A Small Town Near Auschwitz, by Mary Fulbrook

A Small Town Near Auschwitz: Ordinary Nazis and the Holocaust by Mary Fulbrook

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I liked this book but just didn't love it. The author provides a great deal of good historical information about the role of local government officials in clearing a town -- just miles from the gates of Auschwitz -- of its Jewish population. Of course, the process didn't begin with the cattle cars, but with restrictions on movement and employment, the requisition of Jewish-owned homes for ethnic German families, and ghettoization. And I think here lies one of the book's central strengths: portraying how a gradual process based on antisemitism allowed minor functionaries to serve as the cogs in the wheels of the Final Solution while being barely aware of what the Reich's endgame would be. Not only were Hitler and company thus able to use, as the author calls them, "ordinary Nazis" who might have been a little more squeamish about genocide, but later on, the frog-boiling nature of the events made it easier for these ordinary Nazis to lie to investigators, to their families, and to themselves about the roles they played and what they knew about the Holocaust at what point in the timeline of events.



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Finally, a breath

In the past month and a half, I have put my casa on the market, moved into a second-floor apartment, and sold said casa. I have done almost no reading, because most of my books are still in boxes, and I didn't want to risk losing a library book in the confusion (still looking for our potholders). But on the happy side, I have cash to spare again, which resolves all sorts of other tensions, so the world is looking up for the first time in ages.

Dark Matter, by Michelle Paver

Dark Matter: A Ghost Story by Michelle Paver

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


One of my favorite settings for horror is the Arctic (or Antarctica, I suppose) when the sun sets for months. When the light of day usually brings some measure of safety, what do you do when day won't come for a very long time? Paver uses it well for this book about several young men performing scientific research and seeking adventure in the islands at the top of the world just before the outbreak of the Second World War. Among the book's strengths is the ambiguity of the happenings: The actors are well aware of how the Arctic can affect men's minds, so until almost the very end they're not sure how to react to their experiences. Is it all in their heads, or did they see what they think they saw? A good read for a cold winter night.




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Rage Within, by Jeyn Roberts

Rage Within by Jeyn Roberts

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I was pretty meh about this book. On the plus side, we get a bit of an interesting backstory behind the events that transpired. On the negatives, parts of the plot were predictable (did anyone out there NOT know who the traitor would be?) and unbelievable (brain-splitting headaches and sexytimes usually do not co-occur). But the story was interesting enough to keep me reading to the end and wondering where the author will go in the next book (the final in a trilogy, I believe).



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The Last Watch, by Sergei Lukyanenko

The Last Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Usually when a series book takes a trip from its usual setting, it's a sign that the author is running out of ideas to keep the storyline fresh. In Lukyanenko's The Last Watch, taking a familiar character and putting him/her into an unfamiliar setting works well, almost a natural progression from Twilight Watch's side trip to Prague. As the protagonist Anton (and the reader) is educated more deeply about the essence of who the Others are and travels further into the Twilight world, the story expands externally from Moscow and heads farther afield into Edinburgh and the Stans. And although the external plot deals with a series of murders in Edinburgh, the book simultaneously delves into Anton's internal struggle over killing a vampire he once considered a friend and his role in the overarching struggles and balance of power between the Watches. To paraphrase Anton near the end of the book, he feels like a small screw in a huge, merciless machine. No doubt this struggle will come to a head in the fifth and final book in the series.

Despite some story holes (who couldn't guess the killer's true identify after the name was provided), Last Watch is a worthy successor that crosses genre (fantasy/scifi/mystery) boundaries.



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Hidden

Hidden: A Child's Story of the Holocaust by Loïc Dauvillier

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Who knew that an adorable book about the Holocaust was possible?

In this sweet-yet-heartbreaking graphic novel, we travel back in time as grandmother Dounia tells little Elsa about her life after the German occupation of France began during World War II. Dounia’s happy life of school, friends, and a crush on a boy changed overnight. The basic elements of the story are familiar. First, come the stars sewn onto clothing and the friends and teachers who suddenly shun Dounia. Her parents try to soften the blow by explaining that they have become a family of sheriffs, hence the yellow stars they must wear. Then, the pounding on the doors in the middle of the night. From there, the story portrays the brighter side of humanity. Hidden by her parents in the false bottom of an armoire before the soldiers burst in, Dounia is rescued and spends the next years being sheltered until the end of the war. I’ll leave the rest of the story for readers to discover.

This child’s-eye view of the French occupation is a perspective I’ve rarely seen. Here the approach works, mixing the horrifying with the bittersweet through the filters of childhood. The artwork--full of somber blues and browns--depicts Charlie Brown-like characters with heads disproportionate to the bodies, again reminding the reader that this story, despite the deadly serious themes, belongs to a child. I would totally give this book to one of my elementary school niecelets following a discussion of what transpired during WWII.




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The Sound and the Furry, by Spencer Quinn

The Sound and the Furry by Spencer Quinn

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


For the 6th book in his Chet & Bernie series, Quinn takes his protagonists on a road trip to Louisiana to look into a missing persons case. The change of scenery adds a bit of freshness to the story that has been missing in the past couple of books. We get to see Chet and Bernie out of their familiar environment, dealing with the unique culture that is south Louisiana. And Quinn did get that culture right -- the mixture of friendliness and wariness about outsiders, the shady deals, the shadier police force, the centuries-old family feuds, and the oil industry that covers it all; literally, when it comes to the land and wildlife.

One aspect of the book that was a bit jarring to me: Chet's inner dialog. Perhaps it's because I more or less only skimmed books 4 and 5, but this go-round, Chet seemed to be "talking" much more. Reading through the text was much like a conversation with a bipolar friend during a mania phase, just one thing after another punctuated occasionally by a Squirrel! Not that he's a bad narrator -- Chet is one observative dog, even if he can't always remember what the observations mean. I wish I knew how to what extent Quinn has incorporated real research about dog cognition into how he develops Chet's dialog, to know how accurate it might be.

Anyway, in summary, The Sound and the Furry is a nice read, with comparatively little dog abuse this time (a bonk or two on the head and some prolonged dog-paddling), some new characters, and a fairly pleasant resolution. What more could you ask for in a canine cozy?



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