A tough but necessary read. Levi was one of the lucky ones: not killed immediately on arrival at Auschwitz; he was then too ill to be evacuated with most of the remaining prisoners when the camp was abandoned, but healthy enough to survive the ten days until the Russians arrived. In between he gives an unforgettable picture of life in unspeakable ( Read more... )

13) The Periodic Table, by Primo Levi ( Read more... )

5) The Search For Roots: a personal anthology, compiled by Primo Levi
6) The Book of Imaginary Beings, compiled by Jorge Luis Borges

Quite by accident, this turned into an interesting paired reading: both books are selections from literature and science made by writers who were great in their own right. Levi's collection is the more interesting of ( Read more... )