The Flight Portfolio: A novel | 
pickVarian Frye formed the Emergency Rescue Committee that operated in Marseille with the aim of finding as many Jewish and Anti-Nazi intellectuals, artists and writers as they could and helping them to escape from Europe. And there is more to it. Orringer also writes about Frye‘s homosexuality and weaves a fictional love story into the main plot. Her writing is outstanding -a joy to have discovered her!
pickVarian goes to France in 1940 to work toward rescuing Jewish artists, allowing their escape from the continent. He‘s then approached by Elliott, the one who got away, to see about saving a friend‘s son. This is great historical fiction with a lovely M/M love story threaded through. The size and slow pace of this book are a bit daunting, but it‘s well worth it.
#bookspin from June
pickAmerican Varian Fry travels to Marseille with the hopes of saving great artists and thinkers from the Nazis. The work is dangerous and challenging but he assembles a network of those just as passionate about his task. He also has to question whether anyone has a life that deserves saving more than another‘s. This is a long book and but one that it is easy to get swept away in with its vibrant cast of characters and the high stakes they face daily.
Up before the sun..... I‘m reading this for a book group and it‘s over 500 pages so I hope it picks up a bit or it‘s gonna be a slog. I‘m hopeful because I loved her previous book The Invisible Bridge.
bailedUff, no. Prolix and overwrought. DNF @ 20 pages.
pickFive star read🙌🏻 A beautifully crafted historical fiction novel similar to A Gentlemen in Moscow and All The Light We Can Not See. Set in Nazi occupied France, a story about a group of ordinary people who run & operate a smuggling operation; their cargo: artists, writers, scientists, philosophers & those who are deemed enemies of The Reich. 👇🏽
Catching up on some correspondences while enjoying the sunshine ☀️ 🎶💕Post office is meant to open starting Sunday🙏🏼
Thank you @gradcat ever since you tagged me for #ISpy#Green I‘ve been thinking about picking up this book from my #TBR
It‘s really good. Dense and full of fascinating information, I‘ve been googling nonstop #LiveAndLearn Varian Fry, a US citizen travels to Paris to help expedite and process exit visas for European artists and socialists who are being threatened with imprisonment/extermination during the Nazi era.
Ideally, I wouldn‘t want to carry a hardcover through the airport. But this happens to be what I‘m reading right now. I hope to make a big dent in it during my 4.5 hour flight to Denver. I‘m so excited for my mom‘s Thanksgiving meal this afternoon! Gobble gobble😊 #botm
I started this book months ago and really love it so far, but every time I try to go back to it I get distracted by other things I'm reading! So it has definitely been on my TBR list for longer than I would like! 😁💕📚
#gratefulreads #beenonyourtbrtoolong @OriginalCyn620 @Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks
My favorite word is ‘defenestrate,‘ and it‘s been used TWICE in this book🤓 *edit* THREE times
Reading in bed before I go to a friend‘s for brunch. Most of my reading is done on a Kindle or iPad, but I still always have an ‘analog‘ book going. I just love this bookmark!
pickThis book, this epic, tragic, lovely book. How do I begin? As it wrestled with philosophic questions of what life is worth, it maintained a steady quiet tension. I was utterly transfixed. Layers of meaning and history made personal. Gah, I can‘t even describe how good.
To help keep me on track and since I get to read at work, I have developed a system of counting out the number of pages in each chapter and pairing it with a “task” I can do at work.
I‘m not sure how I feel about this book. A little over 100 pages in and I‘m still waiting for the actual plot of the book to start. I haven‘t connected to any of the characters yet either. Sigh
#30daychallenge #day5 Still have a cold, still depress-y, but reading
panIt took me a while to get into the book. By chapter 12, it got interesting and then by chapter 20 it just went back to boring. I ended up not finishing the book because I felt like I was dragging my feet trying to finish it.
I thought the context of the story and the setting was good, but the writing itself wasn‘t very good.
I‘ll have to say out of all the books I‘ve read this year, this is the worst one 😔 I‘ll give it 2 stars ⭐️⭐️
pickI don‘t even have words. This book just reached in and grabbed something in me and won‘t let go. I‘m reminded of what drew me to culture studies in college, of the different ways we all negotiate the world, the pieces we give up, or hide, to make getting by easier. I‘m reminded of my grandfather, for some reason, who was a contemporary of Varian Fry, a scholar of Latin and English. Cont‘d in comments.
6+ hours left, and I already want to go back to the beginning and listen again. The surrealists feel like family, and I‘m continually worried that Varian‘s delicate house of cards is going to crash. And I so love Varian and Grant, especially Grant‘s thoughts on hiding your truth.
“Oh, it goes something like this: Who‘s most important, the farmer who feeds the cow, the cow who makes the milk, or the girl who milks the cow? None of them. The most important is the boy who carries milk to the market. One wrong step, and the work of all the others is lost in an instant.”
Yes, my cup is indeed true 😂 one of my favorite gifts from a good friend #reading #books #outdoors #fun #sailor #idontevenownaboat
Audiobook knitting. The narrator is excellent, and the story is compelling, which is great because I have 13 days to knit this blanket before Baby M‘s moms have their baby shower. Unfortunately, the audiobook is only 19 hours long!
I might give up on this book soon. It‘s not grasping my attention nor am I intrigued.
Hopefully a few more chapters it‘ll be a bit better. So far it‘s not 🤷♀️#slowread #nobuildup #toomanylanguages
“Vivamus, moriendum est.”
(Let us live, since we must die)
Started this gem today. Already enjoying it ❤️ #france #nazi #artist #julieorringer #energy
panI really tried to get through to this one. I love hist fic set in WWII. But I couldn't with this one. It was a great storyline and lots of detailed characters (that existed in real life) but the pace was immensely slow. Not to mention Varian just was a mooncalf when Grant was around. It's okay to be in love but you got people to save Varian..for crying out loud. This one wasn't for me.
pickThe time to do what‘s right is always now. Always. And in Flight Portfolio, we also see the many people - US State Department officials certainly among them - who make the opposite choice. Let‘s not be those people. Vale, Varian Fry, and Julie Orringer for writing a thinly fictionalized account of his time at the beginning of the war.
pickDon‘t let the length scare you! After 50 or so pages to get into the characters, I found this to be such a smooth and compelling read. A beautiful fictionalized take on real people. Complex morality, with (seldom told) story emphasis on the LGBTQ experience during the WWII era. Totally recommend.
bailedI was so excited for this book and learning more about the daring risks and harrowing decisions made by Varian Fry in WWII France. What I got instead was a love story.
The audiobook couldn't hold my attention and neither could the book so I finally bailed at about 40%. I wanted to love this but it just wasn't what I expected.
pickA literary historical fiction based on writer and journalist Varian Fry and his liberation of dozens of avante garde artists from France during World War 2. The book is atmospheric in detailing the time and the immersion of bohemian folly. Really good.
I struggle with audiobooks, I either relax too much and fall asleep or if I try another task while listening my mind wanders and I lose track 🙈
That said, I'm giving this a try because it's the only format available through my library currently.
Finally getting to last month's #botm. In the background is one sculpture from Sheryl Oring's installation, Writer's Block, created in reference to the Bebalplatz book burning on May 10, 1933. Spending a lot of time with this art, deinstalling it this week, and The Flight Portfolio has meant a lot of time thinking about war, art, and censorship.
While #theboysofsummer are waiting on their next game, I‘m reading the lovely tagged book. I‘m peopled out for the weekend. I swear the old man next to me at the last game asked me everything but my blood type. I‘m feeling stabby. #songsofsummer
pickI just finished my #BOTM pick from May. This was so good! It is historical fiction that takes place at the beginnings of WWII in France, prior to the US entering the war. It is different from other WWII books I have read. It is about an American organization trying to get refugee artists out of France. The book deals with issues of class, sexuality, and race. There is a lot to think about while reading this book.
bailedJust not the right book for me right now.
panSo sad. This BOTM pick was not for me. So slow and just hard to get into. The story just didn‘t hold my attention. They can‘t all be awesome!
Anyone else reading this from BOTM? I‘m getting my hair done and brought it with me and I am finding it a bit slow/dry. Has anyone read it and can tell me if it gets better?
This is my next library book. Am I in the mood for it though? It's 560 pages of densely typed pages. I want to read it. But do I want to read it Now?
A couple of gorgeous quotes, a few pages apart in my current read. I‘m loving it so far.
Today was an awesome book mail day! My #BOTM box arrived, plus a Harold Bloom on reading the Romantic poets and a biography of poet Edward Thomas!📚😊💕 #nosuchthingastoomanybooks
My #BOTM box came in today. I love the new tote bag 💙
