Community Corner

Off the Shelf at the Swampscott Library

The popularity of these books about survival during World War II grew through word of mouth as opposed to hype.

Editor's Note: We moved our regular Off the Shelf feature from the to Sunday for this week only. Next week the column will return to its regular day, Wednesday.

Every once and a while a book seems to grow in popularity not because of excellent reviews, despite the fact that each of these books did receive them, but because of word of mouth. 

All of us want to hear about a great book and when we do we are desperate to read it.  One such book that was published in 2004 was Those Who Saved Us by Jenna Blum. This book became a very hot book at the library despite the fact that it wasn’t an Oprah book.

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At that time everyone only wanted to read what Oprah told them yet, many of our patrons became convinced to read Blum’s book because of the recommendation of a friend. People who read the book enjoyed it and felt committed to telling others about it.

It became a very popular book group book. When a book makes it to the book group scene, you know that it is a hit.  Those Who Saved Us is another holocaust book but with a twist.

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The narrative alternates between the present-day story of Trudy, a history professor at a Minneapolis university collecting oral histories of WWII survivors (both German and Jewish), and that of her aged but once beautiful German mother, Anna, who left her country when she married an American soldier.  Anna's story flashes back to her hometown of Weimar and her love affair with a Jewish doctor, Max Stern. When Max is interned at nearby Buchenwald, Anna, carrying Max's child, goes to live with a baker and helps him smuggle bread to prisoners at the camp. Anna continues to assist the baker until he is caught and executed.

Then Anna catches the eye of the Obersturmführer, a high-ranking Nazi officer at Buchenwald, who suspects her of also supplying the inmates with bread. He coerces her into a torrid, abusive affair, in which she remains complicit to ensure her survival and that of her baby daughter.

Ultimately, present and past overlap with a shocking yet believable coincidence           

We have another such book going off of our shelves now. It is the first novel by short story writer Julie Orringer entitled The Invisible Bridge.  Coincidentally this books takes place during World War II, but in Paris in 1937. Andras Lévi, a Hungarian-Jewish architecture student, arrives from Budapest with a mysterious letter he promised to deliver.

But when he falls into a complicated relationship with the letter's recipient, he becomes privy to a secret that will alter the course of his—and his family’s—history.

Meanwhile, as his elder brother takes up medical studies in Modena and their younger brother leaves school for the stage, Europe begins to unravel caught up in a war.

From the small Hungarian town of Konyar, to the grand opera houses of Budapest and Paris, to an unimaginable life in forced labor camps, The Invisible Bridge tells the story of brotherly love tested by disaster.

We see just how strong the bonds of love can be and of the dangerous power of art in a time of war.

Check out one of these books if you are looking for a good read when you come into the Swampscott Public Library.

 


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