Sample Saturday is when I wade through the eleventy billion samples I have downloaded on my Kindle. I’m slowly chipping away and deciding whether it’s buy or bye.
A Mad Love by Vivien Schweitzer
Why I have it: Because I love opera.
Summary: Schweitzer acquaints readers with the genre’s most important composers and some of its most influential performers, recounts long-standing debates, and explains essential terminology.
I’m thinking: Maybe (will it hold enough that’s new to me?)
Aftermath by Harald Jähner
Why I have it: Came across it during November 2021 (nonfiction and German).
Summary: Germany, 1945: cities have been reduced to rubble and more than half of the population are where they do not belong or do not want to be – a society corrupted, demoralised and freed, all at the same time.
I’m thinking: Yes. The author speaks of the ‘strange nostalgia’ that existed after WWII and I wondered how the same would apply to Covid.
Fierce Poise by Alexander Nemerov
Why I have it: Appeared multiple times on the Best of 2021 list.
Summary: A biography of twentieth-century painter, Helen Frankenthaler, as she came of age as both an artist and a woman in the vibrant art world of 1950s New York.
I’m thinking: Yes.
Aftermath sounds especially compelling. It’s interesting to think about parallels to the post-Covid situation.
Fierce Poise sounds so tempting – art, 1950s and New York as well!
I enjoyed Aftermath. It gives a good picture of what life was like for both the German population and the occupying forces and their families.