My Father Always Said, Fittings, and The Ashes of August

I related to each of these memoirs in different ways. Because I'm Jewish, the one that affected me most was "My Father Always Said." I've known holocaust survivors and children of survivors, so I read this memoir as another testimony to the horror of what happened then. On a more personal level, my father died when I was very young. I experienced the ritual of going to visit his grave, and pay respect to his memory,until my mom died. She always insisted that I find a stone and place it on top of his tombstone. I never knew why. I just did what my mom told me to do. I was moved by Schwartz's interpretation of the stones placed atop tombstones in a Jewish cemetery. It made me want to go to visit my parents graves, and it made me think about all those who perished in the holocaust -- and the way those who survived embraced life.

My uncle died of Alzheimer's disease. The last time I saw him, he thought I was my mother, his sister, so "Fittings," also personally affected me. I liked the way the author made something so tragic more accessible by using humor.

"The Ashes of August" brought back to mind a few trips west I've had -- the heat, the dryness, the awesome beauty, the people, as rugged as the landscape and as fragile.