A Random Act of Kindness

I'm doing some book plugging in this post.....I came across the book Goodbye Sarajevo earlier on this year when actually shopping for another book. 































I was instantly drawn to the cover of this book and the short description "A True Story of Courage, Love and Survival"   I did a quick read on the back cover and knew that I had to read this book.....In actual fact as I said previously, I was shopping for a book that I was meant to be reading for the book club I belong to....that book turned out to be a real fizzer so I gave it the flick and started reading Goodbye Sarajevo instead.  I couldn't put it down and after reading it over a week I instantly knew it was going to be the next book our book club reviewed.

I managed to contact the authors that wrote the book, sisters Hana and Atka who were lovely enough to write a letter of introduction to our book club which went down a treat with the other members.  It was so kind of both ladies to do this and considering they didn't know any of us or me for that matter it was a very kind thing to do.

The book provoked a lot of discussion from all of us and we all admitted that at some stage throughout the book we all had a bit of a cry. 

I think one of the reasons I was drawn to this book was the fact I didn't know a lot about the Bosnian War.... the book is set during this awful, awful conflict....I was living in London at the time when the war broke out, and I guess being on a working holiday, it was something that I really didn't feel I needed to know about...I didn't know anyone from the region, the countries involved were certainly not tourist destinations back then and I was just having too much fun to be bothered really, and as mentioned in the book it really wasn't anticipated that this war would last that long.....how wrong that turned out to be.

I think as a book club we all learnt a lot from this book, not only historically, but as the blog post says....A Random Act of Kindness....that gives you a little hint as to what the book is about....considering all the terrible atrocities that happened during this war there is a beautiful story that came out of it and that is what the sisters wrote about....it is their story.  Anyway the girls are giving away a copy of their book on their Facebook page.  They just want to hear about a random act of kindness that has impressed you.  So "like" their page tell them about it and you could have yourself a copy of this super book.....and if you don't happen to win, look out for this book in your local bookstore or if you aren't a book buyer....search it out in the library.


I've included some photos I took a couple of years back on holiday in Croatia, Slovenia and a day trip into Mostar over the Bosnian border.  I remember so vividly being in a little museum at the foot of the Mostar Bridge looking at all the images taken during the war and feeling rather foolish for not having taken more notice, I still remember how I wiped tears from my eyes......these places mean a lot more to me now having read this book....I loved this holiday and all of these places we visited and always regret that we didn't have the time to go to Sarajevo a city that is now on my "Must Go" list......Maybe in a few years time.

and me...I hate having my photo taken.

Enjoy

Vicki x