A PEOPLE BOOK OF THE WEEK
WINNER OF THE JQ–WINGATE LITERARY PRIZE
“A haunting tribute to survivors and the ones misplaced eternally—and a reminder, in our personal bothered technology, by no means to put out of your mind.” —People
An “outstanding” (The Wall Boulevard Journal) and “poignant” (The New York Times) guide Within the custom of rediscovered works like Suite Française and The Nazi Officer’s Wife, the tough memoir of a fearless Jewish bookseller on a harrowing battle for survival throughout Nazi-occupied Europe.
In 1921, Françoise Frenkel—a Jewish lady from Poland—fulfills a dream. She opens Los angeles Maison du Livre, Berlin’s first French Bookstore, attracting artists and diplomats, celebrities and poets. The store turns into a haven for highbrow trade as Nazi ideology starts to poison the culturally wealthy town. In 1935, the scene maintains to darken. First come the brand new bureaucratic hurdles, adopted via common police visits and guide confiscations.
Françoise’s dream in spite of everything shatters on Kristallnacht in November 1938, as masses of Jewish stores and companies are destroyed. Los angeles Maison du Livre is miraculously spared, however worry of persecution ultimately forces Françoise on a determined, lonely flight to Paris. Whilst the town is bombed, she seeks shelter throughout southern France, witnessing numerous horrors: kids torn from their folks, moms throwing themselves beneath buses. Secreted clear of one protected area to the following, Françoise survives on the heroic arms of strangers risking their lives to offer protection to her.
Revealed quietly in 1945, then rediscovered just about sixty years later in an attic, A Bookstore in Berlin is a outstanding tale of survival and resilience, of human cruelty and human spirit. Within the custom of Suite Française and The Nazi Officer’s Wife, this guide is the story of a fearless lady whose lust for existence and literature refuses to go away her, even in her darkest hours.
