The Berlin Boxing Club

Life can get pretty hectic at times.  However, I have noticed that for this stereotypical Mormon housewife, one thing always remains the same.  I read...and read...and read.  Even when I am super busy and have to put everything else down, I never put down my book.  This has been true for many, many years (ask my mother).  I took a brief hiatus at BYU but read all the more vigorously to make up for it my senior year (which was my lightest year).  Can you honestly say that you read a fun book a day in college?  I can (okay they were shorter young adult and children's books and it was more like 6 books a week than 7).  And don't even ask me how many books I read for fun in graduate school.

In any case, among the packing and moving (just down the block) I have managed to read The Berlin Boxing Club.  This is an historical novel as much as a novel about boxing.  It starts in Berlin in 1935, just as Naziism and Anti-Semetism are taking hold in Germany.  The novel follows Karl Stern, a young Jew, who is slightly tormented by pro-Nazi boys his age (this is kind of graphic but realistic as well) but, because of the powers-that-be, gets to learn boxing from the one and only Max Schmeling (this is a real boxer.  You can look him up).  Follow Karl as he tries to make sense of everything around him; not an easy feat in the most normal of times.  This novel contains themes of loyalty, family, coming-of-age, courage and overcoming fear. 

I have a feeling that the author, Robert Sharenow, could have been a lot more graphic when depicting the abuse between Aryan Germans and those of the "lesser" races.  Even so, there are parts that you may not like, but that is true of most books about this time period.  But the descriptions of the boxing matches and training are awesome and very realistic; at least I could imagine it in my head easily enough which makes it real to me.