Best Of Edith Piaf, The - Edith Piaf

Albert and Edith, Fred and Louie

Advantages: Their lives are worth remembering
Disadvantages: Their lives are over

This review was first written in response to a challenge for people to talk about their grandparents, now updated in the light of new material from my mother's papers. Unfortunately, the old photos haven't taken very well. Albert and Edith "Albert courted all my girls and then picked on poor Edith," my great-grandfather on that side of the family used to say. In writing about my grandparents, it is tempting to start with Edith, the one I knew best and loved most, but she would have thought it quite wrong to take precedence over her husband. Albert probably thought it was about time he had a few things his own way. The life into which he was born was a harsh one. He was the eldest son of a working family in a small mill-town on the moors ...

torr 18.12.2002 (02.02.2009) · Read full review
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Review of Everything that starts with G ...

Are You Innocent?

Advantages: Superb characters, great use of theme, very humorous
Disadvantages: None in particular.

The Age of Innocence has an interesting context: it's set mostly in the early 1870s, but was published in 1920, at a time when society was undergoing massive change following World War I and the year that the US gave women the vote. Having said that, it reminds me very much of Vanity Fair, which was set in the early 19th century and in London, not New York society as The Age of Innocence is. There's a similar level of sharp observation and witty humour that reveals the rotten core of outwardly decent society. Newland Archer is a young lawyer (one has to have a prestigious job, regardless of whether one needs the money, in order to be seen as useful and intelligent), and member of one of New York's best families, who has recently become engaged to May Welland, a member of another of New York's best families. At the outset of the book ...

DoubleFantasy11 14.12.2007 · Read full review
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Review of The Age of Innocence - Edith Wharton

An incredible story of one woman's survival

Advantages: A completely absorbing read
Disadvantages: A harrowing story

The Nazi Officer's Wife Recently I have read several books set during World War II in Germany, particularly about the Holocaust. The Nazi Officer's Wife: How One Jewish Woman Survived the Holocaust -was a book that I had not previously heard of, but was recommended it by the same person who recommended I read 'The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas', so I thought that I would give it a try. Wow! I was totally blown away by Edith Hahn, and all that she went through. I thought that it was an extremely thought provoking book, and one of the best chronicles about the Holocaust period that I have read This book is an autobiographical book by Edith Hahn, written with Susan Dworkin. It is dedicated to Edith's mother, Klothilde Hahn, and in the preface Edith tells us that she has written the book at the request of he daughter. She ...

oldchem 09.09.2009 · Read full review
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Review of The Nazi Officer's Wife - Edith Hahn Beer, Susan Dworkin