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This is the discussion thread for the Summer 2020 Group Read A Bookshop in Berlin by Françoise Frenkel . Please post your comments here. This thread is not restricted to those choosing this book for task 20.10, feel free to join in the discussion. Warning- spoilers ahead!

The requirement for task 20.10: You must participate in the book's discussion thread below with at least one post about the contents of the book or your reaction to the book after you have read the book.

Although the author did run a bookstore in Berlin for 18 years (1921 - 1939) this book had very little to do with that. At the end of Chapter 1 she leaves Berlin and moves to France at the beginning of WWII. After that it's a memoir of her experiences as a Polish-born Jewish woman in France trying to avoid being sent to the camps. She was luckier than many.

She tried to follow the rules, up until when she left for Switzerland, which meant that she wasn't allowed to work, but she was able to have her residency papers renewed several times and she was able to get a Swiss visa, which meant that she was welcomed in Switzerland after crossing the border.

Perhaps if I had read more of the reviews, I wouldn't have been as surprised at the lack of focus on her bookshop. This definitely didn't strike me as being about an Entrepreneur.

I wish I had more to say about this book but I don't. It was fine. I always feel bad rating memoirs poorly, especially when they deal with serious subject matter, but this was pretty forgettable for me. There's nothing wrong with it but I just think there are better memoirs out there.

Julia wrote: "Although the author did run a bookstore in Berlin for 18 years (1921 - 1939) this book had very little to do with that. At the end of Chapter 1 she leaves Berlin and moves to France at the beginnin..."

I was disappointed about how little of this book was about the bookshop as well. I don't normally read WWII books, whether they are fiction or non-fiction, but I picked this up because I thought it would have that books-about-books element. But it was barely in there.

I get that this is a memoir and things happened a certain way, but calling it the Bookshop in Berlin is a little misleading.

Amy FL

I totally agree with your review, Tracey. I've read a number of books about the Holocaust and even toured a concentration camp in Austria years ago. I tend to feel a sense of sadness and outrage when reading these books, but not this time.

This had none of the cruelty of the Nazis and very little suspense. I feel strange and somewhat wrong saying that the book fails by lacking atrocity. However, what was touted as an escape from peril story just didn't make me feel anything. As Tracey said, forgettable.

Andy P.
This book is really a memoir of the author's life as a French Jew . The first few chapters deal with her attempts to get the news of the world outside of Berlin during the 1930's. The bulk of the memoir describes he attempts when deported to Paris and then the south of France where she does her best to help Jews still remaining in Germany to leave the country, a task requiring more than a little bit of ingenuity. Thus the book is not really the book for this task (women entrepreneurs) but another entry into the lengths that Jewish people helped those caught in Germany as World War II unfolded. With credit to the person nominating this book for this task there is no indication in the blurbs about the book that the bookshop encompasses only a small portion of the book.

Dlmrose

I think I might have felt differently about this book if the edition I read had been titled No Place to Lay One's Head.
The GR description of that edition opens "The unforgettable story of one woman's struggle to survive persecution in wartime France". Much less Berlin, much less bookshop.
With the comments from the posters above, I did go into this knowing this book might not be what it first appears to be. But I did think it was an interesting read. I thought the documents at the end were the most interesting.

I feel Dlmrose's comment to be very apt. No Place To lay One's Head is more the focal aspect of the story. While it lacks the horror that draws most people in, the forgettable aspect of the story is what a great number of people went through to try to get safe. And are currently doing to try to get to someplace safe.

Call this number. Fill out this form. No, you needed to fill out THIS form. Talk to this person. Nope, the rules/laws have changed. Start over.

While rather boring, I found it heartbreaking, sad, and yes, forgettable. And is shouldn't be.

This was a very different perspective of WWII then most of the other memoirs I have read set during this time period. The speed at which this woman's life changed was what really struck me, and of course I was struck that persecution such as this is very much still alive her and now in America. The other aspect that stuck out to me was how much the woman's friends= and sometimes strangers - put on the line for her. The author remembered in great detail even the simplest of passing kindnesses, such as someone carrying her bag or paying for her meal.

I, too, was disappointed however that there wasn't more bookshop!

I agree with everyone else's assessment. The English title was very misleading about the theme of this book. Very little bookshop. Not so much about her motivation to run the bookshop or even very revealing about who she was and how she lived her life. Am I the only one shocked to read she had a husband?? I know he had already left, but she never mentions him ever, and there is no clue in the afterwords about if they reunited. I am impressed how she survived and ultimately escaped, but this read in a very impersonal way. Would love to read her real story, who she was and what her life was like before and after this part of her life and if she ever got to see her mother (or husband!!) again!

I'm going to agree with everyone else, with a but...

I too was expecting more bookshop. And I too, at times, found this boring or difficult to read. I struggled with some of the writing at times, but at other times.

However, and this is probably just me... I am horrible at history. And while I have a basic understanding of the major horrific things that have happened in the past, I have never been good with the details. I always failed history in school... names, dates, etc. If nothing else, I learned a lot from this book. And I do appreciate that.

In a way I sort of appreciated reading an individuals story without the heart wrenching moments. The lack of "atrocity", as one person mentioned earlier in this thread, was part of what made this more readable to me, and more educational, even if it was, at times, a bit difficult to get through.

Cindie wrote: "I agree with everyone else's assessment. The English title was very misleading about the theme of this book. Very little bookshop. Not so much about her motivation to run the bookshop or even very ..."

It says in the timeline at the end that her husband died at Auschwitz August 19, 1942. Also, in the dossier, in her dedication to Father Noir she mentions "I am grieving for so many and know not where my family have been laid to rest." It doesn't specify anyone in particular, but I assumed that meant she never reunited with any of her family.

I wasn't as disappointed in the book as it appears most readers have been. I think the title was misleading, which probably set up expectations and contributed to everyone's disappointment.

I'm not sure how to explain what I liked about the book but I'll try. We've been living in such strange times for the past few years and I always wonder where it's going to end up. In the political world norms seem to change everyday and while people write about and discuss it, we seem to not comprehend exactly how much has changed. This book provided someone's day-to-day perspective of a time where the world was in upheaval. She had no way of knowing how anything was going to turn out and made her decisions based on who she knew and what she knew in the moment. I was fascinated reading a real time account of daily living under these circumstances.

Tammy AZ wrote: "She had no way of knowing how anything was going to turn out and made her decisions based on who she knew and what she knew in the moment."

I think the bookshop probably played a very large role in who she knew and provided the financial resources and connections that she needed to make her way.

I agree with others who noted that the bookshop had little to do with this story. I was surprised it wasn’t even addressed at the end of her story either. I was also shocked to find she was married according to the included timeline but never discussed her husband! He died in a concentration camp! It seems bizarre this didn’t factor into her story at all. I think the original title suited the book better (I believe it was No place to lay my head). All of this aside- this story is an important part of a critical time in history and I was quite disturbed by how many of the descriptions resonated with how I’m feeling now. I don’t want to get anyone going in a bitter direction but I’ll just say I read some descriptions of behaviors and feelings that exist right now and it’s alarming.

Ava Catherine

I agree that the English title A Bookshop in Berlin: The Rediscovered Memoir of One Woman's Harrowing Escape from the Nazis is misleading, and although the main focus of the book is not about the bookshop, I did enjoy it. Francoise Frenkel was influenced from a young age by literature, and it is obvious that owning a bookstore was important to her.

But with the war Frenkel was thrust into a survival situation. I found her detailed, day-to-day narrative of life in occupied France interesting and informative, giving an account not found in staid history books. For example, it was touching when she described the French soldiers on the train from Vichy to Avignon in the summer of 1940. They had bought gifts for their families and were eagerly sharing them with each other along with photos of girlfriends, wives, sisters, and children. It was also sweet when she explained about the Vichy people meeting at the post office. The people who helped her along the way were amazing. The priest who took her to the convent made me smile, and the farmer who gave her advice about the gate when she was crossing to Switzerland was delightful. I wanted to hug him! Although the book addresses the Nazi's unbelievable cruelty, I found this an uplifting book that celebrates the very best in our fellow man.

It wasn’t what I expected, and I kind of regret not reading the comments in this thread before reading the book. There was very little about the bookshop, and I wish it would have focused on that a bit more. The book also felt at times like I was reading a grocery list: “and then this happened and the following week this happened and then I traveled here but came back within a week�. There was no emotion, and I didn’t actually feel connected to the main character at all. Like someone else up-thread mentioned, it was ok, but forgettable.

I am only 20% through this book but are we sure this woman was

a) an entrepreneur
b) had an interesting story to narrate

]Having finished this book here are my thoughts

I read the UK kindle edition which carries the title [book:No Place to Lay One's Head|38116267

The book has nothing whatsoever to do with a bookshop and even less to do with female entrepreneurial activity. I could question that she had nowhere to lay her head as she seems to have been very well helped by some French citizens in what was undeniably an awful period of history.

More than anything I just feel that this book is like a whistle-stop tour through that period and fails to provide any depth or feeling to the narrative. It adds nothing to the knowledge base of history in the World War II era.

Whilst I have sympathy with her plight I really want a book to evoke the era and this just failed to do it.

I agree with Deborah that it was boring.

I also feel that it was the wrong book for this category - having done the SRC for some time now I know it is difficult to be sure that a book fits a category but this so obviously was a memoir of a time period rather than an actual entrepreneurial account.

I also feel that those of us who voted for it need to take some accountability ( I think I did and i really don't know why) actually i have checked and I didn't vote for this but it did win by a big margin

- were we all tempted by the word Bookshop?

I found that for a memoir, the tone of this book was surprisingly aloof. I feel many aspects of the author's struggle was glossed over, stated very factually rather than bringing the reader on a journey and immersing them in the author's own experiences. The story is interesting, but lacks an emotional punch.

I was also expecting the book to have more of a focus on the bookshop, and perhaps the original title (No Place to Lay One's Head) would have represented the story more accurately.

Despite the title being somewhat misleading, this is a good read. It is so difficult to imagine the terror that people in the author's predicament must have felt. I don't think I could have kept my composure. Hell, I'm not keeping my composure under the current political situation in the US. Being of French heritage, and having a great grandmother who sent care packages to her war-torn village in Alsace, it was comforting to read about some very helpful French resisters.

This was my second book set in Occupied France in a month and it was hard reading both in a row. I have always wanted to read more books which detail the domestic experiences of wars, especially the strange, tragic world of the Second World War. My copy of the book had an introduction by Patrick Modiano which made it clear that the bookshop itself would not be significantly featured much. While the title is misleading, and I wish the original one had been respected, the book itself is rich in details of the desperation, suffering, but also the kind-heartedness of people. However, we also see people corrupted by power, or swayed by prejudice, and realise why history should not just be academic retellings, but the everyday stories of pettiness and kindness, which give such a rich insight to humankind.

READ 60

I really was expecting to read about a bookstore when I picked this book. I learned that I need to research titles before I buy a book and commit to reading it. Yes there was a bookstore, briefly. I did continue to read the book until the end but since it really wasn't an area of literature that I normally would pick it was , for me, a difficult read.