Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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Pure-blooded animals for the Aryan to kill? Let’s get right on that.

The Zookeeper's Wife by Diane Ackerman

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During the late 1930s, Antonina and Jan Źabiński, along with their young son Ryś, were leading an idyllic life as caretakers of a small zoo, set in a parklike setting on the bank of the Vistula River in the Old Town of Warsaw, Poland.  Antonina had a special gift for dealing with animals in need, and their villa, on the zoo grounds, was full of animals that need a bit of extra help, including Ryś’ pet badger, and was fondly known as “The House Under […]

A Good Book to Finish Coming off the Heels of Holocaust Remembrance Day

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This World War II biography is written about Jan and Antonina Zabinksi. Jan was the Warsaw zoo’s zookeeper. Before the war, he and his wife lived in a villa at the zoo and enjoyed a home filled with strange and exotic pets, (besides the animals in the zoo, of course).  It wasn’t unusual to see a hawk hopping throughout the house, or a baby lion being nursed. But what was once a beautifully strange and fulfilling way of life turned to a life of survival […]

Finally brought this one out of the freezer

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  The Zookeeper’s Wife has been on my To Read list (and physically in my house) for about 4 years. Its place on my bookshelves predates my CBR membership! After a few false starts I finally made my way through this one… *Trigger Warning if you love animals more than people* I have read countless books on World War II, both fiction and non fiction, but none of them wrecked me like Ackerman’s The Zookeeper’s Wife. Antonina and Jan Zabinski ran the Warsaw Zoo in the 1930s; they had an […]



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