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Diane Ackerman

The Zookeeper's Wife: A War Story

by Diane Ackerman (Author) Format: Paperback

(8,671)

Editors' pick Best Books of the Year 2007

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The New York Times bestseller now a major motion picture starring Jessica Chastain.

A true story in which the keepers of the Warsaw Zoo saved hundreds of people from Nazi hands.

Jan and Antonina Zabinski were Polish Christian zookeepers horrified by Nazi racism, who managed to save over three hundred people. Yet their story has fallen between the seams of history. Drawing on Antonina’s diary and other historical sources, best-selling naturalist Diane Ackerman vividly re-creates Antonina’s life as “the zookeeper’s wife,” responsible for her own family, the zoo animals, and their “Guests”―Resistance activists and refugee Jews, many of whom Jan had smuggled from the Warsaw Ghetto. Ironically, the empty zoo cages helped to hide scores of doomed people, who were code-named after the animals whose names they occupied. Others hid in the nooks and crannies of the house itself.

Jan led a cell of saboteurs, and the Zabinskis’ young son risked his life carrying food to the Guests, while also tending an eccentric array of creatures in the house. With hidden people having animal names, and pet animals having human names, it’s small wonder the zoo’s codename became “The House Under a Crazy Star.”

Yet there is more to this story than a colorful cast. With her exquisite sensitivity to the natural world, Diane Ackerman explores the role of nature in both kindness and savagery, and she unravels the fascinating and disturbing obsession at the core of Nazism: both a worship of nature and its violation, as humans sought to control the genome of the entire planet.

8 pages of illustrations

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Print length

384 pages
Language

English
Publisher

W. W. Norton & Company
Publication date

September 17, 2008
Dimensions

5.5 x 1 x 8.3 inches
ISBN-10

039333306X
ISBN-13

978-0393333060

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Editorial Reviews

Review

"A lovely story about the Holocaust might seem like a grotesque oxymoron. But in The Zookeeper’s Wife, Diane Ackerman proves otherwise. Here is a true story―of human empathy and its opposite―that is simultaneously grave and exuberant, wise and playful. Ackerman has a wonderful tale to tell, and she tells it wonderfully."
― Washington Post Book World

"A poignant and absorbing book."
― New York Times Book Review

"I can’t imagine a better story or storyteller. The Zookeeper’s Wife will touch every nerve you have."
― Jonathan Safran Foer, author of Everything is Illuminated

"A fresh and compelling addition to Holocaust literature."
― San Francisco Chronicle

"A stunning tale of war and sanctuary [that is] perceptive, knowledgeable and rhapsodic.… How incisively and damningly Ackerman dissects the Nazis’ perverted view of nature.… A shining book beyond category.… It is no stretch to say that this is the book Ackerman was meant to write."
― Los Angeles Times

"Author Diane Ackerman offers us The Zookeeper’s Wife, a tale of untold bravery with a whimsical dose of history reminiscent of Noah’s Ark.… Ackerman’s story is a treatise on nobility―a word that applies to some humans and all the animals in The Zookeeper’s Wife."
― USA Today

"Diane Ackerman has surpassed even herself in her latest book, which is alternatingly funny, moving, and terrifying. This powerful thriller would be a great novel―except that it happens to be true."
― Jared Diamond, author of Collapse and Guns, Germs, and Steel

About the Author

Diane Ackerman has been the finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction in addition to many other awards and recognitions for her work, which include the best-selling The Zookeeper's Wife and A Natural History of the Senses. She lives in Ithaca, New York.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ W. W. Norton & Company
Publication date ‏ : ‎ September 17, 2008
Edition ‏ : ‎ Reprint
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Print length ‏ : ‎ 384 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 039333306X
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0393333060
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 11.2 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 1 x 8.3 inches
Best Sellers Rank: #63,675 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #67 in Jewish Holocaust History
- #226 in World War II History (Books)
- #351 in European History (Books)
Customer Reviews:
(8,671)

About the author

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Diane Ackerman

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Diane Ackerman is the author of two dozen highly-acclaimed works of poetry and nonfiction, including the bestsellers "The Zookeeper's Wife" and "A Natural History of the Senses," and the Pulitzer Prize Finalist, "One Hundred Names for Love."

In her most recent book, "The Human Age: the World Shaped by Us," she confronts the unprecedented fact that the human race is now the single dominant force of change on the whole planet. Humans have "subdued 75 percent of the land surface, concocted a wizardry of industrial and medical marvels, strung lights all across the darkness." Ackerman takes us on an exciting journey to understand this bewildering new reality, introducing us to many of the inspiring people and ideas now creating, and perhaps saving, our future

A note from the author: "I find that writing each book becomes a mystery trip, one filled with mental (and sometimes physical) adventures. The world revealing itself, human nature revealing itself, is seductive and startling, and that's always been fascinating enough to send words down my spine. Please join me on my travels. I'd enjoy the company."

Contact me or follow my posts here: www.dianeackerman.com, @dianesackerman, www.facebook.com/dianeackerman.author

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