Tell a friend about this book...
Friend's Email:
Subject: I have found a book that I think you would enjoy
Member $avings: $16,107,424.52
|
Books Available: 4,139,467
|
Members Online: 179
Your source for swapping books online - Read...Swap...Save!
How To Swap Books?
Sign Up
Search 
Kiosk
All Books
Book Browser
Advanced Search
Books Posted Today
Member Book Reviews
NYT Best Seller List
Newbery Medal Winners
Pulitzer Prize Winners
Most Traveled Copies
Club Wish List
Login
Community
Member Directory
Discussion Forums
Blog
Donations
Live Chat
Box-O-Books
Book Journal
Maps
The Eclectic Pen
Fun Stuff
Top 50s
Pulse of PBS
Spread The Word
Photo Gallery
Recipes
Club Tag Cloud
Member Testimonials
Help Center
Kiosk
Need Help?
Search - Stones From The River
|
Stones From The River Author: |
|
|||
Book Information
|
|||||
Other Versions of this Book: Audio Cassette (Abridged), Hardcover, Hardcover
Book Description:
Stones from the River is a daring, dramatic and complex novel of life in Germany. It is set in Burgdorf, a small fictional German town, between 1915 and 1951. The protagonist is Trudi Montag, a Zwerg -- the German word for dwarf woman. As a dwarf she is set apart, the outsider whose physical "otherness" has a corollary in her refusal to be a part of Burgdorf's silent complicity during and after World War II. Trudi establishes her status and power, not through beauty, marriage, or motherhood, but rather as the town's librarian and relentless collector of stories.
Through Trudi's unblinking eyes, we witness the growing impact of Nazism on the ordinary townsfolk of Burgdorf as they are thrust on to a larger moral stage and forced to make choices that will forever mark their lives. Stones from the River is a story of secrets, parceled out masterfully by Trudi -- and by Ursula Hegi -- as they reveal the truth about living through unspeakable times.
Through Trudi's unblinking eyes, we witness the growing impact of Nazism on the ordinary townsfolk of Burgdorf as they are thrust on to a larger moral stage and forced to make choices that will forever mark their lives. Stones from the River is a story of secrets, parceled out masterfully by Trudi -- and by Ursula Hegi -- as they reveal the truth about living through unspeakable times.
Members who requested this book also requested:
Similar books to this author and title:
 |  |  |  |  |
Genres:
Top Member Book Reviews
Leigh P. (
9 member(s) found this review helpful.
Difficult to get into (about 100 pages), but worth it, once you do. I learned more about WWII reading this novel than I ever did in a history book (sadly). Hegi's characters drove home the pain of having war touch you personally, although you may not be politically involved. Her unique approach to the war descriptions was Shirley Jacksonesque - she presents rumors, bits and pieces, phrases -- and lets your mind assemble them into the horrors you already know took place. One by one, you are introduced to, grow to love, and read the fates of, each person in the main character's (Trudi's) life. Expect to form strong, sentimental attachments.
6 member(s) found this review helpful.
Every couple of years, I take 'Stones from the River' off my bookshelf and read it over again. I first heard about this book beacuse it was an Oprah's book club pick. 'Stones from the River' is about the life of Trudi Montag,a dwarf who is living her life in a small town in Germany. The book is from Trudi's childhood to her adulthood. She is such a great character and this book is an outstanding read. I wasn't disappointed at all. My favorite line from the book occurs when Trudi is talking to a man named Adolf, a Jew who is hiding in Trudi's house during WWII, and she is comparing the suffering that he and others Jews are going through to others and he tells her: "...But we can't do that-compare our pain. It minimizes what happens to is, distorts it. We need to say, yes, this is what happened to me, and this is what I'll do about it."
Rachel F. (
5 member(s) found this review helpful.
I got half way through and couldn't put it down! This Oprah Book Club book from 1997 is completely worth the read. It was very interesting and educational - letting you see the German view of WWII. I was, as many other reviewers, able to learn more about WWII than I had in school. I loved the character associations and seeing them 'grow' from childhood in the early 1900's to later on in life after WWII - seeing how they changed and how their families changed or were lost.
A book you won't regret getting into.
4 member(s) found this review helpful.
I am an avid reader and this is one of the most memorable books I have ever read. It is so complex -- the story of how Nazism comes to take over an ordinary small German town through the eyes of a young woman who is a dwarf named Trudi! This is a complex book that will keep you mesmorized every step of the way.
Patti S. (
3 member(s) found this review helpful.
This was excellent. A love story set in Germany during World War II; it is about the lives of a community, a woman, the war--all of it. The main character is wise and insightful. Her descriptions of life around her, all that is ugly and beautiful are full, crisp. This book is complex, engaging, and surprising
3 member(s) found this review helpful.
I almost gave up on this book until a fellow PBSer convinced me it really is a good book, and she was right it is. I am so glad I did not give up on it and read it all the way through. It really gave me a new perspective on how life was back then and the struggles people went through just to survive. It made me appreciate the freedoms I now have. It was well written, though a little confusing at times if you do not pay attention.
2 member(s) found this review helpful.
Trudi is a dwarf living in Germany. A great book telling about her life and all the people around her. A hard to put down book.
2 member(s) found this review helpful.
An interesting tale but it's not a book I would read again. I just didn't connect with the story.
Carol G. (
2 member(s) found this review helpful.
I really liked this book. This is a story about a dwarf -- short, undesirable, different the voice of anyone who has ever tried to fit in. Ursual Hegi brings us a timeless and unforgettable story in Trudi and a small town, weaving together a profound tapestry of emotional power, humanity, and truth.
2 member(s) found this review helpful.
Poingnant and special story about a woman's life in a very dark time who endures a difficult life. I loved this book and highly recommend.
Please Rate these Book Reviews
Reading the back cover of this book makes you NOT want to read it. Dwarfism? Nazism? But DO NOT let that stop you! This book is about people and relationships and is a wonderful read. Unique, but exquisite and fascinating.
Mar wrote on 9/5/2009...I loved this book...Wonderful story. I could not put this down.
(I found Trudi's personal story less interesting than those of her neighbors. The systematic dehumanization of the Jewish population through Trudi's eyes is well-told. It doesn't feel like a fictionalized account. The horror of how the war made people turn against eachother, even against their own family members, or how people just disappeared never to be heard from again, is unforgettable.
One passage made such an impression I went through half of the book to find it again:
' "I wish they'd make up their minds," Michael Abramowitz said to Leo when he bought his pipe tobacco. "Is Hedwig a witch or a Jew?"
"Why not both? The more labels they find for her, the more justified they can feel in what they're doing."
"Labels..." '
With this kind of wisdom and insight in her fiction, Ursula Hegi is an author I look forward to reading more from.
One of the few fiction books I've ever read more than once; I come back to this one again and again. Ursula Hegi has a way of making the characters come alive, so they stay with you even when you are long done with the book.
Jodi C. (
Ammie H. (
Judy B. (Well written. Not an easy read but so worth the effort.
a beautifully written book! great story that really sucks you in, LOTS of details about all the characters involved. left me mesmirized....
Ursula Hegi's Stones from the River clamors for comparisons to Gunter Grass's The Tin Drum; her protagonist Trudi Montag--like the unforgettable Oskar Mazerath--is a dwarf living in Germany during the two World Wars. To its credit, Stones does not wilt from the comparison. Hegi's book has a distinctive, appealing flavor of its own. Stone's characters are off-center enough to hold your attention despite the inevitable dominance of the setting: There's Trudi's mother, who slowly goes insane living in an "earth nest" beneath the family house; Trudi's best friend Georg, whose parents dress him as the girl they always wanted; and, of course, Trudi herself, whose condition dooms her to long for an impossible normalcy. Futhermore, the reader's inevitable sympathy for Trudi, the dwarf, heightens the true grotesqueness of Nazi Germany.
Book Wiki
Common Title
Series
Original Publication Date (YYYY-MM-DD)
People/Characters
Real Places
Fictional Places
Important Events
Awards and Honors