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Release Date:  August 4, 2015 Publisher: Harper Audio Format: Audible Audio Length: 11 hours 1 minute Narrator: Andi Arndt, Ginny Auer Buy:     Kindle  |  Paperback  |  Audible Synopsis: In 1919, Rachel Rabinowitz is a vivacious four-year-old living with her family in a crowded tenement on New York City's Lower East Side. When tragedy strikes, Rachel is separated from her brother, Sam, and sent to a Jewish orphanage where Dr. Mildred Solomon is conducting medical research. Subjected to X-ray treatments that leave her disfigured, Rachel suffers years of cruel harassment from the other orphans. But when she turns 15, she runs away to Colorado, hoping to find the brother she lost, and discovers a family she never knew she had. Though Rachel believes she's shut out her painful childhood memories, years later she is confronted with her dark past when she becomes a nurse at Manhattan's Old Hebrews Home, and her patient is none other than the elde...

Title:   The Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness by Simon Wiesenthal Publisher: Schocken 304 pages Genre: non-fiction Synopsis: While imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp, Simon Wiesenthal was taken one day from his work detail to the bedside of a dying member of the SS. Haunted by the crimes in which he had participated, the soldier wanted to confess to--and obtain absolution from--a Jew. Faced with the choice between compassion and justice, silence and truth, Wiesenthal said nothing.But even years after the way had ended, he wondered: Had he done the right thing? What would you have done in his place? Review:  This is more like 2 books in one.  The first is the story and the second is responses from scholars, religious leaders, and country leaders on what they would do or what they believe.  Its a difficult question with no right answer. Since I've never been in that situation its hard to know what I would do, I probably would d...

Title: Bow Grip by Ivan E Coyote Publisher: Arsenal Pulp Press 219 pages Summary: Joey Cooper, a small-town mechanic, trades a beat-up old car for a brand new cello, he thinks he's in the market for a new hobby; for a man trying to pull himself back together after his wife left him (for another woman), music might be just what he needs. What he finds, though, is a lot more than he counted on, and a search for a cello instructor becomes, in a laid-back sort of way, a quest for personal fulfillment. Review:  Joey is just a small town guy who is trying to figure out life after his wife leaves him for another woman and his dreams for his future are dashed.  He trades a car for a cello because his mother and sister feel he needs to get a hobby and move on with his life.  When the man who he traded the car for gets in touch with him about the car breaking down Joey discovers a secret this man is hiding but before he can confront him he disappears.  Worried, Joey f...

The Murderer's Daughters by Randy Susan Meyers is a haunting tale by a first time author.  After convincing Lulu to let him in the house, Lulu and Merry's father murders their mother, stabs Merry and tries to kill himself the day before Lulu's 11th birthday.  Lulu had run to get help and had escaped the attacks but blames herself for everything that happened.  Merry and her father survive but the repercussions of this horrific act haunt the girls throughout their lives.  Known as the murderers daughters, no one in the family wants to take care of them so they are shuffled from an orphanage to a foster home.  Lulu tries to escape her past burying herself in school and work while still trying to take care of her sister. Merry believes her father needs family and finds herself as his only link to the outside trapped between his neediness and her sisters denial that he exists.   This book is powerful.  I finished it in two days.  I couldn...