Waiting on Wednesday

(First paragraph from wishfuledings.com blog)

Can't-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted here, at Wishful Endings, to spotlight and discuss the books we're excited about that we have yet to read. Generally they're books that have yet to be released. It's based on Waiting on Wednesday, hosted by the fabulous Jill at Breaking the Spine. If you're continuing with WOW, feel free to link those up as well! Find out more here.

My apologies,but I decided for now to cut down 2020 books to one instead. I will still post two books, but one has yet to arrive while another can be bought, but I have yet to read it. I have thought long and hard on how to pair the remaining books, since the remaining ones are very disparate from one another (a suspense novel in present day Alaska and a historical fiction about Vietnam, and the one I am posting today is a memoir on post Holocaust.) I will explain my choices for posting I Want You To Know We're Still Here by Esther Safran Foer as well as The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer together in this post (beyond the whole 'Jewish and Holocaust and WW2 angles') 

So first book I will present is a non-fiction post-Holocaust Memoir titled I Want You To Know We're Still Here by Esther Safran Foer. Just like with any other book, I have peeked through its pages and have to say it definitely sounds engaging from the first written words. Basically from the summary, its about a woman discovering more about her family and writing about her experiences as a memoir. Also from the blurb, its suppossed to be life affirming and hopeful. 

The second book is fiction titled The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer which has already come out back in 2011. It has amassed about 4,000 reviews and tops at 738 pages. The story is based on the author's grandfather's experiences, I believe. What I think struck me the most is the story she related that happens in a book about a Jewish woman being terrified of giving birth because of what will happen to her child (Was not in Concentration Camp,) but yet she gives birth. Julie Orringer mentions somewhere that she used this episode from her grandmother's life and of how when her grandmother saw her great-grandchild, she felt it was worth it. (Click here for the article.) 

I Want You to Know We're Still Here: A Post-Holocaust Memoir by Esther Safran Foer

Published Date: March 31st, 2020

(From Goodreads) A riveting memoir of family, the Holocaust, and the search for truth

Esther Safran Foer grew up in a home where the past was too terrible to speak of. The child of parents who were each the sole survivors of their respective families, for Esther the Holocaust loomed in the backdrop of daily life, felt but never discussed. The result was a childhood marked by painful silences and continued tragedy. Even as she built a successful career, married, and raised three children, Esther always felt herself searching.

So when Esther's mother casually mentions an astonishing revelation--that her father had a previous wife and daughter, both killed in the Holocaust--Esther resolves to find out who they were, and how her father survived. Armed with only a black-and-white photo and a hand-drawn map, she travels to Ukraine, determined to find the shtetl where her father hid during the war. What she finds reshapes her identity and gives her the opportunity to finally mourn.

I Want You to Know We're Still Here is the poignant and deeply moving story not only of Esther's journey but of four generations living in the shadow of the Holocaust. They are four generations of survivors, storytellers, and memory keepers, determined not just to keep the past alive but to imbue the present with life and more life.

The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer

Published: January 25th, 2011

(From Goodreads) Paris, 1937. Andras Lévi, a Hungarian-Jewish architecture student, arrives from Budapest with a scholarship, a single suitcase, and a mysterious letter he promised to deliver. But when he falls into a complicated relationship with the letter's recipient, he becomes privy to a secret that will alter the course of his—and his family’s—history. From the small Hungarian town of Konyár to the grand opera houses of Budapest and Paris, from the despair of Carpathian winter to an unimaginable life in labor camps, The Invisible Bridge tells the story of a family shattered and remade in history’s darkest hour.

Which of these do you find exciting and are more likely to get?