Showing posts with label love. Show all posts
Showing posts with label love. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 24, 2015
Mouillot grew up extremely close to her grandmother, and couldn't fathom never knowing about this huge part of her life. Her natural inclination toward history led her to figure out what happened. Mouillot moved to France after college to live in a house her grandparents bought together in a small village in France. She thought this would help her search for the truth. Using nothing more than her grandparent's official refugee documents from WWII and the few memories she could get her grandparents to part with, she pieced together the story neither one of them could, or would, remember.
Mouillot is an engaging writer. She easily draws the reader into the mystery surrounding her family history. Weaving together the past and her present search for her, Mouillot makes the reader feel as if he/she is a fly on the wall as she searches. I felt her frustration as she hit dead end after dead end. As she finally the realized the truth, I felt some of the wallop that she must have felt as she realized her family's history and happiness was simply another causality of war.
I recommend A Fifty Year Silence to any person interested in family history, the effect of WWII on European Jews who managed to stay out of concentration camps, or anyone interested in how the past influences and informs the present.
Blogging for Books provided this book to me for free in exchange for an honest review. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
From the Library of C.S. Lewis: Selections from Writers Who Influenced His Spiritual Journey, is an amazing collection of selections from the works and authors that most influenced Lewis. Compiled by James Stuart Bell, this collection includes works on eighteen different topics including God's love, humility, suffering, sin and temptation, and fantasy and imagination. Authors included range from as ancient as Anicius Boethius, to as contemporary as Lewis' wife Joy Davidman; they vary in fame from the relatively unknown Walter Hilton to the immensely popular G.K. Chesterton. Selections include works that inspired Lewis creatively, such as pieces of Wordsworth's poetry, to works that influenced him theologically such as St. Augustine's Confession.
The organization of this impressive collection is very helpful to the reader. All selections are grouped in chapters that have one specific topic. Being able to go to a particular topic and see who influenced Lewis in this area is very convenient. Another great feature of this book are the notes included about each author at the end of each selection. The author's dates of birth and death are provided so that the reader knows when he/she lived. A brief description of the author's most important work or role in church history is given to provide more context. The most fascinating notes are those that mention specific thoughts Lewis had about the authors. For example, in the notes about George MacDonald, it says that, "MacDonald had a profound influence on on C.S. Lewis. Lewis said that MacDonald's Phantastes 'baptized my imagination'" (8). Another example of this personalization is included in the notes about G.K. Chesterton. It states that, "C.S. Lewis says, in Surprised by Joy, that Chesterton's Christian apologetics had a marked impact on him, and Lewis' own apologetic work owes a debt to Chesterton" (36).
This book is an excellent resource for anyone who is a fan of C.S. Lewis; beyond that, it is an impressive collection of selections from works that have influenced the church throughout the ages, on topics that are vitally important to the church. I'd recommend this book to anyone interested in an overview of these topics.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)