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306. Warlight

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:   Lisa Goldberg

Author:   Michael Ondaatje

Genre:  Fiction, Historical Fiction, World War II

304 pages, published June 7, 2018

Reading Format:  Audio Book

Summary

Using a shifting time narrative, Warlight tells the story of Nathaniel as he attempts to piece together and make sense of the story of his past.  Also present in this shadowy novel are his sister unforgiving sister Rachel, his Mother Rose (a British spy during and after World War II) and the enigmatic characters nicknamed the Moth and the Darter by Nathaniel and his sister.  All is not as it seems as this novel of intrigue, familial relationships, search for meaning and forgiveness.

Quotes 

“Mahler put the word schwer beside certain passages in his musical scores. Meaning “difficult.” “Heavy.” We were told this at some point by The Moth, as if it was a warning. He said we needed to prepare for such moments in order to deal with them efficiently, in case we suddenly had to take control of our wits. Those times exist for all of us, he kept saying. Just as no score relies on only one pitch or level of effort from musicians in the orchestra. Sometimes it relies on silence. It was a strange warning to be given, to accept that nothing was safe anymore. “ ‘Schwer,’ ” he’d say, with his fingers gesturing the inverted commas, and we’d mouth the word and then the translation, or simply nod in weary recognition. My sister and I got used to parroting the word back to each other—“schwer.”

 

“When you attempt a memoir, I am told, you need to be in an orphan state. So what is missing in you, and the things you have grown cautious and hesitant about, will come almost casually towards you. “A memoir is the lost inheritance,” you realize, so that during this time you must learn how and where to look. In the resulting self-portrait everything will rhyme, because everything has been reflected. If a gesture was flung away in the past, you now see it in the possession of another. So I believed something in my mother must rhyme in me. She in her small hall of mirrors and I in mine.”

 

“I suppose we choose whatever life we feel safest in;”

 

“We are foolish as teenagers. We say wrong things, do not know how to be modest, or less shy. We judge easily. But the only hope given us, although only in retrospect, is that we change. We learn, we evolve. What I am now was formed by whatever happened to me then, not by what I have achieved, but by how I got here. But who did I hurt to get here? Who guided me to something better? Or accepted the few small things I was competent at? Who taught me to laugh as I lied? And who was it made me hesitate about what I had come to believe.”

 

“a person who, as the line went, would live in many places and die everywhere.”

 

“You return to that earlier time armed with the present, and no matter how dark that world was, you do not leave it unlit. You take your adult self with you. It is not to be a reliving, but a rewitnessing.”

 

“the lost sequence in a life, they say, is the thing we always search out”

 

“We find ourselves in a “collage” in which nothing has moved into the past and no wounds have healed with time, in which everything is present, open and bitter, in which everything coexists contiguously….”

 

“Is this how we discover the truth, evolve? By gathering together such unconfirmed fragments?…Will all of them who have remained incomplete and lost to me become clear and evident when I look back?”

 

“Our heroes do not usually, after a certain age, teach or guide us anymore. They choose instead to protect the last territory where they find themselves. Adventurous thought is replaced with almost invisible needs. Those who once mocked the traditions they fought against with laughter now provide only the laughter, not the mockery.”

 

“Roman history, Nathaniel. You need to read it. It is full of emperors who cannot tell even their children what catastrophe is about to occur, so they might defend themselves. Sometimes there is a necessity for silence.” 

My Take

Warlight is a beautifully written novel by author and poet Michael Ondaatje, who also wrote The English Patient, another mesmerizing book.  While I enjoyed the story of Nathaniel, a young British boy who slowly discovers that his mother was a famed British spy, I was even more captivated by the self discovery Nathaniel engages in as the truth unfolds in a variety of ways.  It was also a treat to read Ondaatje’s lovely, poetic writing.

 

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300. Don’t Worry, Life Is Easy

Rating:  ☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:   Agnès Martin-Lugand

Genre:  Fiction, Historical Fiction, Romance

246 pages, published May 2, 2017

Reading Format:  Audio Book

Summary

Following the loss of her husband and young daughter, Diane is stuck in a depressive rut.  After returning from Ireland (where she had an ill-fated relationship with the brooding photographer Edward), she is singularly focused on getting her literary café back on track.  Things change when she meets and falls in love with Olivier.  However, when Edward appears in Paris, Diane is thrown for a loop and must decide between the two men.

Quotes 

“Life was taking over, and I did not want to fight it anymore.”

 

“All those vacationers crammed against each other on a tiny beach, or fighting in the evening in front of the buffet, horrified at the idea that the snoring neighbor is stealing the last sausage, those people who are happy to have been locked up for ten hours in a cabin with brailing kids around them, all that made me want to throw up. “ 

My Take

Not a fan of this book.  Clichéd and syrupy romance.  There are better books out there.

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299. Carnegie’s Maid

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:   Marie Benedict

Genre:  Fiction, Historical Fiction, Romance

283 pages, published August 12, 2014

Reading Format:  Audio Book

Summary

Fresh off the boat from Ireland in the 1860s, through a case of mistaken identity, fresh faced and intelligent Clara Kelly finds herself serving as a ladies’ maid to the mother of prominent businessman Andrew Carnegie.  By the end of the book, Clara and Andrew find themselves in love, but at a crossroads.  Throughout the book, we witness Andrew Carnegie’s transformation from hardnosed industrialist into one of America’s greatest philanthropist.

Quotes 

“As Mrs. Barrett Browning says, ‘The world of books is still the world.”

“You know what they say. Any fool can earn money, but it takes a wise man to keep it.”

“Whatever I engage in I must push inordinately; therefore should I be careful to choose that life which will be the most elevating in its character.”

 

“Andrew Carnegie, who is the man who built this free library and thousands more libraries with his own money. A man who gave the gift of books and education to every person, regardless of how much money they had.” 

My Take

Other than his namesakes Carnegie Hall, Carnegie Mellon University and his donations to many, many libraries throughout the U.S., I didn’t know much about Andrew Carnegie prior to reading Carnegie’s Maid.  Through the viewpoint of a maid in his house, the book paints a detailed and sympathetic portrait of the man and the times that he lived in.  Not the greatest book, but it is worthwhile for its illumination of this famous man and period of American history.

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291. Transcription

Rating:  ☆☆☆

Recommended by:  Clare Telleen

Author:   Kate Atkinson

Genre:  Fiction, Historical Fiction, World War II

352 pages, published September 25, 2018

Reading Format:  Book

Summary

At the beginning of World War II, 18 year old Juliet Armstrong obtains employment with an obscure department of MI5.  Her job is to transcribe the conversations between an undercover MI5 agent and British Fascist sympathizers that he has recruited.  The work is both tedious and terrifying.  After the war has ended, she assumes the events of those years are done and buried.  However, ten years later, now a radio producer at the BBC, Juliet is unexpectedly confronted by figures from her past. Juliet finds herself thrust into the Cold War and begins to understand that her previous actions have consequences.

Quotes 

“Do not equate nationalism with patriotism… Nationalism is the first step on the road to Fascism.”

 

“The world is a comedy to those that think; a tragedy to those that feel,”

 

“[…] but her mother’s death had revealed that there was no metaphor too ostentatious for grief. It was a terrible thing and demanded embellishment.”

 

“The blame generally has to fall somewhere, Miss Armstrong. Women and the Jews tend to be first in line, unfortunately.”

 

“Human nature favors the tribal. Tribalism engenders violence. It was ever thus and so it will ever be.”

 

“Being flippant was harder work than being earnest”

 

“…it had probably been a long enough life. Yet suddenly it all seemed like an illusion, a dream that had happened to someone else. What an odd thing existence was.”

 

“People always said they wanted the truth, but really they were perfectly content with a facsimile.”

 

“But wasn’t artistic endeavor the final refuge of the uncommitted?”

 

“Juliet could still remember when Hitler had seemed like a harmless clown. No one was amused now. (“The clowns are the dangerous ones,” Perry said.)”

 

“She didn’t feel she had the fortitude for all those Tudors, they were so relentlessly busy – all that bedding and beheading.” 

My Take

Transcription is the third book by Kate Atkinson that I have read.  The first two, Life After Life and A God in Ruins, were loosely linked by several shared characters and were engaging reads with compelling characters.  While I enjoyed Transcription, it does not live up to those other books.  There were several times when I was a little bored reading this book and asked myself, “where is this going?”   The failure of the book to provide an interesting answer to that question is the reason I didn’t rate it higher.

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281. Circling the Sun

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:   Boulder Librarian

Author:   Paula McLain

Genre:  Fiction, Historical Fiction, Foreign

366 pages, published July 28, 2015

Reading Format:  Audio Book

Summary

Circling the Sun tells the compelling story of Beryl Markham, the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic.  While this feat is remarkable in itself, there is a lot more to Beryl’s life.  Raised in Kenya, she was abandoned by her mother at a young age.  Her father raised her to be an expert horsewoman and she made a living training champion thoroughbreds.  She also had an ill-fated affair with Denys Finch Hatton (who introduced her to flying) and was friends with Karen Blixen (who was seriously involved with Denys), author of Out of Africa.

Quotes 

“We’re all of us afraid of many things, but if you make yourself smaller or let your fear confine you, then you really aren’t your own person at all—are you? The real question is whether or not you will risk what it takes to be happy.”

 

“Denys understood how nothing ever holds still for us, or should. The trick is learning to take things as they come and fully, too, with no resistance or fear, not trying to grip them too tightly or make them bend.”

 

“Sometimes when you’re hurting, it helps to throw yourself at something that will take your weight.”

 

“I’ve sometimes thought that being loved a little less than others can actually make a person, rather than ruin them.”

 

“I’ve never travelled,” I told her. “Oh, you absolutely should,” she insisted, “if only so that you can come home and really see it for what it is. That’s my favourite part.”

 

“Things come that we never would have predicted for ourselves or even guessed at. And yet they change us forever.”

 

“Proper learning isn’t just useful in society, Beryl. It can be wonderfully yours, a thing to have and keep just for you.”

 

“People interest me so much. They’re such wonderful puzzles. Think of it. Half the time we’ve no idea what we’re doing, but we live anyway.”

 

“We can only go to the limits of ourselves. Anything more and we give too much away. Then we’re not good for anyone.”

 

“For most of a day we walked through alkali flats, the white crust like a frosted layer of salt that rose in a powder when your boots punched through. We wore the chalk on us everywhere—up to our knees, in the creases of our fingers clenching the rifle strap, down in the cavity between my breasts, and in my mouth, too. I couldn’t keep it out and stopped trying. I couldn’t keep anything out, I realized, and that was something I loved about Africa. The way it got at you from the outside in and never let up, and never let you go.”

 

“what I’d really like to know is how it feels to be on my own. Not someone’s daughter or wife, I mean…but my own person.” “Oh.” It seemed I’d surprised him. “There isn’t a lot of that kind of thinking around here.” “Of course there is,” I told him, trying to draw a smile. “It’s just usually a man who’s doing it.” —”

 

“Searching out something important and going astray look exactly the same for a while, in fact.”

 

“Miwanzo is the word in Swahili for “beginnings.” But sometimes everything has to end first and the bottom drop out and every light fizzle and die before a proper beginning can come along.”

 

“Have you ever seen stars like this? You can’t have. They don’t make them like this anywhere in the world.” Above our heads, the sky was a brimming treasure box. Some of the stars seemed to want to pull free and leap down onto my shoulders—and though these were the only ones I had ever known, I believed Denys when he said they were the finest. I thought I might believe anything he said, in fact, even though we had just met. He had that in him.” 

My Take

Paula McLain, the talented author of Circling the Sun also wrote The Paris Wife, a book about Ernest Hemingway’s first wife that I read a few years ago.  Both books are historical fiction biographies based on strong women protagonists.  I preferred Circling the Sun because of the unique character of Beryl Markham, a woman before her time and an aviation pioneer.  Although she was a bit prone to self absorption and often made foolish, impulsive decisions, she was an amazing woman.

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276. People of the Book

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:  Boulder Librarian

Author:   Geraldine Brooks

Genre:  Fiction, Historical Fiction, Mystery

372 pages, published October 1, 2008

Reading Format:  Audio Book

Summary

People of the Book tells the story of the Sarajevo Haggadah, one of the earliest Jewish volumes ever to be illuminated with images.  It begins in 1996 when Hanna Heath, an Australian rare-book expert, is offered the exclusive job of analyzing and conserving of the Haggadah which has been rescued from Serb shelling during the Bosnian war.  Intermixed with Hannah’s analysis is the history of the Haggadah at different points in time which trace the book’s journey from its salvation back to its creation which also shines a spotlight on the history of the Jewish people in Europe throughout the centuries.

Quotes 

“Book burnings. Always the forerunners.  Heralds of the stake, the ovens, the mass graves.”

 

“We were too intelligent, too cynical for war. Of course, you don’t have to be stupid and primitive to die a stupid, primitive death.”

 

“…The hagaddah came to Sarajevo for a reason. It was here to test us, to see if there were people who could see that what united us was more than what divided us. That to be a human being matters more than to be a Jew or a Muslim, Catholic or Orthodox.”

 

“I asked once, and the library assistant told me there were more than a hundred thousand books there, and more than sixty million pages of documents. It’s a good number, I think: ten pages for every person who died. A kind of monument in paper for people who have no gravestones.”

 

“I had to remind myself that Islam had once swept north as far as the gates of Vienna; that when the haggadah had been made, the Muslims’ vast empire was the bright light of the Dark Ages, the one place where science and poetry still flourished, where Jews, tortured and killed by Christians, could find a measure of peace.”

 

“…the book has survived the same human disaster over and over again. Think about it. You’ve got a society where people tolerate difference, like Spain in the Convivencia, and everything’s humming along: creative, prosperous. Then somehow this fear, this hate, this need to demonize ‘the other’–it just sort of rears up and smashes the whole society. Inquisition, Nazis, extremist Serb nationalists…same old, same old.”

 

“It did not even occur to David to consult Ruti herself about this, or any other matter. Had he done so, he would have been most surprised by the result. He did not realize it, but his love for his daughter marched hand in hand with a kind of contempt for her. He saw his daughter as a kind-hearteed, dutiful, but vaguely pitiable soul. David, like many people, had made the mistake of confusing “meek” with “weak.” 

My Take

I enjoyed People of the Book and learned a lot about Jewish history (which translates to how badly the Jews have been treated throughout history).  Author Geraldine Brooks weaves an engrossing tale that brings history to life.

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270. The Sandcastle Girls

Rating:  ☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:   Chris Bohjalian

Genre:  Fiction, Historical Fiction

299 pages, published July 17, 2012

Reading Format:  Audio Book

Summary

The Sandcastle Girls recounts the love story between Elizabeth Endicott , a young American  woman that  accompanies her father to Armenia in 1915 to deliver food and medical aid to refugees of the Armenian genocide by the Turks and Armen, a young Armenian engineer who has already lost his wife and infant daughter.   Elizabeth and Armen’s story is juxtaposed with a present day narrative by  Laura Petrosian, granddaughter  of Elizabeth and Armen and a novelist living in suburban New York. After seeing a newspaper photo of her grandmother promoting an exhibit at a Boston museum, Laura embarks on a journey back through her family’s history that reveals love, loss – and a terrible secret that has been buried for generations.

Quotes 

“But history does matter. There is a line connecting the Armenians and the Jews and the Cambodians and the Bosnians and the Rwandans. There are obviously more, but, really, how much genocide can one sentence handle?”

 

“It was Aldous Huxley who observed, “Every man’s memory is his private literature.”

 

“When it seems you have nothing at all to live for, death is not especially frightening.”

 

“Those who participate in a genocide as well as those who merely look away rarely volunteer much in the way of anecdote or observation. Same with the heroic and the righteous. Usually it’s only the survivors who speak-and often they don’t want to talk much about it either.”

 

“we have on earth exactly the amount of time that has been allotted to us, no more and no less. We really have precious little control.”

 

My Take

Right before reading The Sandcastle Girls, I read Before You Know Kindness, also by Chris Bohjalian (I did not realize the books were by the same author until I was halfway through The Sandcastle Girls).  While both books are well written, I much preferred Before You Know Kindness.  I had a hard time following the narrative of The Sandcastle Girls and, in contrast to Before You Know Kindness, found the characters a bit one-dimensional.  The positive takeaway is that I learned a lot about the horrifying Armenian genocide, a piece of history about which I only know a cursory amount.  As with so many other 20th Century atrocities, it is a depressing reflection on the capability of our fellow man to inflict unspeakable violence on other human beings for the crime of having a different ethnicity and/or religion.

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269. The King’s Speech: How One Man Saved the British Monarchy

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:  Lisa Goldberg

Author:   Mark Logue and Peter Conradi

Genre:  Non Fiction, Historical Fiction, Biography

242 pages, published November 1, 2010

Reading Format:  Audio Book

 

Summary

The King’s Speech is the story of Lionel Logue, a speech therapist from Australia working in London, and King George VI (aka Bertie) of England, Logue’s most famous patient.  For several decades, Logue helped Prince Albert (who would become King George VI when his older brother, the Duke of Windsor, abdicated the English throne to marry Wallis Simpson) overcome a lifelong stammering problem.  In this historical novel, we learn how Logue accomplished this feat as well as a lot of British and Australian history from that era.

 

Quotes 

“When the fresh patient comes to me the usual query is: “Will I be able to speak like the King?” and my reply is: “Yes, if you will work like he does.”

 

“Every public speaker likes his hearer to imagine his oratory as an unpremeditated gift of nature, and not the result of prolonged and patient study.”

 

My Take

A few years ago, I saw the movie version of The King’s Speech and really enjoyed it.  I was, therefore, keen to read the novel upon which it was based.  Like the movie, I found the book to be a very interesting, behind the scenes peek into history.  I always like learning more about history, especially British history, and was pleased to learn more about King George VI , the Duke of Windsor and the pre-World War II period.

 

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261. Funny Girl

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:   Nick Hornby

Genre:  Fiction, Historical Fiction, Humor

452 pages, published February 3, 2015

Reading Format:  Audio Book

 

Summary

Funny Girl is the story of Sophie Straw, a blonde bombshell from a small English town who, in addition to her beauty, has a talent for making people laugh.  Sophie moves to London to pursue her dream of being the British version of Lucille Ball.  Set in 1960’s, we follow Sophie as her she lands a leading role on a BBC Comedy Playhouse series and makes her dream a reality.

 

Quotes 

“I’ve never been happy in the way that I’ve been happy in this room, and in the studios,” said Sophie. “I’ve never laughed so much, or learned so much, and everything I know about my job is because of the people here. Even you, Clive. And I’m worried that I’ll spend the rest of my working life looking for an experience like this one, where everything clicks and everyone pushes you to do the best you can, better than anything you think you’re capable of.”

 

“Love meant being brave, otherwise you had already lost your own argument: the man who couldn’t tell a woman he loved her was, by definition, not worthy of her.”

 

“What was he doing with her? How on earth could he love her? But he did. Or, at least, she made him feel sick, sad, and distracted. Perhaps there was another way of describing that unique and useless combination of feelings, but “love” would have to do for now.”

 

“She began to fear that she would always be greedy, all the time. Nothing ever seemed to fill her up. Nothing ever seemed to touch the sides.”

 

“She wasn’t the sort of catch one could take home and show off to people; she was the sort of catch that drags the angler off the end of the pier and pulls him out to sea before tearing him to pieces as he’s drowning. He shouldn’t have been fishing at all, not when he was so ill-equipped.”

 

“Years later, Tony would discover that writers never felt they belonged anywhere. That was one of the reasons they became writers. It was strange, however, failing to belong even at a party full of outsiders.”

 

“They already knew that they would be telling people about the morning for a long time to come, maybe for the rest of their lives, and the taxi ride was the first attempt at a first draft of a story that would have to satisfy parents, siblings, children, and grandchildren.”

 

“Clive was rapidly coming to the conclusion that being engaged to somebody meant that he spent an awful lot of time not doing things he wanted to do.”

 

“He was kind, he was single, he was vulnerable, he made her laugh (not always intentionally, true, but often enough). Every time she saw him, he seemed to have become a little more handsome.”

 

“The anger was clearly real, though. It was in there, sloshing around, looking for the nearest hole to escape through.”

 

“And also, what kind of job was comic magician? She didn’t think she could bear to be married to a comic magician, even if his breath were sweeter than Parma violets and his kisses were like atom bombs. Comic magicians belonged on seaside piers. Comic magicians were what she had come to London to escape, not to find, and certainly not to marry.”

 

“There aren’t any buts,” said Bill. “That’s the whole point of being a writer, isn’t it? If I wanted buts, I’d go and work in a fucking but factory.”

 

My Take

Listening to the audio book version of Funny Girl was a delight.  This was the second book that I have read by Nick Hornby (the first being A Long Way Down), but it won’t be the last.  I was charmed by the characters (especially Sophie), the stories and the writing.  I so enjoyed living in the 1960’s London world of Sophie Straw that I was disappointed when the book ended.

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259. Rose Under Fire

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:   Elizabeth Wein

Genre:  Fiction, Historical Fiction, World War II

368 pages, published September 10, 2013

Reading Format:  Audio Book

 

Summary

While flying an Allied fighter plane from Paris to England, American ATA pilot and amateur poet, Rose Justice, is captured by the Nazis and sent to Ravensbrück, a notorious women’s concentration camp.  During her time there, Rose befriends the “Rabbits,” a group of women subjected to horrific Nazi experimentation. In the face of unspeakable crimes, Rose and her friends suffer horribly, but also find the strength to act with compassion, courage and cunning.

 

Quotes 

“Hope is the most treacherous thing in the world. It lifts you and lets you plummet. But as long as you’re being lifted you don’t worry about plummeting.”

 

“God knows what I thought! Your brain does amazing acrobatics when it doesn’t want to believe something.”

 

“There are four forces which work together if you want to put something into the sky and have it stay there. One of these is lift.

 

Lift is made when the air pressure under a wing is greater than the air pressure over the wing. Then the wing gets pushed upwards. That’s how birds fly. That’s how kites fly – a kite is basically just a solitary wing. That’s how airplanes fly.

 

But people need lift too. People don’t get moving, they don’t soar, they don’t achieve great heights, without something buoying them up.”

 

“Hope has no feathers

Hope takes flight

tethered with twine

like a tattered kite,

slave to the wind’s

capricious drift

eager to soar

but needing lift

 

Hope waits stubbornly

watching the sky

for turmoil, feeding on

things that fly:

crows, ashes, newspapers,

dry leaves in flight

all suggest wind

that could lift a kite

 

Hope sails and plunges

firmly caught

at the end of her string –

fallen slack, pulling taught,

ragged and featherless.

Hope never flies

but doggedly watches

for windy skies.”

 

“Incredible. It is just incredible that you can notice something like that when your face is so cold you can’t feel it anymore, and you know perfectly well you are surrounded by death, and the only way to stay alive is to endure the howling wind and hold your course. And still the sky is beautiful.”

 

‘When you cut down the hybrid rose,

its blackened stump below the graft

spreads furtive fingers in the dirt.

It claws at life, weaving a raft

of suckering roots to pierce the earth.

The first thin shoot is fierce and green,

a pliant whip of furious briar

splitting the soil, gulping the light.

You hack it down. It skulks between

the flagstones of the garden path

to nurse a hungry spur in shade

against the porch. With iron spade

you dig and drag it from the gravel

and toss it living on the fire.

 

‘It claws up towards the light again

hidden from view, avoiding battle

beyond the fence. Unnoticed, then,

unloved, unfed, it clings and grows

in the wild hedge. The subtle briar

armors itself with desperate thorns

and stubborn leaves – and struggling higher,

unquenchable, it now adorns

itself with blossom, till the stalk

is crowned with beauty, papery white

fine petals thin as chips of chalk

or shaven bone, drinking the light.

 

‘Izabela, Aniela, Alicia, Eugenia,

Stefania, Rozalia, Pelagia, Irena,

Alfreda, Apolonia, Janina, Leonarda,

Czeslava, Stanislava, Vladyslava, Barbara,

Veronika, Vaclava, Bogumila, Anna,

Genovefa, Helena, Jadviga, Joanna,

Kazimiera, Ursula, Vojcziecha, Maria,

Wanda, Leokadia, Krystyna, Zofia.

 

‘When you cut down the hybrid rose

to cull and plough its tender bed,

trust there is life beneath your blade:

the suckering briar below the graft,

the wildflower stock of strength and thorn

whose subtle roots are never dead.”

 

My Take

Rose Under Fire is the third book in a loose trilogy by Elizabeth Wein (the others are Code Name Verity and The Pearl Thief).  Even though Code Name Verity was by far my favorite, I did enjoy Rose Under Fire.  While it was hard to read another book dealing with the Holocaust, Wein manages to tell an inspirational story and, as a bonus, embellishes it with some very beautiful poems.

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