What qualifies one to write a blog about books you have read? Perhaps it’s a need borne out of interest, the vast number of books one reads and wants to remember or perhaps it’s the need to share the impact such books have on your life?
I have been a book worm since the age of ten. It has always been my passion, my “go to” – my hobby, escape, sanctuary, and my sanity.
As a member of a book club for more than 15 years, I am the designated “keeper” of the books, and probably also the most prolific reader in the club. I read at least four to five books a month.
My preferred genres include fiction, memoirs and historical novels that capture periods in time where people were most challenged by circumstances, be it wars or significant change that leave them powerless or seemingly without choice and how in their inspiring ways they overcame and survived.
Of course, the Second World War has supplied more than enough material for writers that can keep a reader occupied for life. Not the battles or the strategies of the then leaders of the world, but about the people in every country who were severely touched and impacted by the war.
My blog is not a scientific or a literary critique of books. It should more be seen as me sharing an experience with you.
My favourite topic of conversation is to talk about books. So I have decided – more for myself, than for anyone else, that I want to document and talk about the books that have had an impact on me. Predominantly, those books that expose the power of the human spirit as people work through trauma, abuse or the interruption of their life paths. It is my passion to learn about how strong and powerful we human beings are and what we can absorb, overcome and celebrate. The Choice by Edith Eger is a book recently recommended to me by a friend. I read it and was deeply touched by the life of Dr Edith Eva Eger. She writes about the adversity, trauma and chaos of war, and how she herself survived the Nazi death camps – the torture, starvation and, of course, the constant fear of death. She explains that she only survived by preserving her own mental and spiritual freedom.
Her memoir is such an easy and inspiring read. Through her own struggle to overcome post- traumatic stress disorder as a result of the horrors she experienced, she guides the reader and teaches us that when we experience everyday disappointments and challenges in our lives, we always have a choice. No matter how grim our circumstances may appear, and how powerless we may seem, there is always a choice – the choice to find our own freedom from suffering by focussing on our own inner light.
This might sound like another of those dime-a-dozen self-help books that litter the display windows of airport bookstores. It’s not. Read it and join her on her journey; from her imprisonment as a teenager in Auschwitz, her various painful losses and suffering, to her guilt of having survived the war and her traumatic immigration into the USA as a Hungarian with little to no English.
She guides the reader by recounting her own healing process in vivid and inspiring detail. In the process of self-healing, she obtains her PHD in psychology and spends many years healing and helping others to learn the power of choice in overcoming hardship.
I simply loved this book and it’s no wonder that it’s currently one of the Amazon top ten Kindle best sellers.
I can unreservedly recommend it.
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