The Lost Wife by Alyson Richman

I just started (and finished) a really great read if you're looking for something.  It's not a light read by any means.  I literally had to stop reading every so often to take a deep breath because I a) was not breathing and b) could literally feel my heart breaking. 

Written in the voices of a Jewish husband and his wife separated from each other in Prague just before Hitler's invasion into Czechoslovakia, it explores the horrible atrocities that happened in Europe in the Second World War.  It was devastating. 

My mind cannot even conceive the horrible, horrible things that happened so long ago to people who's only crime was being born Jewish.  Men, women and children were given death sentences more evil than I can comprehend.  We are stuck here in the middle between wanting to forget that something so evil ever happened, while also knowing that we must never, ever forget so that it doesn't happen again.  And yet even as I write this, civil wars around the world are taking people's lives and nothing is being done.  But what do you do?  How do you save a world that does not want to be saved?

The woman in this book makes several decisions that are so brave and it made me really think about my own character.  If met with a gut wrenching decision that required bravery and possibly put my life at risk for the ones I loved, would I make the right decision?  Would I choose the easy way out or I would I swallow my fear and go in head first?  What is most important to me in this life, and what am I willing to do to fight for it, to protect it, to nurture it?

Seriously, this book is an amazing read.  And I leave you with this thought, which puts everything into perspective.

Lose Yourself in this Harem...I mean, Book

Ladies, I found a really good read.  "Some Girls - My Life in a Harem" by Jillian Lauren because let's face it...we all really want to know.  I know it's not just me.  And seeing as how being in a harem is all *taboo* and how do you even bring up a subject like that to begin with?  How does someone get to that point in their life, when their decision is whether to accept the job in retail or get on a plane to be in a Prince's harem?  She has an incredible writing style - she's funny, she's vulnerable, she's nice (on my "severely under appreciated qualities" list).  It reads like a novel, not a documentary.  It's sexy without being porno.  It's how we battle that which is inside us, to become a better person in the end.  I highly recommend it.

http://www.jillianlauren.com/publications/

Lose Yourself

I have started reading again. 

I put the iPhone down, picked the book up, and had a hard time doing anything else.  Isn't it just the most amazing thing in the world?  Getting lost in a book?  Coffee time, lunch time, ever single chance I got, I had my nose in that book.  I started narrating my life, kinda like the author narrates her book...with a southern accent.  You know, just like I was raised in Jackson Mississippi in the 1960's.  I even walked out of my office after reading my book at lunch, and found myself saying to an employee, "well lordy, lordy."  True story, those words came out of my mouth.  Those words have never, ever come out of my mouth - just in case you're wondering.

That's right, I was reading "The Help".  And woot woot, I finished it before the movie came out, which is really very important to me, but I'm not quite sure why, but it is.  Now, I don't believe it was the most important piece of fiction since "To Kill a Mockingbird" but it certainly tells a story and makes a point - All us ladies, no matter colour, stature, age, or size need to stick together.  

Then as soon as it began, it was over and I was moving on to a travelling circus, amidst a love story...you know, one of those love stories that spans decades and sucks you in from the first 'and their eyes met, across a crowded room',  That love story held me captive in 'Water for Elephants'.  I was in the middle of a circus tent during the great depression, watching Rosie the brilliant Russian elephant, riding the train at night, setting up for the circus during the day.

Now, I'm crossing the globe, chapter after chapter, between Bombay and San Fran as two families lives are forever changed by one little girl.  I'm reading an International best seller, 'The Secret Daughter'.  

The thing is this...there are books that you lose yourself in.  You can taste the wine, feel the breeze, smell the grass, hear the sound of the train rumbling by, and then there are books that feel like books.  You read every sentence, but you know it's a sentence.  It doesn't feel like you're in the middle of a story, it feels like you're in the middle of a um....sentence.  This is the case with The Secret Daughter.  It feels like a story, filled with cliches.  It's almost painful.  I'm forcing myself to read this book which is soooooo disappointing because, I mean, come on...what a great premise for a story.  And you guys, it's an international best seller.  This means that people all over the world bought this book and read it.  Although....just because it sold well doesn't mean everyone enjoyed it, right?  I don't know.  It just tells me that if pieces of literature (if you can call it that) are selling internationally, then there must be a huge, huge void in the literary world.  

If I could only come up with a good idea.  Think, think, think!!!!!  Every time I come up with a "really good" idea, I realize after about three pages and two months that the idea really sucks and is completely unbelievable. The author of 'The Help' says her novel was rejected 60 times.  60!!  She had to rewrite her novel 60 times.  There were 60 people who said, "Your book sucks" and she kept going.  I'm pretty sure I would have found myself huddled in a corner sobbing after the first *no* and given up.

Think.

Think.

Think.