nancy
European
Posts: 2,144
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Post by nancy on May 31, 2006 20:02:26 GMT -7
Hi Linda,
I am VERY glad you have joined us! Really looking forward to your book reviews and recommendations.
;D
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Post by Jaga on May 31, 2006 21:17:38 GMT -7
Linda,
welcome to the forum. Thank you for joining the discussions! If you would have more time, please come over! I did not read the book yet, I heard about it, so I donot think I am entitled this particular subject.
Anyways, nice to see you here!
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Post by Linda Presenkowski on May 31, 2006 22:28:46 GMT -7
Hi again. I had a chance to tell you that I had wanted Jadwiga's Crossing so bad that it is the first and probably the only time that I will ever have a book downloaded. I did it from Amazon because I wanted to read it "now". This was in the first part of May. It truly was/is an amazing book. I agree about it being peppered with Polish Folk stories. The thing about web down loads is that you can't pass the book on to anyone, you can't put it on another computer and although it will always, always (I suppose unless your computer crashes or something, will be available for you to read again and again), it is much more difficult to read even on my laptop. You know, I may still want this book in the book form for my library. I'm not sure if Jim has mentioned anything to anyone but we are actually moving to Poland at the end of this year/beginning of next year whenever the house we are building will be finished and from all the books I have been reading and ordered we have the start of a really terrific Polish/American Library. I do feel this is worthy of the buy. What I like to do is find out the names of the good books, then go to Amazon and read the synopsis on them, then I go to ABEbooks.com which is a terrific site for old and new books, I mean books that you might not be able to even find in print anymore and previously owned books. I have paid as little as $.40 for a book but, of course, had to pay the shipping usually lowest of $3.50. That's less than $5.00 for a book and not one has been in terrible condition, some were even new. You can go directly to ABE and order and bypass Amazon but you can't actually get the review of the books, sometimes they might have it but Amazon shows the front cover, back, excerpts, etc. Sometimes I actually buy the used version also right from the Amazon site if they beat the other price, rare, but it has happened. I know I have read a lot Katyn I have to look up exact titles but there is one book, rather recent not Polish that really stands out in my memory, as a good read, it was called: Inside the Kingdom: My Life in Saudi Arabia. It was written by Carmen Bin Ladin, the wife of Yeslam Bin Ladin. Yeslam Bin Ladin is one of 55 somewhat brothers of Osama Bin Ladin. She could not tell her story while she was still married to him, obviously for fear of death. She met him when they were both going to College here in the U.S. and then after they married circumstances landed them back on foreign soil......it was a very, very interesting book, guess that it's told from a woman's point of view and we all know how women rank in Saudi Arabia......later....Linda!
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Post by hollister on Jun 1, 2006 7:53:21 GMT -7
Linda I am so glad you joined us! Can't wait to hear more from you. I have a busy day today and will post more later.
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Post by lindaprez on Jun 1, 2006 13:34:29 GMT -7
I hope I am doing this correctly, I can't tell when I am coming on as a visitor or as a member so this is a test. I wanted to see first before I started to tell you more books. I noticed you had posted my picture. Thank you. Let's see where this goes. Jim is at work so I can't ask so this is a test. Linda ;
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Post by lindaprez on Jun 1, 2006 14:09:59 GMT -7
O.K. Guess I know where I am. Thanks for having me here this is really fun. I still am not sure if I have to go to another place to mention other books because this says only Jadwiga's Crossing. I am still open to discussing this one but I don't want to give too much away if everyone hasn't completed it. By the way, Jim bought me a new MacBook for my early birthday present and he transferred all my stuff from my old Mac. Last night was the first night I tried to retrieve my down loaded version of Jadwiga's Crossing and... bingo, I couldn't down load it. Wouldn't you know, got it up and running today on my new system and I have to say it's beautiful on my bigger screen and I am running it on Firefox and not on Safari like I use to and and I seem to have options like highlighting and making notes that I didn't have before so I might just read "Jadwiga's Crossing Again" does that say something for this wonderful book? Nancy, I think you mentioned reading "Memory of The Forest" I thought I had read that book but I read "Death in the Forest" by J.K. Zawodny. This book was good but more history oriented . It is about the Second World War annihilation of 15,000 Polish Prisioner's of War. Of course the murders took place in the Katyn Forest, these prisoners were Polish Officers, etc. It is a piece of history, gotta want to know the whys and see pictures, etc. I will ceck into the one you mentioned. One book I would highly recommend is Katyn, A Whisper in The Trees, by Antony A.J. Jakubowski. This is going to sound strange so I'll let you put it into a category. It is a fictional account, based on fact, of the existence and significance of the only woman prisoner involved in the Katyn Froest Massacre. The author had to change some of the characters, locations and events but it is heavily based on historical documentation. I wouldn't recommend it but I have read so much actual historical documentation that I know the true history and this is so wonderful. You just can't pick up the history book and read them but this is a piece out of the history that takes you into a mini movie. Our imaginations just take over as you can just be there and feel the agony of being the only female Polish pilot captured by the Germans, the other Polish officers were cutting here long hair off to protect her from being recognized as a female.....it just gets better and better....I can tell more you have to tell me what you expect me to tell or where to stop on these reviews. What do you want to know
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Post by hollister on Jun 1, 2006 16:11:01 GMT -7
Linda! It is wonderful to have you here. All you have to do to start a new thread is to click on the "New Thread" button at the top of the main topic page. I am sure Jim can show you if you are still confused. I hope you feel welcome to post your thoughts in other discussions we could use another female voice around here!
Nancy hasn't finished Jadwiga yet - so we will wait for her to finish to begin the real discussion. I am currently reading "Memory of the Forest" another of Nancy's recommendations - and so far I am really enjoying it. While Jadwiga is lighter reading - Memory hold the promise of a book that will make me think. It is MUCH darker in tone.
I am going to have to see if I can find "A Whisper in the Trees" sounds like I book I would be interested in reading. I read "Death in the Forest" a couple of years ago - it was horrified and humbled by the story.
Where do you get your books? How do you hear about them?
Again, I am so happy you are here and willing to talk books with us!
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nancy
European
Posts: 2,144
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Post by nancy on Jun 1, 2006 20:14:31 GMT -7
I am happy to say that my copy of Jadwiga arrived today, so I will get right into it.
Holly, you are right that Memory in the Forest is a lot darker, but I found it to be very well written, complex, informative, and thought-provoking. I could not put it down. It does not paint an idyllic picture of Poilsh life after WWII, but perhaps an accurate one for one segment of the population ... that is what I would like to hear some opinions on.
Linda, We should compare lists of books that we have read - I have read several with a Polish-American theme - for example, Suzane Strempek Shea's "Selling the Lite of Heaven" and others; Clarinet Polka, Breaker Boys, and The Last Fine Time. Have you read those?
I, too, like to buy books from the used book dealers that Linda mentioned. I owned a small bookshop fpr 8 years, and I came to realise that my ideal was to be online selling used books - but in the early 1990s, that option did not exist.
off to read Jadwiga ....
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Post by lindaprez on Jun 2, 2006 11:48:41 GMT -7
Hi Again. Well it doesn't take much to change my direction. First I wanted to re-read Jadwiga's crossing and then yesterday I received a book I actually forgot I had ordered. It is called "This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen" by Tadeusz Borowski. Has anyone read it yet? It has been translated from Polish to English. There is a large library of his works in Polish still and this is a paperback, previously owned, in great shape. I paid $.40, plus shipping. I was about to eat supper and was just reading the lead in,when I sat at the table. Well,it
It won't hurt just to print for you the first pages which are written as an introduction by Jan Knott. THIS IS NOT THE STORY,THIS ONLY TELLS ABOUT HIS LIFE,A MINI-BIOGRAPHY .. I can't tell you how much It made me want to turn the pages to read what Borowski had actually written. If this is interesting to you, I will tell you how to get it... here goes these are all direct words from the first pages, Tadeusz Borowski was born in the Ukraine in 1922. Having survived Auschwitz and Dachau, he died by his own hand in Warsaw in 1951. His life, which epitomizes "the historical destiny of man" is recounted in Jan Kott's introduction to this volume."
...Introduction..
..Borowski opened a gas valve on July 1, 1951. He was not yet thirty. ....Borowski's suicide was the shock that one can compare only to the suicide, twenty one years before of Vladimir Mayakovski. Borowski was the greatest hope of Polish literature among the generation of his contemporaries decimated by the war. The five-volume posthumous edition of his collected works contains poetry, journalist writings, news articles, novels and short stories......
THIS slender book is one of the cruelest of testimonies to what men did to men, and a pitiless verdict that anything can be done to a human being.
Borowski received a full "European education"one might even say he was overeducated, he was born in 1922 in Zhitomir, in the Soviet Ukraine, to Polish parents. His father, a bookkeeper, was transported in 1926 to Karelia, to dig the White Sea Canal. That was one of the harshest labor camps. He was exiled for his participation in a Polish military organization during World War I. When Tadeusz was eight, his mother was sent to a settlement in Siberia. Those were the years of collectivization and hunger. The monthly food allowance amounted to two pounds of flour. During this time Tadeusz was taken care of y his aunt. He went to school and tended cows. In 1932 his father was exchanged for communists imprisoned in Poland and tadeusz was repatriated by the Red Cross. His mother joined the family in house and made a little money sewing dresses at home, life was difficult. they put their son in a board studying school run by the Franciscan monks, where he could study for next to nothing. When the war began he was not yet seventeen. During the German occupation, secondary school and college were forbidden to Poles. Borowski studied in underground classes......Well, you either like it enough to be curious with his background and want to read the actual stories he wrote... the book is a collection of concentration camp stories ..prisoners eat, work, sleep, and fall in love a few yards from where other prisoners are systematically slaughtered. The will to survive overrides compassion, and the line between the normal and the abnormal wavers, then vanishes. Being a concentration camp victim himself, he understood what human beings will do to endure the unendurable... I am never speechless, guess you all can tell this.. but just the introduction to this book has so humbled me. I feel this book just has to be read. I am Polish by marriage only. But I am proud of that and this book just is a wonderful, wonderful read. I feel like I should be on some network talk show, pushing it on a book list. Hope I haven't over stepped any bounds here. I am going to get off here now and regroup. Til later..
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nancy
European
Posts: 2,144
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Post by nancy on Jun 2, 2006 19:07:06 GMT -7
Jaga has highly recommended "This Way for The Gas" so I ordered it some months ago but have not read it yet. Maybe after "Jadwiga". This is the first Polish book I have read that starts on the Baltic -most start in the plains or forest. So, already it is interesting.
Jim mentioned reading "Push Not the River" .... did you like that? I can't wait until the sequel comes out this August.
PS. I for one don't mind if you reveal the plot of any book - I usually forget it by the time I actually read the book, and the atmosphere is more important for me than the details.
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Post by lindaprez on Jun 2, 2006 21:01:34 GMT -7
Jaga has highly recommended "This Way for The Gas" so I ordered it some months ago but have not read it yet. Maybe after "Jadwiga". This is the first Polish book I have read that starts on the Baltic -most start in the plains or forest. So, already it is interesting. Jim mentioned reading "Push Not the River" .... did you like that? I can't wait until the sequel comes out this August. PS. I for one don't mind if you reveal the plot of any book - I usually forget it by the time I actually read the book, and the atmosphere is more important for me than the details.
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Post by lindaprez on Jun 2, 2006 21:27:11 GMT -7
Nancy, I am glad you might be able to read "This Way....next after you finish "Jadwiga" I thought I might have put too much of it on line but I just get sooo excited. You know I remember Jim mentioning "Push Not the River" but I really can't recall it. I'll have to talk that one over with him to refresh my mind. Funny how some of them stay with you and over time it just takes a few words and the scenes come back in your head. I think reading is like playing a movie back in my mind. For a while I was on a lot of medication and I would watch DVD's over and over (the same one) and it would never sink in because of the drugs. Jim would just not believe that I would be watching the same movie again and again. Thank God I am no longer that sick. I have an autoimmune disease and they had to treat it very aggresively five years ago. I am in remission now and I am not taking those horrible drugs. It is so good to have a memory back and to be able to retain something. So, I might have read a few of these books before but didn't retain them and now it's like brand new to me. More fun! I never want to stop learning. Of course, now I am also learning the Polish language and I never could have even atttempted that 5 years ago. I have a lot to be thankful for and READING and RETAINING are two of them. Hopefully this will last another five years or longer. Have a great weekend. I'll check back now and then..we have a time warp between coasts. My sister is in PA. Linda
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Post by lindaprez on Jun 2, 2006 21:48:28 GMT -7
Nancy, Holly, I am so sorry I previously was trying to find out what that thing "quote" did on the side, I thought it was just a quick way to answer but I somehow got it all messed up, it looks really stupid, I wasn't really done but saw I had two in a row and didn't know what to do. Nancy, I just wanted to tell you I ordered the book "Selling the Lite of Heaven" and when I previewed "The Last Fine Time" I just couldn't believe it took place in Buffalo, New York. I grew up in upstate New York and still have relatives in Buffalo, New York. I lived above a Tavern very much like the one in the Story and it is major "home sickness", can't wait for this one. The first book cost $.0l with $3.50 shipping from Amazon books, of course (used) and the Second was $7.50 from ABE used. I couldn't even find the first one on ABE which I thought was unusual, it's usually the other way around. They had many other choices by Susan Strempek Shea but Not "Selling the Lite of Heaven" I really like the two of them. Thank you. I need to get serious and read til my eye balls are red. Take care and thanks for the patience, guys. Linda
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nancy
European
Posts: 2,144
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Post by nancy on Jun 3, 2006 15:32:37 GMT -7
Hi Linda,
You have had some serious physical problems, and I am happy to hear that you are doing better now after that strenous treatment. Sure hope the Doctors in Poland will be able to keep up with you after you move there. Are you concerned about that?
Don't worry about your posts - they are fine. As the author, you have the option to modify (edit) your post, or even delete it.
Glad you got such a good price on Selling the Lite of Heaven - I actually have a duplicate I would have sent to you no charge! "The Last Fine Time" was excellent - half novel, half social history. I sent my copy to one of our forum members (Forza) in Poland. I have a duplicate of "Pears on a Willow Tree" if you would like it.
As for learning Polish --- that is a whole 'nother level of difficulty. I imagine that being there, or being able to listen to/speak with Jim, and then being surrounded by Polish speakers, will help considerably.
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Post by lindaprez on Jun 3, 2006 16:20:31 GMT -7
Hi Nancy, I was a bit concerned about the medical in Poland, but since Jim travels quite regularly over there to visit his/our relatives and the land we are building on he has taken a list of my meds and there is no problem getting them all. We are going to still keep Cobra insurance for I believe 18 months which shoould enable me to keep medical for a bit til we get doctors in place over there. Language hopefully can be translated by family until we get adjusted. Jim would have been over there cracking a whip getting more done on house but he just recently had colon surgery for Stage 1 cancer. Again God was with us and they removed a foot of his colon but got it all and he has no further cancer or treatment. I would love to read the other book if you'd like to send it on, I'll send it back to you. I just today got in the mail another book that I had ordered "A Question of Honor, The Kosciuszko Squadron: Forgotton Heroes of World War II" by Lynne Olson and Stanley Cloud. It's about Polish Fighter Pilots who helped save England during the battle of Britain and their betrayal by the U.S. and England at the End of World War II. It's story and history, looks good. Have you read it or heard of it? Hope you are enjoying Jadwiga's Crossing. I've had a bad headache today and it is in the high 90's so haven't accomplished a thing. Have a good rest of the day...Linda
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