November 2019 Book Selection - Porgy

[La Tonya]

Topic #2

[Leslie]

Hello all! For November I thought we could each pick a person to read about - can be a biography, autobiography, fictional or real. You decide who you want to read about!

Have fun with it and please share!

Leslie

[Leslie]

I am picking Porgy by DuBose Heyward for myself.

[Agnieszka]

I plan to read The Woman Who Smashed Codes: A True Story of Love, Spies, and the Unlikely Heroine who Outwitted America's Enemies though it's more because of the topic (kryptology, numbers, codes) and less because of the heroine. I still don't have a clue what's her name but will know more when I'm finished with the book.

[Susan]

I think that reading about Tim Burton would be fun. Tim Burton by: Ron Magliozzi

[Leslie]

Both sound good! :-)

[Leslie]

Porgy and Bess currently at the Metropolitan Opera!

https://www.americamagazine.org/arts-...

[Leslie]

Super fun stuff!!!! A look through the years...

https://tamswitmark.com/blog_items/12...

http://gershwin.com/publications/porg...

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/19/ar...

https://www.npr.org/2011/08/21/139784...

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-h...

I love, love, love Sidney Poitier!
https://medium.com/@sadissinger/a-fil...

[Agnieszka]

I started The Woman Who Smashed Codes: A True Story of Love, Spies, and the Unlikely Heroine who Outwitted America's Enemies a week ago and it's not what I expected. It's still interesting though I already realised there's not much about kryptology and numbers more a classic biography about an intelligent and strong woman.
Even if it's written in an interesting style it's going slow.
Edited: I abandoned this one for now but hope I'll give it a second chance sometime in the future

I forgot I planned to read Das wunderbare Überleben: Warschauer Erinnerungen 1939-1945=The Pianist: The Extraordinary Story of One Man's Survival in Warsaw, 1939–45 by Władysław Szpilman & Andrzej Szpilman this month as well. Since this book is set mostly in Poland (my first homeland) I'm pretty sure I'll finish it this month, I doubt that more and more about my previous pick.
Edited: Wow! A WW2 memoir that lets you lough while reading - at least in the beginnng - now I understand why so many people love it. Too bad the only Polish edition published 1946 was severely abridged due to political climate and never re-published after the fall of the Iron Curtain. The author's using so many Polish place names it would be really awsome and much easier for me to read it entirely in Polish. After reading three of four chapters I understand the original title (lit. The Death of A City) so much better: it's more about the city - the changes since the war started - than his career as a (radio station) pianist.

[Agnieszka]

I'm so excited! A book I've noticed by chance between the many new purchases from my online library I expected to get sometimes next year was already available since yesterday this is great for me - I was so much looking forward to this book, but not so great for my other biography - a book rather difficult because of the topic and genre (historical ficiton and WW2 is no more my stuff).

Ich diene Deutschland: Ein Plädoyer für die Bundeswehr – und warum sie sich ändern muss by Nariman Hammouti-Reinke lit. transl: I Serve Germany: A Plea (or Appeal) for the German Armed Forces - And Why She* Must Change (*in German the army has a female article and that's why it's used here as well)
The author is the daughter of Maroccan (muslim) immigrants, serving for more than 10 years in German army and was twice stationed in Afghanistan. She's was vote into one of the state administrations and part of the board dealing with immigration & intergration issues.
In this book she's writting about the army, what's working there and what has to change, life as woman (especially one of foreign ancestry), right wing radicalism, intergration of immigrants, and coexistence of different beliefs.
This sounds really amazing and I'm curious about it, especially since I could be counted to this group as well (I was born in Poland - though some of my ancestors had German roots) and right wing radicalism & intergration of immigrants are becomming more and more an huge issue in Germany.

Edit: Wow! Even if I don't always agree I think it's an important book and I wish would find it's way into German schools. There were some parts I was struggling with and the second last chapter was extremely bleak but all in all a great book.

[Agnieszka]

I read a third of Das wunderbare Überleben: Warschauer Erinnerungen 1939-1945=The Pianist: The Extraordinary Story of One Man's Survival in Warsaw, 1939–45 by Władysław Szpilman & Andrzej Szpilman by now and it's getting as difficult as I expected. Some of the descriptions are much too graphic for my liking but that's the way with WW2 books. On the other hands there are sitations described that show the length people go to pretend everything's fine and life goes on.

Added 11/28:
I just finished the book and as usual it's one of the more important I struggled with. WW2 is just no more my topic too gruesome and tragic. I'm glad I read this book and I learned a piece of Polish history I wasn't aware of but don't plan to re-read it.