We look forward to seeing you on your next visit to the library. Find a location near you.

Reading Claudius: A Memoir in Two Parts
(OverDrive Read)

Book Cover
Your Rating: 0 stars
Star rating for

Published:
Random House Publishing Group 2015
Status:
Available from OverDrive

Description

A stunning elegy to a vanished time, Caroline Heller's memoir traces the lives of her parents, her uncle, and their circle of intellectuals and dreamers from Central Europe on the eve of World War II to present-day America.

In this unforgettable dual memoir of her parents' lives and her own, Caroline Heller brings to life the lost world of European café culture, and reminds us of the sustaining power of literature in the most challenging of times.

Heller vividly evokes prewar Prague, where her parents lived, loved, and studied. Her mother, Liese Florsheim, was a young German refugee initially drawn to Erich Heller, a bright but detached intellectual, rather than to his brother, Paul. As Hitler's power spreads and World War II becomes inevitable, their world is destroyed and they must flee the country and continent. Paul, who will eventually become the author's father, is trapped and sent to Buchenwald, where he survives under hellish conditions.

Though Paul's life nearly ends in Europe, he reunites with Liese in the United States, where they marry. Their daughter Caroline, restless and insecure, carries the trauma of her parents' story with her, but her quest to make peace with her heritage is eased by her love of books and writers, part of her family legacy. Through the darkest years of Hitler's rule, Caroline's parents and uncle had turned time and time again to literature to help them survive—and so she does as well.

Written with sensitivity and grace, Reading Claudius is a profound meditation on the ways we strive to solve the mysteries of our pasts, and a window into understanding the ones we love.

Praise for Reading Claudius

"This fine book contains moments of emotion so pure that in the end, we too fall in love with the writer's past."The New York Times Book Review
"Heller plunges us lovingly and convincingly into [a] lost world."The Boston Globe
"Caroline Heller writes with both honesty and delicacy. I was particularly enthralled by her finely drawn portrait of prewar Central Europe: a lost world whose memories are inestimably valuable and fiercely beautiful but which, without accounts like this, would fade forever."—Anne Fadiman, author of The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down

"Reading Claudius is much more than a work of riveting personal history. It is a feat of passionate, radical integrity. Caroline Heller has wedded the greatest level of care in her scholarship to an even deeper form of search: that in which imagination becomes not only an act of love but an instrument of truth."—Leah Hager Cohen, author of No Book but the World and The Grief of Others

"A deeply felt and deeply thought memoir, it manages to unearth a whole lost world with aching tenderness and regret."—Phillip Lopate, author of Portrait Inside My Head
From the Hardcover edition.

Also in This Series

Formats

OverDrive Read
Need Help?
If you are having problem transferring a title to your device, please fill out this support form or visit the library so we can help you to use our eBooks and eAudio Books.

More Like This

Other Editions and Formats

More Copies In LINK+

Loading LINK+ Copies...

More Details

Format:
OverDrive Read
Street Date:
08/04/2015
Language:
English
ISBN:
9780812998214

Reviews from GoodReads

Loading GoodReads Reviews.

Citations

APA Citation (style guide)

Caroline Heller. (2015). Reading Claudius: A Memoir in Two Parts. Random House Publishing Group.

Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation (style guide)

Caroline Heller. 2015. Reading Claudius: A Memoir in Two Parts. Random House Publishing Group.

Chicago / Turabian - Humanities Citation (style guide)

Caroline Heller, Reading Claudius: A Memoir in Two Parts. Random House Publishing Group, 2015.

MLA Citation (style guide)

Caroline Heller. Reading Claudius: A Memoir in Two Parts. Random House Publishing Group, 2015.

Note! Citation formats are based on standards as of July 2022. Citations contain only title, author, edition, publisher, and year published. Citations should be used as a guideline and should be double checked for accuracy.

Copy Details

LibraryOwnedAvailable
Shared Digital Collection11

Staff View

Grouped Work ID:
aafc8171-87f7-02a7-c51e-3118c54e5d70
Go To Grouped Work

QR Code

API Extraction Dates

Needs Update?:
No
Date Added:
Jun 12, 2018 16:34:30
Date Updated:
Dec 06, 2020 02:43:14
Last Metadata Check:
Dec 01, 2024 07:56:44
Last Metadata Change:
Nov 24, 2024 08:11:29
Last Availability Check:
Dec 01, 2024 07:56:47
Last Availability Change:
Jun 11, 2022 01:53:51
Last Grouped Work Modification Time:
Dec 07, 2024 02:10:24

OverDrive Product Record

images
    • cover:
        • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-100/0111-1/{410069D1-909E-4153-886B-258B39CB4990}Img100.jpg
        • type: image/jpeg
    • thumbnail:
        • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-200/0111-1/{410069D1-909E-4153-886B-258B39CB4990}Img200.jpg
        • type: image/jpeg
    • cover150Wide:
        • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-150/0111-1/410/069/D1/{410069D1-909E-4153-886B-258B39CB4990}Img150.jpg
        • type: image/jpeg
    • cover300Wide:
        • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-400/0111-1/410/069/D1/{410069D1-909E-4153-886B-258B39CB4990}Img400.jpg
        • type: image/jpeg
formats
      • identifiers:
            • type: ISBN
            • value: 9780812998214
            • type: PublisherCatalogNumber
            • value: 78135
      • name: Adobe EPUB eBook
      • id: ebook-epub-adobe
      • identifiers:
            • type: ISBN
            • value: 9780812998214
            • type: PublisherCatalogNumber
            • value: 78135
      • name: OverDrive Read
      • id: ebook-overdrive
mediaType
eBook
primaryCreator
    • role: Author
    • name: Caroline Heller
title
Reading Claudius
dateAdded
2017-05-12T12:53:00-04:00
contentDetails
      • href: https://link.overdrive.com/?websiteID=141&titleID=2117507
      • type: text/html
      • account:
          • name: Sacramento Public Library (CA)
          • id: 1151
sortTitle
Reading Claudius A Memoir in Two Parts
crossRefId
2117507
subtitle
A Memoir in Two Parts
id
410069d1-909e-4153-886b-258b39cb4990
starRating
5

OverDrive MetaData

isPublicDomain
False
formats
      • fileName: ReadingClaudius_9780812998214_2117507
      • partCount: 0
      • fileSize: 6557784
      • identifiers:
            • type: ISBN
            • value: 9780812998214
            • type: PublisherCatalogNumber
            • value: 78135
      • name: OverDrive Read
      • isReadAlong: False
      • id: ebook-overdrive
      • onSaleDate: 8/4/2015
      • samples:
            • source: From the book
            • formatType: ebook-overdrive
            • url: https://samples.overdrive.com/?crid=410069d1-909e-4153-886b-258b39cb4990&.epub-sample.overdrive.com
keywords
      • value: Intellectuals
      • value: World War II
      • value: Biography
      • value: family history
      • value: family life
      • value: Prague
      • value: women's history
      • value: Autobiography
      • value: United States
      • value: jewish history
      • value: 20th century History
      • value: literature
      • value: Historical Biography
      • value: Personal Memoir
      • value: Buchenwald
      • value: historical memoir
      • value: Jewish memoir
      • value: family legacy
      • value: family memoir
      • value: world war ii memoir
      • value: jewish refugees
      • value: world war ii refugees
      • value: german refugee
      • value: 20th century intellectual life
      • value: biographies and memoir
      • value: european cafe culture
      • value: european intellectuals
      • value: family life relationships
      • value: prewar prague
creators
      • role: Author
      • fileAs: Heller, Caroline
      • bioText: Caroline Heller is the director of the interdisciplinary Ph.D. program in Educational Studies at Lesley University, where she is also a professor in the graduate school of education. She lives in Boston with her family.
      • name: Caroline Heller
imprint
The Dial Press
publishDate
2015-08-04T00:00:00Z
isOwnedByCollections
True
title
Reading Claudius
fullDescription
A stunning elegy to a vanished time, Caroline Heller's memoir traces the lives of her parents, her uncle, and their circle of intellectuals and dreamers from Central Europe on the eve of World War II to present-day America.

In this unforgettable dual memoir of her parents' lives and her own, Caroline Heller brings to life the lost world of European café culture, and reminds us of the sustaining power of literature in the most challenging of times.

Heller vividly evokes prewar Prague, where her parents lived, loved, and studied. Her mother, Liese Florsheim, was a young German refugee initially drawn to Erich Heller, a bright but detached intellectual, rather than to his brother, Paul. As Hitler's power spreads and World War II becomes inevitable, their world is destroyed and they must flee the country and continent. Paul, who will eventually become the author's father, is trapped and sent to Buchenwald, where he survives under hellish conditions.

Though Paul's life nearly ends in Europe, he reunites with Liese in the United States, where they marry. Their daughter Caroline, restless and insecure, carries the trauma of her parents' story with her, but her quest to make peace with her heritage is eased by her love of books and writers, part of her family legacy. Through the darkest years of Hitler's rule, Caroline's parents and uncle had turned time and time again to literature to help them survive—and so she does as well.

Written with sensitivity and grace, Reading Claudius is a profound meditation on the ways we strive to solve the mysteries of our pasts, and a window into understanding the ones we love.

Praise for Reading Claudius

"This fine book contains moments of emotion so pure that in the end, we too fall in love with the writer's past."The New York Times Book Review
"Heller plunges us lovingly and convincingly into [a] lost world."The Boston Globe
"Caroline Heller writes with both honesty and delicacy. I was particularly enthralled by her finely drawn portrait of prewar Central Europe: a lost world whose memories are inestimably valuable and fiercely beautiful but which, without accounts like this, would fade forever."—Anne Fadiman, author of The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down

"Reading Claudius is much more than a work of riveting personal history. It is a feat of passionate, radical integrity. Caroline Heller has wedded the greatest level of care in her scholarship to an even deeper form of search: that in which imagination becomes not only an act of love but an instrument of truth."—Leah Hager Cohen, author of No Book but the World and The Grief of Others

"A deeply felt and deeply thought memoir, it manages to unearth a whole lost world with aching tenderness and regret."—Phillip Lopate, author of Portrait Inside My Head
From the Hardcover edition.
reviews
      • premium: False
      • source: The New York Times Book Review
      • content: "This fine book contains moments of emotion so pure that in the end, we too fall in love with the writer's past."
      • premium: False
      • source: The Boston Globe
      • content: "[Caroline] Heller plunges us lovingly and convincingly into [a] lost world."
      • premium: False
      • source: Phillip Lopate, author of Portrait Inside My Head
      • content: "Caroline Heller writes with both honesty and delicacy. I was particularly enthralled by her finely drawn portrait of prewar Central Europe: a lost world whose memories are inestimably valuable and fiercely beautiful but which, without accounts like this, would fade forever."--Anne Fadiman, author of The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down "Reading Claudius is much more than a work of riveting personal history. It is a feat of passionate, radical integrity. Caroline Heller has wedded the greatest level of care in her scholarship to an even deeper form of search: that in which imagination becomes not only an act of love but an instrument of truth."--Leah Hager Cohen, author of No Book but the World and The Grief of Others "A deeply felt and deeply thought memoir, it manages to unearth a whole lost world with aching tenderness and regret."
popularity
40
links
    • self:
        • href: https://api.overdrive.com/v1/collections/v1L1BWwAAAA2I/products/410069d1-909e-4153-886b-258b39cb4990/metadata
        • type: application/vnd.overdrive.api+json
    • shareInLibby:
        • href: https://link.overdrive.com/share?q=g08gAMShdiw
        • type: text/HTML
id
410069d1-909e-4153-886b-258b39cb4990
starRating
5
images
    • cover:
        • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-100/0111-1/{410069D1-909E-4153-886B-258B39CB4990}Img100.jpg
        • type: image/jpeg
    • thumbnail:
        • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-200/0111-1/{410069D1-909E-4153-886B-258B39CB4990}Img200.jpg
        • type: image/jpeg
    • cover150Wide:
        • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-150/0111-1/410/069/D1/{410069D1-909E-4153-886B-258B39CB4990}Img150.jpg
        • type: image/jpeg
    • cover300Wide:
        • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-400/0111-1/410/069/D1/{410069D1-909E-4153-886B-258B39CB4990}Img400.jpg
        • type: image/jpeg
isPublicPerformanceAllowed
False
languages
      • code: en
      • name: English
subjects
      • value: Biography & Autobiography
      • value: History
      • value: Nonfiction
publishDateText
08/04/2015
otherFormatIdentifiers
      • type: ISBN
      • value: 9780385337618
mediaType
eBook
shortDescription
A stunning elegy to a vanished time, Caroline Heller's memoir traces the lives of her parents, her uncle, and their circle of intellectuals and dreamers from Central Europe on the eve of World War II to present-day America.

In this unforgettable dual memoir of her parents' lives and her own, Caroline Heller brings to life the lost world of European café culture, and reminds us of the sustaining power of literature in the most challenging of times.

Heller vividly evokes pre-war Prague, where her parents lived, loved, and studied. Her mother, Liese Florsheim, was a young German refugee initially drawn to Erich Heller, a bright but detached intellectual, rather than to his brother, Paul. As Hitler's power spreads and World War II becomes inevitable, their world is destroyed and they must flee the country and continent. Paul, who will eventually become the author's father, is trapped and sent to Buchenwald, where he survives under hellish...
sortTitle
Reading Claudius A Memoir in Two Parts
crossRefId
2117507
subtitle
A Memoir in Two Parts
publisher
Random House Publishing Group
bisacCodes
      • code: BIO006000
      • description: Biography & Autobiography / Historical
      • code: BIO022000
      • description: Biography & Autobiography / Women
      • code: BIO026000
      • description: BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Memoirs