Well, I’ll be. Not a non-fiction fan here. I can count on one hand the number of non-fiction books I’ve ever loved… EVER! And I don’t like war books, either. Too much death and heartache. But when certain book friends rave about a book because it affected them so much, I sit up and listen. Plus this book was on sale for $2.99 when I bought it. 🙂
That’s the backstory. The main story is: I ABSOLUTELY LOVE THIS BOOK.
City of Thieves is about two guys who normally wouldn’t be friends, thrown together for a week-long hunt for eggs during the German siege on Leningrad. It was a cold week for those young men. They almost die several times. They daily encounter other people’s death. And they fail over and over at finding eggs.
But they find something else. They find humanity in desolation and desperation. They find friendship. They find courage. One of the men finds humor in everything (thankfully, because I frankly needed the comic relief). The other finds love.
And that’s the best part of the whole thing… That LOVE can be found even in the wasteland of hate and war. That there’s a love story here FLOORED me and satisfied me to no end. Oh and it’s a TRUE one. TRUE love. Sigh.
As for the eggs: they can be had for a small wager, but they are no prize.
-calliope
