Oh, Beautiful: An American Family in the 20th Century in 100+ Books in 2025

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Jan 16, 2011 Dolly rated it really liked it

Shelves: other-usa, education-school, vietnam, pets, japan, military, nonfiction, poetry-song-music, russia, washington-dc

I won this book as a first-reads copy on Goodreads book giveaways and I am so glad that I did. The book is not short - it has 532 pages - but it encompasses about 100 years of family history and it's a fast read, so it's not too long, either. I liked the way the book was laid out, too. Part one was about the grandparents' journey, Part two was about the parents' journey and the author and his siblings' childhood years, Part three was about the tumultuous 80s and 90s, where the family discovers t I won this book as a first-reads copy on Goodreads book giveaways and I am so glad that I did. The book is not short - it has 532 pages - but it encompasses about 100 years of family history and it's a fast read, so it's not too long, either. I liked the way the book was laid out, too. Part one was about the grandparents' journey, Part two was about the parents' journey and the author and his siblings' childhood years, Part three was about the tumultuous 80s and 90s, where the family discovers their own way, and finally, Part four brings them all back together for their parents' 50th Anniversary. It was an engaging story and it elicits many different emotions - joy, sadness, shock, disappointment, hope, determination, and love (among others). I appreciate the amount of research and the painstaking effort of committing such poignant memories to print. My favorite parts included the sections where the Di Gregorios become established in Iowa and the detailed descriptions of Joseph's (Jozef's) wartime experiences during WWII, probably because this was long before my time and it was a glimpse of the time when my grandparents were young. All in all, it was a fascinating story and I highly recommend it for anyone who enjoys biographies and family histories. Thanks again, for the opportunity to read this wonderful story!

interesting quotes:

"Church is right here," Serafino thumped his chest, having learned to look beyond monuments and shrines. "If it's not in your heart, it's nowhere." (p.16)

"...the seven Yankee virtues of work, patience, perseverence, thriftiness, frugality, ingenuity, and resourcefulness." (p. 63)

"The first lesson he learned is that the greatest gift God has given human beings is 'wolna wola,' or 'free will.' Free will doesn't mean that humans are free to do as they please. On the contrary, it means that humans bear the burden of choosing between good and evil." (p. 95)

"From his own experience, he concluded that people who divorce lead unhappy lives and that divorces destroy children most of all. He believed that nothing is more important for children than a responsible father and a loving mother; therefore, he concluded, divorce simply does not happen between a responsible father and a loving mother, because no things could be more mutually exclusive than divorce on the one hand and love and responsibility on the other." (p. 112)

"He found his personal sources of strength and resilience in those three allied forces that were intangible yet mutually reinforcing: hope, grace, and purpose." (p. 134)

"...If it was his finest hour, the reason was this: He had discovered himself, in all his uniqueness and individuality, in the service of something greater than himself." (p. 135)

"Choose what is right, love one another as God loves you, and work for what is good for the world." (p. 358)

"...the Hindu concept of 'saccindananda'...combines three Sanskrit words that represent the three components of God: sat (being), cit (consciousness), and ananda (joy). Being, consciousness, and joy correspond to God the Father (the source of being), God the Son (the self-awareness of God on Earth), and God the Holy Spirit (the joy that comes with self-awareness of God). What better definition of a Holy Trinity could there be than "being conscious of joy"? Once I learned the meaning of 'saccindananda,' I could never make the sign of the cross in the same mechanical way again. Hinduism had taught me about Catholicism." (p.378)

"...the Gandhian notion of 'swadeshi'...translates crudely to mean 'patriotism,' or 'service of immediate neighborhood." In religious terms, 'swadeshi' means that people should adhere to the religion into which they were born. They should seek to correct its defects, to assimilate into it the truths of other religions, and to build a fellowship of faiths, each spurring the others in the pursuit of truth." (p. 379)

"It was exhilarating to see firsthand how the greatest hopes and optimism sprung from those who possessed the least and who had sacrificed the most." (p. 401)

new words: riven, munificent, punctilious, abstemious, lugubriously, abjure, syncopation, fulminated, paroxysms, penury, sacerdotal ...more

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