82 books like Night Trilogy

Almost all the survivors of the Holocaust have now died, which makes it more important than ever that we pass on knowledge about this incomparably brutal crime against humanity – and do our best to prevent future genocides.

Survival in Auschwitz is a highly detailed, profoundly disturbing, and, in the end, intensely moving account of Italian chemist Primo Levi’s eleven months in the most notorious of the Nazi death camps, Auschwitz.

If you wish to understand what the Holocaust meant to its victims – and how the prisoners did their heroic best to resist dehumanization, hopelessness, and death – you would do well to start with this important work.  

This was the first book I read about Basilicata, and it is essential for anyone interested in Southern Italian roots. Written in staggeringly poetic language, it offers a sad but beautiful introduction to the culture and history of the region, which is hardly ever written about and barely even visited, even by Italians.

During WWII, Levi was sent as a prisoner to Basilicata as punishment, to work as a doctor among the peasants there. The book taught me about the feudal farm system still in place there well into the 20th century, about its inhospitable landscape, and its isolated, poverty-stricken population – my ancestors.

It set the bar high for me to write my own memoir and continues to inspire me. The title refers to the fact that the train line only went as far as Eboli – that Christianity and civilization stopped short of Basilicata.

Few books have reminded me more powerfully that our circumstances and our inner life are not the same thing.

I first read Man's Search for Meaning years ago, and its impact has only deepened over time. Frankl's willingness to look directly at suffering without becoming defined by it challenged many of the assumptions I carried about happiness, success, and what it takes to live a meaningful life.

I return to this book because it continually reminds me that meaning is not something life hands us once everything finally goes our way. It is something we discover in how we meet what life places before us.

During difficult seasons of my own life, Frankl's perspective helped me remember that even when we cannot control our circumstances, we still have a relationship with how we respond to them. Few books have given me more courage, perspective, and hope.

I particularly appreciated the fact that, like Sarah’s Key, this book is a work of historical fiction based on an exquisite amount of detailed research.

It shares in common with the other four the horrors of internment, the effects these have on our behaviours, and the ends to which we are prepared to go, in the case of Sage and Josef, to relieve the shame and guilt of someone to whom we have developed a strong attachment.

I found the unfolding of the events related by Minka of her time as a prisoner in Auschwitz interwoven with revelations of Josef’s role in the SS to be compelling. The way the horrors of the past can be seen as ghosts in people’s lives decades later is, for me, testimony to the way the past shapes who we become and why we act the way we do.

Unlike the other books,… show more.

I visited the Anne Frank House.

I climbed the stairs to the annex. I passed by the bookcase that had hidden the family for just over 2 years. I sat on the beds, I stared at the pictures, I peered through the small window, but try as I could, I was unable to imagine the excruciating array of emotions that Anne and her family and friends must have experienced. 

In all my favourite, should this be a suitable descriptor, books about the Holocaust, I am drawn to stories of hope and optimism against the odds, and of the harsh realities of the lengths we can, must, and will go to, to both protect those we love and/or to try to secure our own survival.

For me, there is no better account of these characteristics than Anne Frank’s descriptions of life in the attic at Prinsengracht 263-267, 1016 GV Amsterdam. Rather… show more.

I love this book because even though it’s fictional, it delves into phenomena that actually happen to people in real life. There is such a thing as having repeated nightmares that are linked to a real-life incident and/or person, mainly when it directly happens to someone. Still, it also happens to people who either witnessed something and/or have an item with energy attached to it.

A lot of people refuse to believe in stuff like this. It’s like having a dream of a ghost or an entity one night, just to later figure out it was the thing haunting your house or it’s something that attached itself to you.

I love this book because it depicts a world that is very similar to ours and how disabled people are treated in the real world. While I didn’t notice how I could heavily relate to the main character, Kira, in a few ways when I was reading it, I definitely notice it now, and I find it kind of sad.

Captain Jay Zeamer, the protagonist of this book is the grandfather of a family friend. Similar to my own father’s story, it had been a story the family had been trying to get written into a book for a long time. And it is one of the epic proportions. Captain Jay Zeamer and bombardier Sergeant Raymond Joseph “Joe” Sarnoski are called for a 1,200-mile reconnaissance flight into the heart of the Japanese empire. It would become one of the most dangerous missions in aviation history, with very morbid chances of surviving. Yet, if they succeeded, it would change everything and open up the South Pacific for an American victory. This inspirational book is an important timepiece for any World War II enthusiasts, one that you won’t be able to put down.

This is a story about brutality, justice, and mercy, set amongst the aftermath of Lomax’s experiences as a POW in WWII. With a steady gaze he faces the depths of human barbarity and reckons with his own emotional responses.

Lomax confronts his previous captor wanting retribution, but instead makes an astonishing decision that changes the course of hatred for both him and his perpetrator. I also grappled with the shadows of dark acts committed against my family - even all these years later. 

I appreciated how the author, a fellow Brooklynite, interlaces chronological vignettes of the good times, and happy days in a Romanian town, alongside the hellish experiences at Auschwitz and other concentration camps.

The contrasts are heartbreaking and help put the story into historical context. Her style is very touching, and her sensitivity allows the reader to absorb the very difficult details.