Friday, July 29, 2011

WHAT ARE YOU READING, PART TWO


Idly pursuing the USA Today yesterday, I decided to check out their list of the 50-top selling books. Although I consider myself a prolific reader, I have read only 8 of them. Well, 8.5. I bought Dan "Unbroken" for Christmas, and while he has never touched it, I have dipped into it quite a bit. Hence the .5 of a book.

The 8 I have read are "The Help" (#1), "Water for Elephants" and "State of Wonder", all mentioned in my previous post; Stieg Larsson's "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" and "The Girl That Kicked The Hornet's Nest" (where's the third one?); the first Harry Potter book (where are the rest?); "Room" by Emma Donoghue, a great thriller about a 5-year-old boy held captive with his mother in a single room, the only world he knows; and "Sarah's Key" by Tatiana Rosnay (more on that one later).

There are only a couple of more books I would even want to read: "In the Garden of Beasts" by Erik Larson, "Bossypants" by Tina Fey and possibly "Before I Go to Sleep" by S. J. Watson.

So why haven't I read more? Probably because there are so many authors on the list that I wouldn't touch with a 10-foot pole, like Danielle Steele, Janet Evanovich, Jennifer Weiner, Fern Michaels, Catherine Coulter,  etc. I'm not claiming to be an intellectual, but I think my reading habits are usually a cut above those novelists.

Anyway, back to "Sarah's Key" and the reason I'm writing this post. I didn't know until yesterday that this touching, unforgettable book has been turned into a movie starring Kristin Scott Thomas. It was released July 22 but is not in Bismarck yet. According to US Today, this is another novel "getting a boost from the film industry". Just before the movie was released, sales of "Sarah's Key" doubled. (It has already spent 117 weeks on the top 150 and is now at #19.)

"Sarah's Key" has been described as a wrenching Holocaust novel. It is based on the events of the Vel d'Hiv roundup of French Jews. Here's a summary:
Paris, July 1942: Sarah, a ten-year-old girl, is taken with her parents by the French police as they go door-to-door arresting Jewish families in the middle of the night. Desperate to protect her younger brother, Sarah locks him in a bedroom cupboard -  their secret hiding place - and promises to come back for him as soon as they are released.
 
 
Sixty years later: Sarah's story intertwines with that of Julia Jarmond, an American journalist investigating the roundup. In her research, Julia stumbles onto a trail of secrets that link her to Sarah, and to questions about her own romantic future.

Scott Thomas relates that she was eager to make the film, in part because her Jewish mother-in-law was one of the many children hidden away from the Nazis.

2 comments:

Maggid said...

Thank you, Thank you! I am always on the lookout for my next favorite read.
What a blessing you are.
love & Love,
-g-

Shopgirl said...

Don't laugh at me:( I am reading Fanny Flags latest. It is funny and fun, about a 60 year old woman that has decided to killer herself on a certain day. But many things get in her way...I am about half way though the book. As always you are reading a note worthy book that I would not think to read, thank you, Mary