The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson

Bill Bryson's memoir of growing up in 1950s Iowa. I have liked Bryson's writing for many years and have devoured most of his travel writing. He is always funny, candid, and incredibly observant and insightful. He seems to do a good deal to research his books as well. While this is a memoir, there is commentary on the 1950s as a whole particularly in the US. Bryson admits that he his childhood was not particularly unique or traumatic and yet, as I usually do, he takes simple subjects and revels in the day to day life of being a child in a relatively prosperous and peaceful time. I enjoyed this quick memoir even if I did not live in the 1950s, but there are many moments that remind me of childhood in general. He captures the idiosyncratic nature of the whole time of our lives with his usual writing of his memories. A nice, light read.

Crossposted from aquatique.net

Pyongyang by Guy Delisle

Pyongyang: A journey in North Korea is Guy Delisle (a Quebecois, now living in France) graphuc memoir of two months spent working in the North Korean capital for a French animation company outsourcing work to the North Koreans. It is a fascinating look at North Korea and its regime. While he is not in NK for very long, Delisle observes the expat community of NK, and the dictatorial regime's forceful propaganda machine. All foreigners seem to be kept in a very closed bubble constantly watched by their assigned guides. The author takes a copy of Orwell's 1984 and observes the parallel. It is apt because the regime seems to permeate in all aspects. It is the most closed country in the world, and it is rather frightening the extent in which the whole population seems to live in a bubble themselves. Without any outside media and severe limited ability to travel and educate themselves, many seem to genuinely believe the personal cult and god-like presence of the Kims even if one of them is dead. The cult of personality is rather creepy. Though there is little choice, but to pretend to believe because the dictatorship has some of the worse human rights violations globally. A lot of what the memoir describes is not creepy. Nothing can last forever, and the NK regime certainly won't. It will be interesting when that happens since the country is in a time warp. It's like how people go to Cuba and say it looks the 1950s, but North Korea and its population seem to be still in the 50s since they are limited in communications, food security, electricity, industrialisation and manufacturing. Since the culture is protected is by the government, art is monitored. This is especially significant in that all its neighbours are accelerating at a very fast rate in the globalisation. Having read on North Korea a bit from my studies, I would recommend further reading of the subject if you are intrigued after this short, but interesting read.

The Bone Woman by Clea Koff

Koff was a forensic anthropology grad student in the mid 1990s, and worked for the UN excavating mass graves in the Balkans and Rwanda. The Bone Woman is her memoir, and I really enjoyed it! Much less gore and science than you might expect, more personal stories. I wrote a longer review on my blog.

My Bridges of Hope

Bitton-Jackson, Livia. 1999. My Bridges of Hope.

My Bridges of Hope is the sequel to I Have Lived A Thousand Years. It is the middle book in a trilogy of the author's memoirs. (Though each book can and does stand alone just fine.) The book opens with Elli Friedmann and her mother and brother returning to their home town of Samorin after they were liberated by the Russian soldiers. Unlike some of the other returning Jews, they did find their home relatively intact. Stripped of furniture, yes, but still standing. The neighbors are shocked, extremely shocked to see them again. Shocked that they're living skeletons. But most of their closest neighbors are helpful. They give what they can, do what they can to make the Friedmann's home habitable again. This doesn't mean that every neighbor is this nice. And it doesn't mean that the family's possessions are returned from the neighbors who took them for safekeeping at the beginning of the war. But a few are ethical enough to return and restore.

"Out of Samorin's more than five hundred Jewis citizens, only thirty-six returned, mostly young men and women. Those who did not--our children, parents, grandparents, siblings, husbands, wives, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, and lovers--have been replaced by an abyss." (18)

Imagine that if you will. Really think about it. My Bridges of Hope tells the stories of those in between years. Those years between 1945 and 1951 when Elli was growing up in such a strange and foreign environment. It looked a bit like her old home, her old town. But so many people missing, so many new people in their place, so many strangers--the Russians, the Communists coming to town and taking over. Nothing is ever the same, nothing could ever be the same.

In these years, Elli dreams of going to Israel. At the beginning of the book, it isn't even a state or nation yet. But the dreams, the Zionist dreams, are there both in Elli and in her friends. But it is decided that America will be their destination, if they can get in.

These are years of waiting and years of growing. A turbulent time of changing for Elli as she matures from a fourteen year old girl into a young woman of nineteen or twenty. The book records her hopes, her dreams, her loves, her losses, her disappointments.

The Cage

Sender, Ruth Minsky. 1986. The Cage.

The Cage by Ruth Minsky Sender is one of the most outstanding Holocaust memoirs I've ever read. The narrative is told loosely through a framework. That is in the first chapter, Ruth Minsky Sender begins her narrative by setting it in the present day (or what would have been the present day when it was being written). She frames her story around questions her children asked about why they had no grandparents, no cousins, no extended family, etc. This, I believe, is quite effective in drawing you into the story. Of making you see the big picture.

Nancy looks at me, bewildered. "Why did they let them do it? Why didn't people stop them?"
Why did they let them do it? Why did they let them do it? It echoes in my ears. Many voices ring in my ears. Voices I have heard before. They are all calling, Why? Why? Why did they let them do it?
I hear Mama's voice, filled with hope. A world full of people will not be silent. We will not perish in vain. She was so sure. But she perished, and the world was silent.
Tears fall down my face. Nancy's soft hands wipe them away. "But, Mommy, it could not happen here. Our neighbors, our friends, they would help."
Suddenly it is 1939 again. (4)

In simple but haunting prose, the narrative tells the story of one girl's survival. Riva, our narrator, is a child-soon-to-be-a-woman growing up in Lodz, Poland. Her world changes, her future changes when the Nazis invade Poland. Friends? Neighbors? Vanish overnight it seems. You see, it's not safe to be 'Polish' anymore...better to be German. To blend in with the oppressors. To take up their mantras. To join with them side by side. To pursue the destruction of the Jewish race. There is no one to stand up for the Polish Jews. (Or should I say there are few if any that are willing to make such a stand.) The story of Riva and her family--her mother, her brothers, her sisters, is powerful.

Riva finds her strength in poetry. You might could even say that poetry saves her life in more ways than one. This is her story.

Camp Mittelsteine, Germany
September 23, 1944
Riva Minska, Number 55082.

When my tormented heart can't take any more
The grief within rips it apart;
My tears flow freely--they can't be restrained
I reach for my notebook--my friend.
I speak to my friend of my sorrow
I share my anger, my pain.
I speak to my friend of tomorrow
Of a future we'll build once again!
The pillars I build for the future to come,
I knock down and build once again.
I share all my dreams, share my hopes with my friend
Share the pain that is filling my heart. (178)

First sentence: Warm rays of sunshine fill the house, mixed with the sweet smell of lilac in full bloom.
Last sentence: As long as there is life, there is hope.
245 pages

Brainiac - Ken Jennings

What do Ken Jennings and the Energizer Bunny have in common? For a few months back in 2004, Ken kept going and going and going, winning over 70 games on Jeopardy! and smashing earnings records. Brainiac is not just about his long hot streak on the show, but about his early love for trivia, and how trivia slowly grew into a passion for many in America during the 20th and 21st centuries.

Among other things, Ken interviews the author of several 1970s trivia books; talks to A.J. Jacobs, the author of The Know-It-All; explores how TV quiz shows were popular in the early days of television, lost their credibility due to scandal, slowly regained respect and attained new heights when "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?" hit the airwaves; travels incognito to check out the pub trivia scene and, with a fellow Quiz Bowl alum and buddy, attends an annual 54-hour tournament in a small town in Wisconsin that grips townspeople both young and old with trivia fever that often spills over into obsession.

Jennings is a breezy, entertaining writer and displays the winning charm, modesty and wit we all came to know while he was the reigning Jeopardy! champion. As a bonus, he embeds trivia questions into the narrative and gives the answers at the end of each chapter. If you're tired of seeing a lot of ME in the MEmoirs you've read so far, Ken Jennings' Brainiac is a refreshing change. Ken realizes that he's just another fun tidbit of trivial knowledge.

I Will Plant You A Lilac Tree

Hillman, Laura. 2005. I Will Plant You A Lilac Tree.

"We are going to Brunnlitz, to Oskar Schindler's camp!" I recall the shouts of joy that filled the barrack at Plaszow. But the terrible place where I now stand is not that hoped-for refuge. It is Auschwitz. (1)

I Will Plant You A Lilac Tree is a memoir of one of the women saved by Oskar Schindler. Hannelore Wolff. Except for the two-page prologue, the book is a chronological account of Hannelore's life in Nazi Germany. The book opens with her attending a Jewish boarding school in Berlin. Since Hitler had come to power, it was dangerous for Jews to walk on public streets. In spite of the risk we walked along a tree-lined avenue in a suburb of Berlin, the ever-present yellow Stars of David sewn to our jackets. (3) One day she receives a letter from her mother with the news that her father has been taken by the Nazis and has died. Weeks later she receives another letter. A letter saying that her mother and two brothers will be deported to the East on May 8, 1942. In what could only be perceived as foolish-yet-brave behavior, Hannelore writes a letter to the Nazis saying that she wishes to be deported along with her family. They grant it. Now this family of four is facing the great unknown as they board a train that could lead them--probably will lead them--to their deaths.

Hannelore's story isn't always easy to read. Let's see if I can phrase this better. Those readers who aren't well-versed in Holocaust memoirs may find it difficult to read. The way the Jews are treated is despicable. It is callous. Hannelore's story is an account of some of the wrongs she faced, some of the wrongs she witnessed. But it is also a story of courage, of hope, of strength in a time of great despair. While sometimes surviving was a matter of luck--of chance--part of it had to do with will as well. Those that lost the will to live, those that gave up hope, those that gave in to despair... Starvation. Disease. Nazis. The Nazis were responsible either directly or indirectly for so many deaths. Hannelore's story of how she survived the various camps and came to be one of the lucky few saved by Schindler is amazing and fascinating and in places quite heartbreaking.

But this memoir isn't just a testament of survival, and it isn't just an account of the wrongs against the Jewish people. It is a love story as well, a story of how love can be found even in the darkest places, the most despairing times. A story of how one young man and one young woman found hope and love in each other. A story of how that love helped them endure.

I definitely recommend this one.

243 pages.

Angela's Ashes - Frank McCourt

Angela's Ashes - Frank McCourt
460 pages
3/5

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I picked this book up probably almost 10 years ago (when the movie was being released) and have tried to read it two or three times in that span. According to my dog-eared page, my last attempt took me to page 60. I don’t remember exactly why I gave up on the book, but probably because I thought it was incredibly boring. :) I was determined to get this book off my TBR shelf once and for all—and I did!!

Angela’s Ashes is Frank McCourt’s memoir of his coming of age. His memoir begins when he is a small child growing up in New York; his family keeps growing in number despite their extreme poverty, and eventually his aunt’s pay for their way back to Ireland to live. The McCourt’s situation continues on a desperate path in Ireland as his father, Malachy, finds it difficult to keep a job and when he does have a job, he drinks his paycheck before his family can see a dime (or shilling?? I am a little fuzzy on my foreign currency in the early 1930s-40s). Frank must endure daily ridicule from his classmates, members of the Catholic church, and others in general as he tries to make sense of his life and make the most of the little he has been given.

The book outlines Frank’s desire to become a man and be able to do the things that adults do—such as drink the pint, earn a living and his way to America, and do other things that I don’t need to mention. Angela’s Ashes is written from Frank’s point of view at the various stages of his life—so the narrative becomes much more detailed the older Frank is. While this type of narration was difficult at the beginning of the book when Frank is a small child (and also a great part of why I dislike James Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist…), Frank’s perspective became one of the things that I enjoyed most about the book. Sometimes it was funny to see Frank trying to make sense out of his life and some of the “rules” that he had to endure, but at other times it is heartbreaking as Frank doesn’t really quite understand what is happening to his family as they continue to struggle to survive.