Well, I guess you can teach an old dog new tricks, because I'm starting to think maybe I like nonfiction after all! Maybe not all nonfiction. But I did really enjoy The Zookeeper's Wife.

It is the story of a husband and wife zookeeping team in Warsaw -- before, during, and after WWII. This is exposing my ignorance, but I really didn't know much of anything about what it was like in Warsaw during the war and the German occupation. Horrible, as you can imagine. I didn't even know that the term "ghetto" comes from the Ghetto that was built to contain the city's Jews (in wretched living conditions, of course).

Jan and Antonina hid over 300 Jews at the zoo and worked with the resistance, both to help Jews to escape and to sabotage the German soldiers. I keep thinking that I'm done reading about WWII. It's too painful. But then I read a book like this that makes me really think. Maybe there's no such thing as too many...

What makes some people in a war situation risk everything to help those in need, while others just hunker down and try to be invisible? It's fascinating to me. I really hope I would be one that would try to help, but I wonder.