January Pay It Forward book exchange!

I am pleased to present my first giveaway! I have loved participating in several across the web over the past 2 months, so it is time for me to join in the giving fun! I am going to be joining in a Pay It Forward book giveaway, which is hosted by Overwelmed with Joy.

This month, I will be giving away a book I really enjoyed called After Long Silence: A Memior by Helen Freemont.

I happened upon this book at a book sale to benefit our local library. It is an advance reading copy, but I do believe I was its first reader given the pristine cover and pages. It does now show a tad bit of wear on the front cover, thanks to the rough and tumble that my 4 year old puts out!

Here is a little about the book that I found here:

Publisher Comments:
"To this day, I don't even know what my mother's real name is."

Helen Fremont was raised as a Roman Catholic. It wasn't until she was an adult, practicing law in Boston, that she discovered her parents were Jewish — Holocaust survivors living invented lives. Not even their names were their own. In this powerful memoir, Helen Fremont delves into the secrets that held her family in a bond of silence for more than four decades, recounting with heartbreaking clarity a remarkable tale of survival, as vivid as fiction but with the resonance of truth.

Driven to uncover their roots, Fremont and her sister pieced together an astonishing story: of Siberian Gulags and Italian royalty, of concentration camps and buried lives. After Long Silence is about the devastating price of hiding the truth; about families; about the steps we take, foolish or wise, to protect ourselves and our loved ones. No one who reads this book can be unmoved, or fail to understand the seductive, damaging power of secrets.

Review:
"A story of safe but costly passage from one identity to another that takes us from Europe to America via World War II....[Fremont] has the intelligence and imagination to question her own motives. This allows her to question the memoir form, even as she deploys it so beautifully." The New York Times

Review:
"Mesmerizing....Fremont has accomplished something that seems close to impossible: She has made a fresh and worthy contribution to the vast literature of the Holocaust." The Washington Post Book World

Review:
"An extraordinary tale...eloquently written....Its complex narrative weaves back and forth between past and present, the tale and its discovery." The Philadelphia Inquirer

Review:
"Riveting...painfully authentic....A poignant memoir, a labor of love for the parents she never really knew." The Boston Globe

Review:
"Fascinating....A tragic saga, but at the same time it often reads like a thriller filled with acts of extraordinary courage, descriptions of dangerous journeys and a series of secret identities." Chicago Tribune

Synopsis:
Helen Fremont was raised as a Roman Catholic. It wasn't until she was an adult, practicing law in Boston, that she discovered her parents were Jewish, Holocaust survivors living invented lives. Even their names were not their own. In this memoir, Helen Fremont recounts a remarkable tale of survival — as vivid as fiction — but true.

Here are the rules, as set forth by Overwelmed with Joy:
1) Approximately once a month, I'll pick a book to give away to one lucky reader (you don’t have to have a blog to enter). It may be a book that I've purchased new or used, or it may be a book that someone has shared with me that I really like.

2) Details on how you can enter to win will be listed below.

3) If you're the lucky winner of the book giveaway I ask that you, in turn, host a drawing to give away a book -- any book, it doesn't have to be the one you just won -- for free to one of your readers. If you mail books out using the media/book rate that the post office offers it's pretty inexpensive. If you don't have a blog, please donate the book to your local library or shelter once you've finished reading it.

4) If you're really motivated and want to host your own "Pay It Forward" giveaway at any time, feel free to grab the button above to use on your own blog. Just let Overwhelmed with Joy know so she can publish a post plugging your giveaway and directing readers your way!

So here is how you can win this book!
Just comment here on this post! Be sure that I can get in touch with you, either through the blogger email addy or leave your email in the comment. I will choose a winner on Saturday, January 26. Good luck, and I hope that you enjoy it as much as I did!