Next Book Club Meeting:

 11 a.m. Saturday, Jan. 11

Place: Feldman’s Deli 

2005 East 2700 South, Salt Lake City 

Martha's pick: "Life in a Jar: The Irena Sendler Project," by Jack Mayer

 

From Amy: 

Some of my favorite passages:

Page 60, regarding Megan looking at historical photographs of the Holocaust:

"The photographs disturbed her the most -- black-and-white images of starving children and orphans staring at her through the mystery of time and the harsh freezing of a painful moment. No doubt all of these children had died shortly after these photos were taken. They were not the abstraction called "The Holocaust," not an imagined reconstruction in words; they were specific children, so real that she felt she could enter their photographs, or they could step out of their hell. Their skeletal faces beseeched her, their bony hands reach out to her for bread."

I feel this is incredibly great writing and brings to the forefront the horror and trauma of the Holocaust victims. A photo is a slice of time -- a slight reminder of a moment that people would not know about or eventually would forget.

---

Page 221, when Irena and her friend Janina, stay up late into the night talking.

"They talked about how times had changed, how their lives had unfolded in unimaginable ways. Janina said, "If I would have made this up in 1936 you would have said I as crazy and you would have been right."

I can really relate to this because my life has been incredibly unpredictable (definitely not boring) the last few years. No one can foretell the future. If anyone would have told me 10 years ago that I would be spending the summer of 2013 living with my nephew in the Avenues, finishing my degree at the U, interning at Odyssey House and studying for a social work licensing exam, I would have told them they were completely crazy.
---

Page 261, Mr. C is telling a Native American story.

"... it was as if there were two wolves that lived inside him who fought each other for his soul. One wolf was vengeful and angry, the other forgiving and kind. The boy asked, `Which one wins, Grandfather?' The old man smiled and said, `The one I feed.'"

I am actually going to research this Native American story. I believe how we think affects not only our emotional well-being but also our physical state. Negativity, stress, hatred, anger, grudges, sniping, judging -- is all like a poison that you pour into your body.