Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

In this extraordinary novel, Stingo, an inexperienced twenty-two year old Southerner, takes us back to the summer of 1947 and a boarding house in a leafy Brooklyn suburb. There he meets Nathan, a fiery Jewish intellectual; and Sophie, a beautiful and fragile Polish Catholic. Stingo is drawn into the heart of their passionate and destructive relationship as witness, confidant and supplicant. Ultimately, he arrives... (more)

Gone to Soldiers

by Marge Piercy

In a stunning tour-de-force, Marge Piercy has woven a tapestry of World War II, of six women and four men, who fought and died, worked and worried, and moved through the dizzying days of the war. A compelling chronicle of humans in conflict with inhuman events, GONE TO SOLIDERS is an unforgettable reading experience and a stirring tribute to the remarkable survival of the human spirit. "Panoramic...This is a... (more)

A Bell for Adano

by John Hersey

An Italian-American major in World War II wins the love and admiration of the local townspeople when he searches for a replacement for the 700 year-old town bell that had been melted down for bullets by the fascists.

The Nazi Officer's Wife: How One Jewish Woman Survived the Holocaust

The Nazi Officer's Wife: How One Jewish Woman Survived the Holocaust

by Edith Hahn-Beer

Edith Hahn was a young law student in Vienna when Hitler absorbed Austria in 1938. Madly in love with a young man called Pepi who was half-Jewish, she was separated from him and sent to a forced labour camp. So began the extraordinary chain of events that led to her return to Vienna, her life as a 'hidden' Jew with an identity given to her by a German girlfriend, her marriage to a Nazi who knew she was Jewish and... (more)

On Hitler's Mountain: Overcoming the Legacy of a Nazi Childhood (P.S.)

On Hitler's Mountain: Overcoming the Legacy of a Nazi Childhood (P.S.)

by Irmgard A. Hunt

Growing up in the beautiful mountains of Berchtesgaden -- just steps from Adolf Hitler's alpine retreat -- Irmgard Hunt had a seemingly happy, simple childhood. In her powerful, illuminating, and sometimes frightening memoir, Hunt recounts a youth lived under an evil but persuasive leader. As she grew older, the harsh reality of war -- and a few brave adults who opposed the Nazi regime -- aroused in her skepticism... (more)

Those Who Save Us

by Jenna Blum

For fifty years, Anna Schlemmer has refused to talk about her life in Germany during World War II. Her daughter, Trudy, was only three when she and her mother were liberated by an American soldier and went to live with him in Minnesota. Trudy's sole evidence of the past is an old photograph: a family portrait showing Anna, Trudy, and a Nazi officer, the Obersturmfuhrer of Buchenwald. Driven by the guilt of her... (more)

Black Rain

by Masuji Ibuse

Black Rain is centered around the story of a young woman who was caught in the radioactive "black rain" that fell after the bombing of Hiroshima. lbuse bases his tale on real-life diaries and interviews with victims of the holocaust; the result is a book that is free from sentimentality yet manages to reveal the magnitude of the human suffering caused by the atom bomb. The life of Yasuko, on whom the black rain... (more)

A Blessing on the Moon

by Joseph Skibell

A fabulous tour de force in the tradition of Jerzy Kosinski's The Painted Bird and the work of Isaac Bashevis Singer, A Blessing on the Moon is by turns funny, touching, wise, and magical. The extraordinary novel tells of the after-death journey of Chaim Skibelski, a businessman who was shot and killed along with a group of other Jews from his small Polish town during the Holocaust. "A story that blends... (more)

The Holocaust Kid

by Sonia Pilcer

Wearing a tight black skirt, roach- killer boots, and teased hair, Zosha runs with her junior high school’s fast crowd, circa 1960. For Zosha, life is about fitting in, stepping out, making it with the handsome Puerto Rican boy in the local movie theater. But for Zosha’s parents, life is about how they survived when everyone around them died during the Holocaust. Now their daughter--born in a German DP camp and... (more)

Red Princess: A Revolutionary Life

by Sofka Zinovieff

The remarkable adventures of a Russian princess set against the tumult of the twentieth century. Born in 1907 in St. Petersburg, Princess Sophy "Sofka" Dolgorouky was born into a world of privilege and nobility—ten short years later, Sofka's world would crumble when the Tsar and his family were overthrown, exiled, and executed. Burning with shame, Sofka and her family fled to England and then to Paris,... (more)

Seal Woman

by Solveig Eggerz

Description: In the rubble of post-World War II Berlin, artist Charlotte flees her past and everything she's lost by responding to an ad calling for strong women who can cook and do farm work in Iceland. But painful memories and ghosts follow Charlotte as she struggles to make a new life in a raw and rugged landscape. This debut novel celebrates the twin powers of storytelling and art as ways to reassemble the... (more)

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Sophies Choice

by William Styron