1000 Books Project: Part Two of Elie Wiesel's Night Trilogy - Discussing Dawn

I don't really have too much to say about Dawn. Not quite as compelling as Night, but still gripping in its own right. I did find myself wondering how many young people who survived the Holocaust (the camps) ended up exactly where Elisha did...part of a terrorist movement? It's sad to become so consumed with hate, but it is very understandable. I can see how fighting back against oppression is very important to them. Of course, Gad is a convincing recruiter. 

"Gad's stories were utterly fascinating. I saw in him a prince of Jewish history, a legendary messenger sent by fate to awaken my imagination, to tell the people whose past was now their religion: Come, come; the future is waiting for you with open arms. From now on you will no longer be humiliated, persecuted, or even pitied. You will not be strangers encamped in an age and a place that are not yours. Come, brothers, come!"

The ending is truly hard to read. I think to myself, I could never kill another human being, but I have never been faced with oppression. That being said, is terrorism really the answer? It has been around for hundreds of years, and nothing has ever really changed. Much the same as war. Something to think about.

*********

What did you think of Dawn? Share any and all thoughts in the comments.

We are reading Book Three of the Night Trilogy, The Accident, this month. According to our reading schedule, I will post the discussion on (around) March 31.

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1000 Books Project: Part One of Elie Wiesel's Night Trilogy - Discussing Night

I will never ever understand how human beings could treat their fellow man so horrifically. The Holocaust is what happens when people turn a blind eye to what is slowly developing in their back yards. It could happen again, people. As much as I hate to say that, I can't help but believe it. I don't want to get political, but I just have to say that I never thought I would see America becoming what it is becoming. Our very Democracy trampled upon.

Let's talk a bit about why this Night has been challenged or banned. First, some information...

One of the key consequences of book banning is erasure. When we decide that some things are too uncomfortable to talk about, we risk losing the memory of how things happen. We lose context, we lose people, we lose the truth.

That seems to be the case according to a recent study by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany. The New York Times summarizes, “Thirty-one percent of Americans, and 41 percent of millennials, believe that two million or fewer Jews were killed in the Holocaust; the actual number is around six million. Forty-one percent of Americans, and 66 percent of millennials, cannot say what Auschwitz was. And 52 percent of Americans wrongly think Hitler came to power through force.”

Read that second paragraph again. Let it sink in. That is a very high percentage of people who know nothing, but let's ban all the books about it so we can get that up to 100 percent. I knew about the Holocaust when I was as young as elementary school age. My parents did not shield me from it because they understood the importance of knowing and acknowledging what happened. 

In 2017, the Conejo Valley Unified School District adopted an opt-out policy where parents could object to reading materials in the core list. While no books were actually taken off the list, enough parents opted-out their children from reading Night that the teacher could not effectively teach it to the rest of the class.

The other thing to point out in the second paragraph above "52 percent of Americans wrongly think Hitler came to power through force." Night starts out when Elie and his family are still living their daily lives, but we start to see gradual changes in their lives, until finally, the family is separated and Elie and his father are on their way to Auschwitz. Even the Jewish people, their neighbors and friends, ignored the warning signs because, really, what did they have to compare it with. In their minds, they could not fathom it, even when Moche the Beadle warned them. 

Only through history, and learning these subjects, instead of brushing them under the rug, can we understand how easily Hitler accomplished what he set out to accomplish. We cannot turn a blind eye to things going on in the world just because they are difficult to face, or because we think it could never happen. It happened. It could happen again. 

Elie Wiesel said: "We may use words to break the prison." In this video, he explains that he wrote his memoir Night out of a duty to bear witness to his experiences in the Holocaust.

We must keep reading books with subjects of injustice. We must keep reading, and spreading the word about how and why books are challenged or banned. 

International Holocaust Remembrance day is on January 27 every year. Let us never forget what happened. Let us not let future generations forget. 

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What did you think of Night? Share any and all thoughts in the comments.

We are reading Book Two of the Night Trilogy, Dawn, this month. According to our reading schedule, I will post the discussion on (around) February 28. 

Sources of quoted (italicized) information:

5 Banned Books That Will Help You Learn About the Holocaust

Facing History and Ourselves, “We May Use Words to Break the Prison: Elie Wiesel on Writing Night,” video, last updated April 19, 2022.

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1000 Books Project - The Night Trilogy Reading Schedule

Happy New Year! Welcome to the first book in our 1000 Books Project: Banned Books 2023 read-along challenge.

Time to start Elie Wiesel's Night Trilogy. 

My edition: Hill and Wang, New York - trade paperback, 318 pages.

Discussions will be posted here on the blog on the dates indicated in the schedule. Feel free to stop by the discussions any time. Post your thoughts in the comments, or share a link to a blog post.

Reading Schedule:

• January: Night (starting with the short introduction on page 3), pp. 3 - 119
  Discussion post will go up on January 31
• February: Dawn, pp. 121 - 204
  Discussion post will go up on February 28
• March: The Accident, pp. 205 - 318 (end)
  Discussion will go up on March 31

The original challenge post with info and sign-up is here.

Happy reading!

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2022 Yearly Challenges - Wrap-Up Post

This is the wrap-up post for the 2022 yearly challenges...

2022 Book to Movie, 2022 Read Your (Book) Shelf, and the 1000 Books Project: Classic Fantasy 2022.

I'm posting the links to the 2022 challenges below. If you completed the challenge (or even if you didn't) and you post a wrap-up, please link up in the original linky on the challenge sign up post. When you put your name/blog name, just add "wrap-up." Like so: truebookaddict/wrap-up

Here are the links to the 2022 challenges:

2022 Read Your (Book) Shelf Challenge

2022 Book to Movie Reading Challenge

1000 Books Project: Classic Fantasy 2022

Be sure to leave a comment on the post so I know you added your wrap-up.

In case you missed the sign-up for this year's yearly challenges, you can find them below.

2023 Read Your Shelf Challenge

2023 Book to Movie (and TV) Reading Challenge

1000 Books Project: Banned Books 2023

Here's to a new year of reading!

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2023 Read Your Shelf Challenge

Here comes 2023 and Read Your Shelf is back for another year, and another update. I haven't quite been able to get this challenge to work for me over the years and then I came upon this article on Book Riot, 

PRETEND YOUR HOUSE IS A LIBRARY: A STRATEGY FOR ACTUALLY READING THE BOOKS YOU OWN.

Basically, the premise is to take one shelf on your bookshelf (or some other designated place where you can place books for this challenge) and think of it as your "holds shelf." If you buy or receive a book you haven’t read, it automatically goes onto that shelf. (I've been building my shelf for 2023 by placing there all the books I purchased or received as gifts in 2022, plus books I purchased in 2021 or earlier that have been stacked in my bedroom.)

My "Holds Shelf"

For this challenge, you will only read the books on your holds shelf. When you have read one of the books, you put it back on one of your other shelves (think of it as "main circulation"). By design, there is no room in main circulation for this new book (probably not the case in some instances) so you must take a book from main circulation and place it on your holds shelf.

If you want, you can leave some space on your holds shelf for any new books you might receive or buy, just be sure to set a number of spaces available so you don't go over. Remember, the ultimate goal is to read books you already own. Not only are you reading newer books you were excited about when you bought them, but you're knocking out books that have been languishing on your shelves for years. 

From the original post (linked above): "This revolving door system has turned my bookshelves into my own mini library. Each time I finish a book I own, I return it to main circulation, and then I get to spend a few minutes browsing the stacks. I pick out a new book I’m excited about reading, and get the satisfaction of putting that book on hold (i.e. on my TBR shelf).

The best part: eventually all the unread books in my house will either get cycled onto the holds shelf, or I’ll realize there aren’t any unread books left in main circulation that I still want to read, in which case, I’ll donate them."

Fun! I hope you think so too.

So, the goal of this yearly challenge is to see how many books you can get through on your holds shelf, and your "main circulation," by keeping track of how many you read from each. You can set a personal goal of a set number, or just see how far you get. There's no winning or losing here. It's all in fun. 

• Challenge runs January 1, 2023 to December 31, 2023
• You can use books from your holds shelf for other challenges (this will give you even more incentive to get them read!)
• Hashtag for social media #ReadYourShelf
• Any questions? Leave me a comment below, or contact me via the button in the sidebar.

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2023 Book to Movie (and TV) Reading Challenge

Welcome to year seven of the Book to Movie (and TV) Challenge! Movies are coming out in theaters again, then making their way to streaming in record time, often simultaneously. There are also excellent movies and series offered on the various streaming services. How can we ever keep up?!

Let's see what books are coming to the screen in 2023. As usual, these releases are subject to change.

The info below comes from Booklist Queen. As she states on her site, "movie release dates are still shifting constantly. I’d love to say that this is the definitive list of books being made into movies in 2023, but let’s face it. No one can foresee what the future will hold."

I'm going to follow somewhat closely to her method of posting the books to movies. The first list are movies with definitive 2023 release dates, and the second list are most likely 2023 book adaptations. If you would like to see her list of movies under development, visit her original post here and scroll down to the end of the post. 

Legend: Movies = M, Streaming series = S, Streaming movie = SM (these will only be indicated if I know for sure which format the adaptation is.)

M: The Lying Life of Adults, Elena Ferrante (Jan 4)

S: The Witching Hour, Anne Rice (Mayfair Witches, Jan 5)

M, SM: The Pale Blue Eye, Louis Bayard (Jan 6)

A Man Called Ove, Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto, Jan 13)

Wellmania, Brigid Delaney (Jan 15)

S: The Screaming Staircase, Jonathan Stroud (Lockwood & Co., Jan 27)

M: The Cabin at the End of the World, Paul Tremblay (Knock at the Cabin, Feb 3)

Text for You, Sofie Cramer (It's All Coming Back to Me, Feb 10)

Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret, Judy Blume (April 28)

M: Harold and the Purple Crayon, Crockett Johnson (June 30)

M: American Prometheus, Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin (Oppenheimer, July 21)

M: The Trench, Steve Alten (MEG 2: The Trench, Aug 4)

M: Dracula, Bram Stoker (The Last Voyage of the Demeter, Aug 11)

M: Hallowe'en Party, Agatha Christie (A Haunting in Venice, Sept 15)

The Exorcist, William Peter Blatty (Untitled, Oct 13)

M: Dune, Frank Herbert (Dune: Part 2, Nov 3)

M: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, Suzanne Collins (Nov 17)

M: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl (Wonka, Dec 15)

M: The Color Purple, Alice Walker (Dec 20)

Books Becoming Movies In 2023 (Hopefully)

Anansi Boys, Neil Gaiman

Blackout, Dhonielle Clayton, Et. Al.

Daisy Jones & The Six, Taylor Jenkins Reid

Evidence of Love, John Bloom and Jim Atkinson (Adaptation title, Love and Death)

Exit West, Mohsin Hamid

The Fall of the House of Usher, Edgar Allan Poe

High in the Clouds, Paul McCartney, Philip Ardagh, and Geoff Dunbar

Killers of the Flower Moon, David Grann

The Last Thing He Told Me, Laura Dave

Leave the World Behind, Rumaan Alam

Lessons in Chemistry, Bonnie Garmus

The Magician's Elephant, Kate DiCamillo

The Marsh King's Daughter, Karen Dionne

The Nightingale, Kristin Hannah

Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, Rick Riordan (Adaptation title, Percy Jackson and the Olympians)

Peter Pan, J.M. Barrie (Adaptation title, Peter Pan & Wendy) 

The Power, Naomi Alderman

Red, White & Royal Blue, Casey McQuiston

'Salem's Lot, Stephen King

Shriver, Chris Belden

Spaceman of Bohemia, Jaroslav Kalfar

The Field Guide, Tony Diterlizzi and Holly Black (Adaptation title, The Spiderwick Chronicles)

The Three-Body Problem, Cixin Liu

Triptych, Karin Slaughter (Adaptation title, Will Trent)

Troubled Blood, Robert Galbraith

Turtles All the Way Down, John Green

Uglies, Scott Westerfeld

White Bird, R.J. Palacio

Wicked, Gregory Maguire

These are by no means exhaustive lists. If you find out about any I haven't mentioned, leave me a comment and I'll add to the list.

Main Levels

The Enthusiast: read 1-3 books
First One to the Theater: read 4+ books

Read only books being made into movies for release in 2023 (you are not required to only read from the list above. As I stated, if you find another movie or TV series/mini-series, based on a book, coming out in 2023, feel free to read it).

Additional Levels

Not Ready to Let Go: read at least one (1) book made into a movie or series in 2022

Here's a list of 2022 movies adapted from books. (Note: Some of the movies listed may have been moved to 2023).

Living in the Past: read at least one (1) book made into a movie in previous years

You can Google for previous years, or check Goodreads lists.

The Movie Was Better (What?!): watch the movie(s) for the book(s) you read.

*the additional levels are optional, you still must complete one of the main reading levels above

Additional Guidelines

• The books you read can count for other challenges. Ebooks, audiobooks, and traditional formats all count.
• The start date is January 1, 2023. End date is December 31, 2023.
• Remember, TV series/mini-series count too.
• Pick your level (and additional levels, if you like)
• Sign up below and grab the button (top of post). I hope you will join me!
• If you have any questions, click the contact me button in the sidebar, or leave a comment.

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1000 Books Project: Banned Books 2023

Challenge Backstory:

I picked up a copy of James Mustich's amazing 1000 Books to Read Before You Die: A Life Changing List and upon looking through it, I realized it really is a well-rounded reading recommendation book. I was pleased to discover I have read quite a few of the books he lists, and that many of them are on my personal reading lists (and they are books I own). So, to ever expand my reading horizons, and include others in the journey, I decided to create a read-along challenge, or project, if you will.

Sadly, the 2022 1000 Books Project was a bust, at least for me. I'm still reading The Once and Future King (gradually), and I had to give up on the Gormenghast Trilogy and set it aside for another day. I guess those selections were just too daunting for my 2022. What about you? If you participated, did you finish? 

Taking into consideration the above, I decided to try to make things a bit easier for 2023. We will read four much shorter books (instead of chunksters), meaning books at around 400 pages or less. One book each quarter. And the theme this year is Banned Books. There has been so much going on in the past couple of years regarding the banning and challenging of books, with actual libraries having to close down due to lack of funding from city governments who object to diverse and/or boundary challenging reading material. Any way I can raise awareness about this issue...I'm going to do it. 

And so, without further ado, here are our reading selections for 2023...

January, February, March - in honor of International Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27

The Night Trilogy: Night, Dawn, The Accident (The Night Trilogy #1-3)
by Elie Wiesel, Marion Wiesel (Translator)

Reference: Page 851-852 in 1000 Books to Read Before You Die

April, May, June 

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

Reference: Page 398 - 399 in 1000 Books to Read Before You Die

July, August, September - in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month in September

Reference: Page 16 in 1000 Books to Read Before You Die

The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende

October, November, December

Beloved by Toni Morrison

Strangely enough, I have seen this book on some horror recommendation lists so I thought this would be a good read for October (and going into November/December, if needed)

Reference: Page 569-570 in 1000 Books to Read Before You Die

Watch for the reading schedule for our first read-along, The Night Trilogy, which I will have posted on January 1st, or there about. 

If you're joining us, please leave a comment below (and a link, if you post about it on your blog or social media). 

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