imagination enhanced childhood scenes with psychiatric sessions.
   
   We learn that her father, Lou Rosen, a bootlegger was murdered by the Cleveland Mafia when the author was two. Her mother told her that he had died of pneumonia, but to Ms. Hughes's child's mind he had simply disappeared.
   
   A young widow, 27-years-of-age, her mother "has been a bootlegger's wife long enough to understand the code": no one will harm her if she does not speak. She retreats behind a wall of silence, emerging only in fits and starts - fits of uninhibited vituperation and starts of moving from job to job and apartment to apartment.
   
   A negligent mother at best, she had been so misused by her own mother that she had spent 12 years of her young life in an orphanage. For Ms. Hughes and her older brother Kenny home becomes a series of rooms where they subsisted on Chinese take-out in cardboard boxes and feared that their mother would suffer another asthma attack.
   
   Ms. Hughes pretty much went wherever she pleased and to school whenever she pleased before dropping out of high school to model in local department stores. Eventually she visits the public library and consults old newspapers where she learns the truth about her father's death.
   
   Kenny does not return home after college but for Ms. Hughes there is only one escape from her mother's diatribes and unrelenting possession - marriage. At the age of 18 she weds Nate, "a well known prosperous businessman, a catch.......Nate was Prince Charming in a red convertible come to save me."
   
   Despite a lavish home, servants, travel, a 55 foot yacht, and all the accouterment of wealth that Nate showers upon her, this is still not a Cinderella story. Ms. Hughes has no kind words for her husband, instead finding him boorish and cruel.
   
   Finally, she is driven to despair and begins the lengthy ritual of analysis. She seems to have had a love-hate relationship with her psychiatrist, Dr. Herman, yet credits him with helping her find the courage to continue her education and divorce Nate.
   
   She buys her doctor a gift, writing, "I wanted to give Dr. Herman something for helping me stop the steam roller that my father had started, my mother had fueled, and Nate had damn near driven over me."
   
   There's that "me" again which is what Lost and Found is all about. What about the three children she had? They do not even emerge as stick figures in this biography. Do they feel as neglected as she once did or did she reverse the family pattern and nurture them with maternal affection? We hope so.
   
   There are few insights to be gleaned from Ms. Hughes's story. Indeed, many may sympathize with the troubles she endured simply because of the family into which she was born. While others may echo what that famed psychiatrist Lucy once said, "Get over it!"
   
   - Gail Cooke



3. Hughes has written a compelling book that explores how family history influences us throughout our lives. In her book she not only tells the particular story of her own family, she evokes a time & place in this country when the sons & daughters of immigrants tried to find their place in America. The book tells a colorful story of a small time crook & dandy - one of the foot soldiers in the Cleveland bootlegging rackets. His violent life & death continues to affect the wife & 2 small children he left behind throughout their lives. Hughes manages to convey a child's sense of bewilderment as she tries to piece together just who this father was & what his legacy to her will be.

   The book is also the story of Hughes relationship with her mother, a difficult & complex woman who emotionally victimizes her young daughter throughout her childhood. How she is able to break the bonds that tie her to her mother & learns to live a productive & happy life is the real story of this memoir.

   This is an interesting read for anyone who's taken the journey through their own family history. Although it's filled with the pain of a lonely & emotionally abandoned child, the woman Hughes becomes is able to triumph in the end.




4. A very delicate story that comes from deep within. Well thought out, and very well written. Babette shares her life, which was a secret for a long time, with the readers. Not many of us can reveal these secrets with the world. After reading this book I was inspired to write my own memoir titled "The Sitting Swing" which will be published fall 2005. Lost and Found is a definate read for anyone that loves memiors like I do.

1 comments about Kinder Memories of World War II.

1. A nice quick walk down the lane of memories of someone who lived thru this era as a child. If you have ever been to the beautiful city of Heidelberg you will immedetialy relate to her writings. This book was obviously a gift to her children and grandchildren -- and all of us who are cousins in time with the author. We grew up on the other side of the pond at this same time.
   An enjoyable read, especially at holiday time.