A bit of a slow start since I\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'m not interested in ceramics much, but then I was hooked on the family story. Beautiful writing about real events and people in a different way, without footnotes.
I loved learning about the dramatic history of his family members over the tumultuous war years and previous pogroms in Eastern Europe. Descriptions and imagined conversations along with photos really added to the story.

Since I lived at the time of WW 2 and have visited Vienna I appreciated the work of the author bringing to life history.

Sensitively, scholarly & brilliantly written through thorough, exhaustive research over >2 years. This is NOT an easy book to read, especially Part II, which left me emotionally & physically exhausted, & crying in a state of disbelief that human beings could use each other & treat each other so horribly ...but it will give you so much to examine in your own life & regarding a perspective of history. Having a degree in art history & interior design, I found de Waal\\\\\\\'s visual & psychological descriptions full of beauty & accuracy, & believe he very possibly has synesthesia because of the way he is able to entwine the sensory crossovers of his perceptive writing style with sight, sound, colour, smell, taste, rhythm, feelings, etc. Brilliantly written but keep a dictionary (French, German, Italian & English) at hand & takes notes & refer to the family tree often! It is not easy reading, but definitely worth finishing, important, memorable & you will be a more appreciative, enlightened person... I learned more about European history from this book than in any high school or university classes I ever took.

This book drags through the first 1/3, and then picks up with the war years. I found it to be pedantic and just a chronicle of a family without any embellishments. Discussion points about this book were difficult.

Non-fiction, well researched, historical account, family story, not for the fluffy reader! An intellectual read.

It was very informative. Parts were interesting and showed us what life of rich Jews was like in the early 1900's in Vienna, Paris, and later Japan.
Many art references.