Books like Stones for the rampart by Aleksander Kamiński

The extraordinary, beloved novel about the ability of books to feed the soul even in the darkest of times. When Death has a story to tell, you listen. It is 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier, and will become busier still. Liesel Meminger is a foster girl living outside of Munich, who scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can’t resist–books. With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, she learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement. In superbly crafted writing that burns with intensity, award-winning author Markus Zusak, author of I Am the Messenger, has given us one of the most enduring stories of our time. “The kind of book that can be life-changing.” —The New York Times

"On a May afternoon in 1943, an American military plane crashed into the Pacific Ocean and disappeared, leaving only a spray of debris and a slick of oil, gasoline, and blood. Then, on the ocean surface, a face appeared. It was that of a young lieutenant, the plane's bombardier, who was struggling to a life raft and pulling himself aboard. So began one of the most extraordinary sagas of the Second World War. The lieutenant's name was Louis Zamperini."--Jacket.

Schindler's List is a fictional account of German industrialist Oskar Schindler who saved 1,300 Jews from the Holocaust.

If This Is a Man is a book written by the Italian author, Primo Levi. It describes his experiences in the concentration camp at Auschwitz during the Second World War. Levi, then a 25-year-old chemist, spent 10 months in Auschwitz before the camp was liberated by the Red Army. Of the 650 Italian Jews in his shipment, Levi was one of only twenty who left the camps alive. The average life expectancy of a new entrant was three months. This truly amazing story offers a revealing glimpse into the realities of the Holocaust and its effects on our world.

Based on years of experience reporting from Central Asia and the Caucasus, Jagielski brings his journalistic skills to bear on Chechnya, a war-torn region ruled, but never truly assimilated, by Russia. Focusing on rebel leader Shamil Baseav and Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov, the book shows how the struggle between the forces led by these two men reflects larger differences between the centralizing Russian state and would-be independent ethnic regions such as Chechnya. Expertly translated, Jagielski's vivid account of the seemingly endless chaos in Chechnya will interest many readers. Annotation c2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).

Elie Wiesel chronicles the harrowing realities of his childhood in Nazi concentration camps, and how witnessing the loss of family and friends transformed his faith.