Kirjahaku

"Deftlystructured and . . . seamless." --Globe and Mail (Toronto) " A]nuanced and layered portrait of betrayal. . . . The strength of Far to Golies in Pick's ability to show precisely why one person could turn on another, how a single word spoken on impulse could have devastating results." --MontrealGazetteAlison Pick, acclaimed author of The Sweet Edge, delivers the moving and suspenseful story of an affluentJewish family in Czechoslovakia at the onset of World War II, and the governesswho forever alters their future when she seeks shelter in their midst.Interwoven with a present-day narrative revealing each character's fates after thewar, Far to Go is an emotionallyvivid, masterfully wrought narrative that the Montreal Gazette calls, "an intriguing experiment in the art ofstorytelling."

In this powerful memoir, bestselling author Alison Pick (nominated for the Man Booker Prize) channels Karen Armstrong and Anne Lamott as she explains the shocking family secret that eventually led to her mid-life conversion to Judaism--exploring powerful, provocative questions about family, faith, and the burdens of inheritance. Alison Pick grew up in a tight-knit Christian family who went to church regularly and ate pork chops on Christmas Eve. But as a teenager, she stumbled into a remarkable family secret: her paternal grandparents, with whom she was very close, fled to Canada from the Czech Republic at the start of WWII because they were Jewish. But other members of her family hesitated to emigrate, and they paid the ultimate price for their choice when they were sent to Auschwitz.Haunted by the Holocaust, Alison's grandparents established themselves in their new lives as Christians. Not even Alison's father knew of his parents' past until he visited the Jewish cemetery in Prague as an adult. This atmosphere of shame and secrecy dogged Alison's journey into adulthood, and by her early thirties she had fallen into a crippling depression. Drowning in a sense of emptiness, she felt drawn to the Jewish community, and found inspiration for her international bestseller Far to Go in her family's harrowing past. Eventually she came to realize that her true path forward lay in reclaiming her history and identity as a Jew. Alison began attending classes about the conversion process and found a rabbi who would sponsor her participation. But the process was far from easy as old wounds were opened, and all of her relationships were tested. Profound, insightful, honest--and masterfully written--Between Gods forces us to reexamine our beliefs and the extent to which they define us.

For readers of THE TATTOOIST OF AUSCHWITZ and SCHINDLER'S LIST, FAR TO GO is a powerful, mesmerising novel centring on one family's heartbreaking decision to save their son - by saying goodbye to him for ever.Longlisted for the 2011 MAN BOOKER PRIZE for Fiction'Extraordinary' Daily Mail 'A potential classic in the making' Financial TimesPepik is only six when the German forces invade Czechoslovakia. Desperate to find freedom, his affluent Jewish parents try to escape with him to Paris, but are betrayed by Marta, the family's beloved nanny. Yet it is Marta who then secures a place for the Pepik on a Kindertransport, an act of determination that saves his life. But the child is never to see his parents or Marta again.'Somewhere between a book and a miracle' Catherine Ryan Hyde

From Alison Pick, Booker longlisted author of FAR TO GO comes a suspenseful, dystopian reimagining of the founding of a kibbutz in 1920s Palestine, for readers of WHEN I LIVED IN MODERN TIMES, THE HANDMAID'S TALE or THE POWER.'We came into their valley at dawn'. From three vastly different points of view, Alison Pick relates the story of a group of Jewish pioneers, many escaping violent homelands, who have come together to found a kibbutz on a patch of land that will later become Israel. With tightly controlled intensity, Pick takes us into three very different minds to show us how a utopian dream is punctured by messy human entanglements. Yet this is also the story of the land itself (present day Israel and Palestine), revealing the way the newcomers chose to ignore the fact that their valley was already populated, home to a people that the pioneers did not want to see.In writing of extraordinary, at times heartbreaking power, Pick has created unforgettable characters, haunted by ghosts and compromised by unbearable secrets. The novel's shocking conclusion is a tour de force, the work of a writer uniquely in control of her craft and with an extraordinary insight into the innermost workings of the human heart.