The Book of Lost Names

Locations
Call Number: Fiction / Harmel, Kristin, Adult Book / Fiction / Historical / Harmel, Kristin
On Shelf At: Downtown Library, Malletts Creek Branch, Pittsfield Branch, Traverwood Branch, Westgate Branch

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	Fiction / Harmel, Kristin	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	Fiction / Harmel, Kristin	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	Fiction / Harmel, Kristin	4-week checkout	Due 05-24-2024
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	Fiction / Harmel, Kristin	4-week checkout	Due 06-01-2024
Malletts Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Historical / Harmel, Kristin	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Malletts Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Historical / Harmel, Kristin	4-week checkout	Due 03-22-2024
Pittsfield Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Historical / Harmel, Kristin	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Pittsfield Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Historical / Harmel, Kristin	4-week checkout	Due 06-01-2024
Pittsfield Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Historical / Harmel, Kristin	4-week checkout	Due 05-16-2024
Traverwood Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Historical / Harmel, Kristin	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Traverwood Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Historical / Harmel, Kristin	4-week checkout	On Hold Shelf
Traverwood Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Historical / Harmel, Kristin	4-week checkout	Due 05-14-2024
Westgate Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Historical / Harmel, Kristin	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Westgate Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Historical / Harmel, Kristin	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Westgate Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Historical / Harmel, Kristin	4-week checkout	Due 05-20-2024

"Eva Traube Abrams, a semi-retired librarian in Florida, is shelving books one morning when her eyes lock on a photograph in a magazine lying open nearby. She freezes; it's an image of a book she hasn't seen in sixty-five years--a book she recognizes as The Book of Lost Names. The accompanying article discusses the looting of libraries by the Nazis across Europe during World War II--an experience Eva remembers well--and the search to reunite people with the texts taken from them so long ago. The book in the photograph, an eighteenth-century religious text thought to have been taken from France in the waning days of the war, is one of the most fascinating cases. Now housed in Berlin's Zentral- und Landesbibliothek library, it appears to contain some sort of code, but researchers don't know where it came from--or what the code means. Only Eva holds the answer--but will she have the strength to revisit old memories and help reunite those lost during the war? As a graduate student in 1942, Eva was forced to flee Paris after the arrest of her father, a Polish Jew. Finding refuge in a small mountain town in the Free Zone, she begins forging identity documents for Jewish children fleeing to neutral Switzerland. But erasing people comes with a price, and along with a mysterious, handsome forger named Rémy, Eva decides she must find a way to preserve the real names of the children who are too young to remember who they really are. The records they keep in The Book of Lost Names will become even more vital when the resistance cell they work for is betrayed and Rémy disappears."-- Publisher.

REVIEWS & SUMMARIES

Booklist Review
Publishers Weekly Review
Summary / Annotation
Excerpt
Author Notes

COMMUNITY REVIEWS

Solid and certainly engrossing submitted by nickino on July 17, 2021, 6:41pm I was definitely pulled right into this book and didn't want to put it down. It's decently written, but some of the writing about the main character's internal emotional space felt a little heavy handed. I can see why this is popular!

Loved it except the ending! submitted by gtaylor on July 18, 2022, 10:39pm This book had me hooked from the start! I love a historical fiction with a strong female lead, and this was no exception. The storyline felt unique, and I was ready to give it 5 stars until the ending! Without spoiling it, it just became too unrealistic for me.

WWII Historical fiction submitted by pamhockey25 on August 7, 2022, 2:22pm This book has two timelines Eva in the present (in this book 2005) and Eva in the past (1940's). This book describes what happens when Germany takes over Paris and what happens to Eva, a Jewish girl who ends up helping other Jewish kids escape France by learning how to forge documents. The Book of Lost names is where Eva recorded the given names of the children she helped escape. Well-written, interesting and entertaining.

WW2 Historical Fiction submitted by s-r-s on August 16, 2022, 2:30pm This book was very well written and captivating. I loved the storyline and the characters, i thought every chapter was well thought out and it was fascinating to here about this part of the resistance!

Vive La Mademoiselle Francais pendant La Deuxième Guerre submitted by ekjensen on August 27, 2022, 1:50pm Parisian student, forges documents to helps Jewish children and others cross into Switzerland during WWII.

WW2 french resistance submitted by mandevil on December 19, 2022, 10:18pm Engrossing story of french resistance. Loved it.

forging documents in WW2 submitted by hiker15 on July 30, 2023, 9:33pm The historical part of the book was great (see reviews above). However the story part was somewhat irritating. I didn't like that her mother gave her trouble and blamed her for not doing more for her father or her mother, but at least her mother came through in the end. Also, why didn't she do more to make sure that the Israeli's knew about the book to find the lost children or at least give them the info she had in her head to find them. Lastly, very far fetched ending that her first love shows up to get the book at the same time she does. But the historical parts about the forging documents was fascinating.

really good submitted by gw on August 13, 2023, 9:29am Another really compelling WW II story. It was cool to learn about this group of people risking everything to help, and the adventure/danger, romance, and friendships made it hard to put down.

Fine but not great submitted by A2AE on February 11, 2024, 8:50am Pros: interesting perspective of a young woman who is a bibliophile turned document forger and part of the French resistance during WWII.
Cons: thin character development, especially for the mother whom becomes really unlikeable really fast, sloppy historical writing details, rushed, plot-hole filled ending.
If stronger, similar books like The Nightingale or The Rose Code didn’t exist, this would be fine. But compared to those well-researched and written books, this is a C+ kind of publication.