The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

“A small but noteworthy note. I've seen so many young men over the years who think they're running at other young men. They are not. They are running at me.”~ Death

 

From the Publisher

It’s just a small story really, about among other things: a girl, some words, an accordionist, some fanatical Germans, a Jewish fist-fighter, and quite a lot of thievery. . . .

Set during World War II in Germany, Markus Zusak’s groundbreaking new novel is the story of Liesel Meminger, a foster girl living outside of Munich. Liesel scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can’t resist–books. With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, she learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement before he is marched to Dachau.

This is an unforgettable story about the ability of books to feed the soul. ~randomhouse

At home in Sydney, Australia, a few years ago Markus Zusak had a hard time believing anyone would read his forthcoming novel, “The Book Thief.”  

“I always imagined people trying to recommend it and being asked what it’s about and saying: ‘It’s set in Nazi Germany. It’s narrated by Death. It’s 560 pages long. You’ll love it,’ ” he said.

Mr. Zusak got it wrong. In the six years since Knopf published “The Book Thief” it has sold over 2.5 million copies in the United States alone, and has yet to leave The New York Times’s best-seller list. The paperback is on its 36th printing, and the hardcover has had 30. It’s the rare young-adult title, not part of a series, that appeals to both children and adults, male and female.~nytimes

Interview with Markus Zusak

Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese

“I will not cut for stone,” runs the text of the Hippocratic oath, “even for patients in whom the disease is manifest; I will leave this operation to be performed by practitioners, specialists in this art.”

Marion and Shiva Stone are twin brothers born of a secret union between a beautiful Indian nun and a brash British surgeon. Orphaned by their mother’s death and their father’s disappearance, bound together by a preternatural connection and a shared fascination with medicine, the twins come of age as Ethiopia hovers on the brink of revolution.

Moving from Addis Ababa to New York City and back again, Cutting for Stone is an unforgettable story of love and betrayal, medicine and ordinary miracles—and two brothers whose fates are forever intertwined.  ~review by random house

Interview with Abraham Verghese

Academy Award-winning director Susanne Beir has signed on to direct a film adaptation of Indian American author Abraham Verghese’s “Cutting for Stone,” reports Variety. Scott Teems (“That Evening Sun”) will pen the screenplay to “Cutting for Stone.” The film will be shot in Africa and the United States. ~indiawest

Quotes from Cutting for Stone

• “Life is full of signs. The trick is to know how to read them."
• “Life too is like that. You live it forward, but understand it backward.”
• “Wasn't that the definition of home? Not where you are from, but where you are wanted”
• “We are all fixing what is broken. It is the task of a lifetime. We'll leave much unfinished for the next generation.”
• “Life for the Italians was what it was, no more and no less, an interlude between meals”
• “Tell us please, what treatment in an emergency is administered by ear?"....I met his gaze and I did not blink. "Words of comfort.”

A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin

Editorial Review

Long ago, in a time forgotten, a preternatural event threw the seasons out of balance. In a land where summers can last decades and winters a lifetime, trouble is brewing. The cold is returning, and in the frozen wastes to the north of Winterfell, sinister and supernatural forces are massing beyond the kingdom's protective Wall. At the center of the conflict lie the Starks of Winterfell, a family as harsh and unyielding as the land they were born to. Sweeping from a land of brutal cold to a distant summertime kingdom of epicurean plenty, here is a tale of lords and ladies, soldiers and sorcerers, assassins and bastards, who come together in a time of grim omens.
Here an enigmatic band of warriors bear swords of no human metal; a tribe of fierce wildlings carry men off into madness; a cruel young dragon prince barters his sister to win back his throne; and a determined woman undertakes the most treacherous of journeys. Amid plots and counterplots, tragedy and betrayal, victory and terror, the fate of the Starks, their allies, and their enemies hangs perilously in the balance, as each endeavors to win that deadliest of conflicts: the game of thrones.
"From the Paperback edition."

About the Author

George R. R. Martin is the author of fourteen novels, including five volumes of A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE, several collections of short stories and numerous screen plays for television drama and feature films. He lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. George Martin website

Pope Joan by Donna Cross hosted by Kate

 

From the Inside Flap of Novel

There are few historical heroines as fascinating and controversial as Pope Joan, a woman whose hunger for knowledge and independent nature led her to pass as a man and ultimately to attain the high seat in Rome. Pope Joan is a spellbinding tale of a woman who gave up everything, even her very name, for the sake of knowledge. --Amazon

 

Pope Joan

• BIRTH DATE: c. 853
• AKA: John Anglicus
• AKA: John of Mainz

is a Medieval religious leader believed by some to have been a female pontiff who reigned over the Roman Catholic Church, who dismisses her as myth. She allegedly assumed the name John Anglicus, disguising herself as a man and eventually becoming pope. It is believed that her story was discovered when she gave birth to her child, which led to her immediate execution.

About the Author

DONNA WOOLFOLK CROSS lives in upstate, New York. Pope Joan is her first novel.  She is now at work on a new novel set in 17th century France. Visit her online at PopeJoan.com.

Watch the Pope Joan movie trailer !

Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand hosted by Erin

Growing up in California in the 1920s, Louie was a hellraiser, stealing everything edible that he could carry, staging elaborate pranks, getting in fistfights, and bedeviling the local police. But as a teenager, he emerged as one of the greatest runners America had ever seen, competing at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, where he put on a sensational performance, crossed paths with Hitler, and stole a German flag right off the Reich Chancellery. He was preparing for the 1940 Olympics, and closing in on the fabled four-minute mile, when World War II began. Louie joined the Army Air Corps, becoming a bombardier. Stationed on Oahu, he survived harrowing combat, including an epic air battle that ended when his plane crash-landed, some six hundred holes in its fuselage and half the crew seriously wounded.
On a May afternoon in 1943, Louie took off on a search mission for a lost plane. Somewhere over the Pacific, the engines on his bomber failed. The plane plummeted into the sea, leaving Louie and two other men stranded on a tiny raft. Drifting for weeks and thousands of miles, they endured starvation and desperate thirst, sharks that leapt aboard the raft, trying to drag them off, a machine-gun attack from a Japanese bomber, and a typhoon with waves some forty feet high. At last, they spotted an island. As they rowed toward it, unbeknownst to them, a Japanese military boat was lurking nearby. Louie’s journey had only just begun. ~www.amazon.com


Zamperini Timeline
Jan 26, 1917 - Louis Silvie was born in Olean, New York, on January 26, 1917, the son of Italian immigrants Anthony and Louise Zamperini. The family moved to Torrance, California, when Louis was two. By the time he was 14 he was heading for serious trouble. An accomplished burglar he often stole food and booze, got into fights that left his victims bruised, bleeding and occasionally unconscious and had little respect for the law.
1936 - A relatively trouble child who stole everything in sight, he grows up to become one of the greatest track stars of his time, shattering the national high school record in the mile and becoming one of the youngest members of the US Olympic team in 1936. Many felt that Zamperini would become the first person to break the four minute mile.
1943 - Louis Zamperini became a bombardier whose plane disappeared in the Pacific Ocean in 1943. He survived sharks, starvation and strafing only to be rescued by a Japanese boat. He spent the rest of the war in prison camps and endured cruelty so profound, it's painful to repeat.
1998 - In 1998, the Olympic Winter Games were held in Nagano, Japan, just outside the town where Louis had been held captive. The people of Nagano asked Louis to carry the Olympic flame as part of the torch relay, and the host broadcaster (CBS) created a 45-minute feature about Louis’ life, that aired during the telecast of the Closing Ceremony. ~keynotespeakers

Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay hosted by Tiffany

Paris, July 1942: Sarah, a ten year-old girl, is brutally arrested with her family by the French police in the Vel’ d’Hiv’ roundup, but not before she locks her younger brother in a cupboard in the family's apartment, thinking that she will be back within a few hours.
Paris, May 2002: On Vel’ d’Hiv’s 60th anniversary, journalist Julia Jarmond is asked to write an article about this black day in France's past. Through her contemporary investigation, she stumbles onto a trail of long-hidden family secrets that connect her to Sarah. Julia finds herself compelled to retrace the girl's ordeal, from that terrible term in the Vel d'Hiv', to the camps, and beyond. As she probes into Sarah's past, she begins to question her own place in France, and to reevaluate her marriage and her life.
Tatiana de Rosnay offers us a brilliantly subtle, compelling portrait of France under occupation and reveals the taboos and silence that surround this painful episode. ~publishers website

Vel' d'Hiv Round-up
The greatest mass-arrest of Jews ever carried out on French soil is known as the Vél’ d’hiv’ Round-up. It involved 13,000 victims from Paris and its suburbs. Over slightly more than two days, the Round-up involved nearly a third of the 42,000 Jews deported to Polish death camps in 1942. The statistics for this terrible year account for over half of the total 76,000 Jewish deportations from France. ~a case study

"The French have tended to confront their record under Nazi occupation with a mixture of denial, silence and myth. The second world war was not on the school curriculum until 1962. Textbooks scarcely mentioned the Holocaust. No French leader from de Gaulle to Mitterrand acknowledged the state's part in deporting Jews to Nazi death camps. It was not until Jacques Chirac became president in 1995 that the French state accepted its official complicity, prompting much soul-searching over collaboration, memory and guilt." ~The Indian Express

Sarah's Key (Elle s’appelait Sarah)
The Movie
A woman from the present becomes obsessed with tracking down a young woman from the past – for reasons even she can’t quite articulate – in Sarah’s Key, a staid but stubbornly involving drama. Though ostensibly yet another film about the horrors of the Holocaust, director Gilles Paquet-Brenner’s adaptation of Tatiana de Rosnay’s novel uses the atrocity as a treatise on personal survival and new beginnings that is eloquently delivered by star Kristin Scott Thomas. ~screen daily
Remembering the Vel d'Hiv A another new film suggests France is finally coming to terms with its wartime history. “La Rafle” recreates the French police’s round-up in 1942 of 13,000 Paris Jews, including 4,000 children, and the families’ transfer to the capital’s Vélodrome d’Hiver, en route to the death camps. It unfolds through the eyes of Jo Weismann, an 11-year-old who later escaped from an internment camp near Orléans after his parents were sent to Poland. ~the economist
About the AuthorTATIANA DE ROSNAY was born in the suburbs of Paris and is of English, French and Russian descent. She is the author of nine French novels. She also writes for French ELLE, and is a literary critic for Psychologies magazine. Tatiana de Rosnay is married and has two children. SARAH'S KEY is her first novel written in her mother tongue, English.

Sarah's Quilt by Nancy E. Turner hosted by Indu

In These Is My Words, Sarah Agnes Prine told the spellbinding story of an extraordinary pioneer woman and her struggle to make a home in the Arizona Territories. Now, in this mesmerizing sequel, Sarah's Quilt, a three-year drought has made Sarah desperate for water. And just when it seems that life couldn't get worse, she learns that her brother and his family are trapped in the Great San Francisco Earthquake. A heartwarming blend of stubbornness and compassion, Sarah Agnes Prine will once again capture the hearts of readers everywhere. ~ Amazon review

"Getting out of bed is a good way to leave your troubles behind."

"A clock only turns one direction"

"A nice girl should never go anywhere without a loaded gun and a big knife."

— Nancy E. Turner (Sarah's Quilt: A Novel of Sarah Agnes Prine and the Arizona Territories, 1906)

About the Author

Nancy Elaine Turner was born in Dallas, Texas and grew up in Southern California and Arizona. She began writing fiction as an assignment for a class at Pima Community College and completed a Bachelor's degree in Fine Arts Studies from the University of Arizona in 1999

with a triple major in Creative Writing, Music, and Studio Art. She lives in Tucson with her husband and Snickers, a dog rescued by F.A.I.R. She has two married children and four grandchildren. She also enjoys the outdoors, theater, movies, and antiques.

"Writing historical fiction is much like working on a term paper every day. My story is never far from my mind. I create characters by mingling traits of people. I love all my characters, too, especially those with complexity that makes them seem all the more real. I believe the locale of a story can be as much a part of the book as a character, and I use settings I know well enough to describe in detail."

~ Authors website

Lost Symbol by Dan Brown Hosted by Ariane

The Lost Symbol begins with an ancient ritual, a shadowy enclave, and of course, a secret. Readers know they are in Dan Brown territory when, by the end of the first chapter, a secret within a secret is revealed. ~Amazon review

The Lost Symbol is a sequel to Dan Brown's, The Da Vinci Code. The novel features Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon, who also appears in Angels and Demons as well. It is set in Washington D.C., and the story takes place over a 12-hour period. Brown released Lost Symbol on 9/15/09, 9+15+09=33. The significance of the number 33 and the Freemasons are central and key to the story. Brown even placed secret symbols in the artwork of The Da Vinci Code hard back cover relating to The Lost Symbol.

~Play The Lost Symbol Game

~Bizarre Facts

Q: ARE THERE ANY PARALLELS BETWEEN YOUR NEW NOVEL AND THE DA VINCI CODE?

A: There are parallels between it and all my other books. I'm back in the same world of symbols, secret societies, art, and history. ~Dan Brown Web site

These is My Words by Nancy Turner

Book #59 Hosted by Ariane

Inspired by the true story of the author's pioneering great-grandmother, this mesmerizing saga tells of the emotional, intellectual, and romantic awakening of a spirited young woman of the late 19th century in the American West.~Goodreads review

These is My Words is the story of Sarah Prine, a sixteen year old girl, who endures hardship, love and adventure in the Arizona Territory in the 1880's. Sarah's Quilt, the 2nd in the series challenges Sarah after three years of drought that have devastated her ranch. The Star Garden is the 3rd in the series that begins with a stagecoach accident that introduces three strangers who will change her life.

"A nice girl should never go anywhere without a loaded gun and a big knife."

~Sarah Agnes Prine

Sarah is the 2nd from the right ~From Nancy E. Turner

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

Book #58 Hosted by Kate
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (originally titled "Men Who Hate Women") is a translated Swedish book and the 1st in a series called “The Millenium Trilogy”. The other two book are titled, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest. There is a 4th book which is in "negotiations". Larsson's partner of 30 years, Eva Gabrielsson, has the authors laptop with the manuscript of the 4th novel (she has said was a planned 10 book series) in a "safe place". She will not turn it over to the estate unless she get guarantees that the rights to the books are distributed "as he would have wished". Stieg never left a will and his brother and father were actually suprised that the estate reverted to the family. Gabrielsson says Larsson's father and brother were eager to cash in on the sudden success of the books, but is hoping that her rights will prevail in the end. ~Support Eva website

About the Book
The book has two story lines. The first is the mystery into the possible murder of Harriet Vanger, a member of the prominent Vanger family, who disappeared from a gathering on the remote family owned island in Sweden. The second is that of a disgraced financial journalist sentenced to jail for libeling a shady businessman. Stieg Larsson blends these two stories together through the characters of Mikael Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander, an unorthodox investigator.

About the Author
Stieg Larsson's first murder mystery has been a smash hit throughout Europe since its 2005 publication in the author's native Sweden, and has now become a bestseller in the U.S. as well. But the bitter twist in Larsson's success story is that he didn't live to see The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo published: he died of a heart attack just after he delivered the manuscripts for this book and the two that follow. ~Barnes and Noble

The Girl Who Played With Fire
Stieg Larsson's seething heroine, Lisbeth Salander, once again finds herself paired with journalist Mikael Blomkvist on the trail of a sinister criminal enterprise. Only this time, Lisbeth must return to the darkness of her own past (more specifically, an event coldly known as "All the Evil") if she is to stay one step ahead--and alive. The Girl Who Played with Fire is a break-out-in-a-cold-sweat thriller that crackles with stunning twists and dismisses any talk of a sophomore slump. ~Amazon Book Review

Män som hatar kvinnor
The Swedish film version of the best selling novel is now released in USA theatres.
The Los Angeles Times: "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" is "a mind-bending and mesmerizing thriller that takes its time unlocking one mystery only to uncover another, all to chilling and immensely satisfying effect."
The Washington Post: "It's the rare 2 1/2 -hour film that doesn't make you look at your watch once. 'The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo' is such a film.... like a good book, the plot is so engrossing, the characters so rich and complex, the mood of gloom mixed with glimmers of hope so all-encompassing that the thought of its actually ending never occurs to you.... For fans of the thriller genre, it's also one heck of a lot of fun."

A Hollywood remake is in the works for Stieg Larsson's international best-selling book "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo."

Wishin' and Hopin' by Wally Lamb

Book #57 Hosted by Erin

It's 1964 and ten-year-old Felix is sure of a few things: the birds and the bees are puzzling, television is magical, and this is one Christmas he'll never forget.

LBJ and Lady Bird are in the White House, Meet the Beatles is on everyone's turntable, and Felix Funicello (distant cousin of the iconic Annette!) is doing his best to navigate fifth grade-easier said than done when scary movies still give you nightmares and you bear a striking resemblance to a certain adorable cartoon boy.

From the Funicello family's bus-station lunch counter to the elementary school playground (with an uproarious stop at the Pillsbury Bake-Off), Wishin' and Hopin' is a vivid slice of 1960s life, a wise and witty holiday tale that celebrates where we've been-and how far we've come. ~Barnes and Noble

About the Author

The author of the number one New York Times bestsellers She's Come Undone and I Know This Much Is True, Wally Lamb still contributes time as a volunteer facilitator at the York Correctional Institution. He lives in Connecticut with his wife, Christine. His third novel is The Hour I First Believed.Lamb grew up in the looming shadow of Norwich State Hospital, a sprawling facility for the mentally ill. Now closed, the institution played a part in Lamb's family history. As an adult, Lamb learned that the grandfather he had never known had been locked up in the hospital for a violent attack on his wife. He later discovered that his grandfather had died of brain cancer and wondered if illness had provoked the violence. Unsurprisingly, the themes of incarceration and mental illness play important roles in his stories. ~about the author

Reviews

"We might as well call Wally Lamb the man with the golden pen...[Wishin’ and Hopin’] will leave you laughing and thinking nostalgically about your own school days and holidays past” (BookPage )

“Both heartwarming and laugh-out-loud funny…a cast of characters that are both uproarious and unforgettable…a poignant reminder that family and friends are the greatest gift of all.” (Hartford Books Examiner )

“Lamb...proves he can be short, sweet and funny” (USA Today )

“Lamb’s vividly detailed portrait of the 1960’s and the inner workings of a Catholic schoolboy’s mind puts his first Christmas book on par with his previous three novels.” (Miami Herald )

“Wishin’ and Hopin’ from Wally Lamb reminds us of what innocence was like.” (Body and Soul )

Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

Book #56 Hosted by Nancy

Twilight is told by 17-year-old Bella Swan, who moves from Phoenix to the small town of Forks, Washington, to live with her dad for the remainder of high school. There, she meets Edward Cullen and his family, who possess an other-worldly and irresistible beauty and grace to which Bella is drawn. Twilight is the tale of Bella and Edward's burgeoning relationship, brimming with standard teenage drama alongside the unexpected, because, after all, Edward and his family are vampires. These undead friends have chosen to deny their urge to drink human blood, instead slaking their thirst with the blood of animals. Bella soon finds out, however, that not all vampires in her life are constrained by such scruples. ~The Book Review

Pros

• Highly entertaining, fast-paced story of romance and suspense
• Relatively clean for a teenage vampire love story
• The concept of good vampires is unusual and intriguing

Cons

• The writing can be clunky at times
• Edward's perfection can be over-the-top, even for a fictitious super-human
• At times, Edward and Bella's relationship can seem more like that of a father and daughter

About the Author

Stephenie Meyer's life changed dramatically on June 2, 2003. The stay-at-home mother of three young sons woke up from a dream featuring seemingly real characters that she could not get out of her head.

Three months later she finished her first novel, Twilight. With encouragement from her older sister (the only other person who knew she had written a book), Meyer submitted her manuscript to various literary agencies. Twilight was picked out of a slush pile at Writer's House and eventually made its way to the publishing company Little, Brown where everyone fell immediately in love with the gripping, star-crossed lovers.

Twilight was one of 2005's most talked about novels and within weeks of its release the book debuted at #5 on The New York Times bestseller list.

Stephenie lives in Arizona with her husband and three sons. ~authors website

The Help by Kathryn Stockett.

Book #55 Hosted by Tiffany

Three ordinary women are about to take one extraordinary step.

Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till Skeeter has a ring on her finger. Skeeter would normally find solace with her beloved maid Constantine, the woman who raised her, but Constantine has disappeared and no one will tell Skeeter where she has gone.

Aibileen is a black maid, a wise, regal woman raising her seventeenth white child. Something has shifted inside her after the loss of her own son, who died while his bosses looked the other way. She is devoted to the little girl she looks after, though she knows both their hearts may be broken.

Minny, Aibileen’s best friend, is short, fat, and perhaps the sassiest woman in Mississippi. She can cook like nobody’s business, but she can’t mind her tongue, so she’s lost yet another job. Minny finally finds a position working for someone too new to town to know her reputation. But her new boss has secrets of her own. ~goodreads

About the Author

Kathryn Stockett was born and raised in Jackson, Mississippi. After graduating from the University of Alabama with a degree in English and Creative Writing, she moved to New York City where she worked in magazine publishing and marketing for nine years. She currently lives in Atlanta with her husband and daughter. The Help is her first novel. ~http://kathrynstockett.com

Praise for the book

Set in the rural South of the 1960's, THE HELP is a startling, resonant portrait of the intertwined lives of women on opposite sides of the racial divide. Stockett's many gifts a keen eye for character, a wicked sense of humor, the perfect timing of a natural born storyteller shine as she evokes a time and place when black women were expected to help raise white babies, and yet could not use the same bathroom as their employers. Her characters, both white and black, are so fully fleshed they practically breathe no stock villains or pious heroines here. I'm becoming an evangelist for The Help. Don't miss this wise and astonishing debut.

~Joshilyn Jackson, Bestselling author of Gods in Alabama

I came across another book in this genre that sounded interesting:

Year the Colored Sisters Came to Town by Jacqueline Guidry

When the sleepy town of Ville d'Angelle is jolted by the arrival of two black nuns to teach at the local school, 10 year old Vivian and her sister Mavis are exposed to hatred and fear they never knew existed. ~barnes and noble review

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

Book #54 Hosted by Indu
January 1946: writer Juliet Ashton receives a letter from a stranger, a founding member of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. And so begins a remarkable tale of the island of Guernsey during the German occupation, and of a society as extraordinary as its name. ~authors website

About the Authors

Annie Barrows is the author of the children’s series Ivy and Bean, as well as The Magic Half. She lives in northern California.

Her aunt, Mary Ann Shaffer, who passed away in February 2008, worked as an editor, librarian, and in bookshops. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society was her first novel.

Send a Letter
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society has inspired many of you to go back to the old way of correspondence. Now you have the opportunity to send a letter to one of your friends with this electronic Guernsey stationery. -->

http://www.randomhouse.com/rhpg/guernsey//send-a-letter/

Annotated List of Important Books in The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

Jane Austen- Pride and Prejudice. Isola plans on speaking about it at a meeting but her goat eats her notes (p. 234).

Emily Bronte- Wuthering Heights.One of Isola’s favorite books. She talks about Anne and Charlotte Bronte as well but doesn’t mention specific titles (p. 53).

Thomas Carlyle- Past and Present. The first book that Will Thisbee enjoys helps him “get a grip on Faith.” (p. 101).

Geoffrey Chaucer- The Canterbury Tales. Sidney’s favorite favorite book; the topic of a Society meeting (p. 243).

Charles Dickens- The Pickwick Papers. Amelia’s favorite – it lifts her spirits during the Occupation (p. 50).

Charles Lamb- Selected Essays of Elia. Dawsey has Juliet’s old copy; reason for his first letter to her (p. 9).- More Essays of Elia and Selected Letters. Juliet sends to Dawsey (p. 11).

Wilfred Owen- The Collected Poems of Wilfred Owen. Owen’s poetry helps Clovis Fossey to describe his experiences in WWI (p. 72).

Rainer Maria Rilke- Collected poetry (exact title not specified). A gift from Christian to Elizabet6h, with the inscription, “For Elizabeth, who turns darkness into light.” (p. 259).

Seneca- Letters of Seneca. John Booker writes that Seneca and the Society keep him from being a drunk (p. 88).

William Shakespeare- Selections from Shakespeare. Eben Ramsey’s favorite book. He quotes Shakespeare when talking about the German troops landing on Guernsey (p. 63).

Oscar Wilde- An important author in the book—he writes a series of letters to Isola’s grandmother—but none of his works are specifically mentioned.

Photo Gallery of the Island