November 22, 2020 GOOD LOOKIN' MAN

 It's been a tough couple of weeks. First--Sean Connery AND  then Alex Trebek. A double whammy. How I LOVED Sean Connery--when he was James Bond. I could watch him all day--he was THAT good looking-Suave-Debonair--did I mention EXTREMELY HANDSOME too.  He was the whole package--James Bond---Hell--I would have given my left arm to be a BOND GIRL. My WEAKNESS for good looking men--It's sort of a curse--so I have to be careful. Enough Said. Alex Trebek. He was also a handsome man but my attraction to him was completely different. I started watching Jeopardy with my grandmother WAY BACK WHEN and still watch it at 7:00pm most nights. Trebek was like an old friend--a link to my grandmother and childhood. It was always comforting to sit with a cocktail and spend 30 minutes with Trebek. It doesn't seem real yet as the show is taped through Christmas but when they get a new host it's really going to hit home. I'm hoping they replace him with Ken Jennings--that I could handle. He seems like a good choice to carry the torch into the next generation. 

 It's been 65 years since Eva Traube Abrams has seen The Book of Lost Names, also the name of Kristin Harmel's new novel. As this lovely novel begins, Eva, an 86 year old librarian living in Florida, sees a photograph in the New York Times that sends her reeling. It's a picture of The Book of Lost Names, an 18th century religious text looted by the Germans during World War II. It's finally been recovered and researchers are trying to break the code contained in the book. Eva is torn because she knows that she is the only one left who can break the code, but doesn't know if she has the strength to go back to the past. The reader is then back in 1942. Eva and her mother are fleeing Paris after her father, a Polish Jew, is arrested by the French police. They travel to a free zone in Switzerland where Eva meets a priest working against the Germans. It's here that she realizes she has a talent for forgery and works alongside a handsome Catholic named Remy to forge documents for Jewish children to cross the border. Don't want to say too much more about this interesting historical fiction/love story other than I really enjoyed it and encourage you to read it. It's only about 390 pages or a 4 mile easy read that you won't be  able to put down. Enjoy.