Word of the Week – Library

Word of the Week – Library

The Collector of Burned Books releases tomorrow!! I’m super stoked…and thought in honor of this book all about the historic Library of Burned Books in Paris, we’d take a look at the history of the word library.

I’ve long known that library has liber (book) as its root, so I didn’t expect any surprises here. But…there are some lurking in the history! For starters, liber actually originally meant “the inner bark of a tree” or “the rind” of something, so the fact that we still have “leaves” associated with pages is totally appropriate. From there, Latin gave us librarium, which meant “a chest of books.”

By the medieval period, that Latin word had come to mean “a collection of books” and then “a bookseller’s shop.” In French and other Latinate languages, words that look like library are indeed still used for places were books are sold, while words like biblioteque (biblio- also meaning “book”) are used for places where books are borrowed. Library arrived in English around the year 1400.

When English-speakers begin to use it for a place from which books could be borrowed? The first appearance of a “lending library” appears in the 1500s, but it didn’t really catch on until the 1700s. Librarian dates from 1713.

But here’s one of my favorite associated factoids. Before the Latin word came into English via French, Old English had another word for collections of books–bochord. Literally “book hoard.” LOVE IT!

Word Nerds Unite!

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It’s Release Day! The Collector of Burned Books

It’s Release Day! The Collector of Burned Books

Welcome to the Launch Day Celebration
for The Collector of Burned Books!

I’ve written a lot of historical romances at this point. Many of them were set during the Great War. One, Yesterday’s Tides, was both WWI and WW2. And as I was writing that one, despite having once said, “World War 2 is way too modern for me, thank you very much, I don’t think I’ll ever write anything set later than the 1920s,” I found I really enjoyed that 1940s line. And in typical me fashion, the more I researched for it, the more story ideas I began to have.

And so, today I am SO EXCITED to welcome my first solely 1940s book into the world! The Collector of Burned Books is set from June 1940 – January 1941 (with an epilogue that’s later), and GUYS…I love this book so much.

It’s partly the Parisian setting.

It’s partly the fact that it is ALL about libraries and books and how freedom of thought is intrinsically linked to freedom.

It’s partly the love story.

It’s partly the path this book has taken me on. If you read my post last week on “The Dangers of Dehumanizing,” then you know that this book led me to a new publisher, and while I loved my decade with Bethany House, my experience thus far with Tyndale has been AMAZING too.

And mostly…it’s just this story. A story I love so much. A story that made me ask hard questions. A story that let me write a love letter to the education I enjoyed in my college days, all about dialectic and free-thinking. A story that is far more apropos than I’d thought it would be. A story that is resonating so much with early readers, which just makes me all warm and grateful.

What Early Readers Are Saying

Publishers Weekly

Propulsively plotted and richly detailed, the narrative depicts how dangerous it can be under fascism to entertain ideas deemed “different”—and how deeply necessary. The result is a captivating historical romance and a resonant ode to the power of literature in dark times.

Starred review from booklist

Brilliantly written . . . [The Collector of Burned Books] captures the volatile intersection of art, academia, and authoritarian control, with the spark of unexpected romance bringing warmth to an unforgettable novel.

Live Event…Eventually. 😉

This week I’m at a writer’s conference with questionable wifi…and next week I’m having surgery. So we’re scheduling the Facebook Live video TWO WEEKS from now on Tuesday, July 29, at 7 pm Eastern! (You can watch it afterward too, and I’ll try to answer any questions in the comments!)

  • Behind the scenes
  • Fun facts
  • Short author reading
  • What’s coming next

Mark your calendars!!!

Courage, honor, and sacrifice born of great love overflow the pages of The Collector of Burned Books Rarely have I read a book with such perfect tension.  Meticulously researched, intellectually and spiritually stimulating, compelling and beautifully written, Roseanna White has written a book I could not put down, one I will not forget.

Cathy Gohlke

Christy Award Hall of Fame author

About The Collector of Burned Books

In this gripping World War II historical about the power of words, two people form an unlikely friendship amid the Nazi occupation in Paris and fight to preserve the truth that enemies of freedom long to destroy.

Paris, 1940. Ever since the Nazi Party began burning books, German writers exiled for their opinions or heritage have been taking up residence in Paris. There they opened a library meant to celebrate the freedom of ideas and gathered every book on the banned list . . . and even incognito versions of the forbidden books that were smuggled back into Germany.

For the last six years, Corinne Bastien has been reading those books and making that library a second home. But when the German army takes possession of Paris, she loses access to the library and all the secrets she’d hidden there. Secrets the Allies will need if they have any hope of liberating the city she calls home.

Christian Bauer may be German, but he never wanted anything to do with the Nazi Party―he is a professor, one who’s done his best to protect his family as well as the books that were a threat to Nazi ideals. But when Goebbels sends him to Paris to handle the “relocation” of France’s libraries, he’s forced into an army uniform and given a rank he doesn’t want. In Paris, he tries to protect whoever and whatever he can from the madness of the Party and preserve the ideas that Germans will need again when that madness is over, and maybe find a lost piece of his heart.

With her signature blend of page-turning storytelling, fascinating historical details, and enduring themes, Roseanna M. White draws readers into the dark days after Paris falls to Nazi occupation. Corinne and Christian shine in their undaunted determination to preserve books threatened by a regime that seeks to extinguish truth. The Collector of Burned Books is a stirring and inspiring tribute to the powerful bond between literature and freedom.

Amanda Barratt

Christy Award-winning author of The Warsaw Sisters and Within These Walls of Sorrow

A Book MADE for Book Clubs!

And I’ve got a Book Club Kit to prove it! 😉 In this kit you’ll find:

  • About the author
  • Letter from me, just for book clubs
  • Q&A with me, with answers to some of the most common questions about this book
  • Recipe for a classic French baguette
  • Discussion questions
  • Burned Books reading list
  • Article, “Who Are We Canceling?”
  • Meet the characters
  • A designed page for notes and questions

Interested in having me Zoom with your book club?
I’m always happy to join you! Just email me at roseannamwhite@gmail.com to set up a date!

The Collector of Burned Books is a heart-pounding historical that kept me riveted from beginning to end. Roseanna White, a brilliant storyteller, weaves together a gripping plot about the many dangers of distributing prohibited books during the Nazi regime. As her cast of heroic characters secretly fight for freedom, they risk their lives to spread the truth and protect those they love. The Collector of Burned Books should be read by every lover of a life-changing book!

Melanie Dobson

award-winning author of Chateau of Secrets and The Curator’s Daughter

Giveaway

US entrants, enter to win a signed copy of The Collector of Burned Books
(or another book of your choice) + a $25 gift card to my shop!

International entrants, enter to win a copy of the book sent from your preferred retailer!

The Danger of Dehumanizing

The Danger of Dehumanizing

In the coming weeks, I’m going to be talking a lot about the themes in The Collector of Burned Books. That’s gonna cover the obvious (book bans and burnings), but we’re going to go deeper than just that. And I wanted to start today with a question I received in a blog interview I answered a couple weeks ago, and which came up again in a video podcast interview I recorded with Tricia Goyer. A question that, in fact, is what led to this book being published by Tyndale House after I was with Bethany House for a decade.

Why did you humanize Nazis?

“We just can’t have a hero in Nazi uniform. It would be best if he isn’t German at all. Can he be French?” That’s what the team at BHP said, and I absolutely understood their stance. We don’t ever, ever want to justify or condone what the Nazi Party did in Europe in the 1930s and 40s. From their stance, it didn’t matter that my hero wasn’t really a Nazi. Didn’t matter that he’d been calling them his enemy long before the rest of the world knew to fear them. All that mattered was that he was in uniform.

It’s a dangerous line. A risky line. I get that.

But it was also 100% necessary to the story, so I refused to budge.

But you know what? It’s more than that. I didn’t just humanize (some) Nazis (and have others be complete villains) because I needed someone inside the library that was Nazi-controlled, though that was the plot reason. I humanized Nazis for one very simple reason: because they were humans. And if we ever forget that, we run a horrible, horrible risk of repeating their mistakes.

In The Collector of Burned Books, I point out first a sad truth. For many people in Germany during that era, if you didn’t join the Party, you risked losing your job, your security, or being outright arrested. My hero, Christian, eventually joined to try to protect someone he loved. It backfired–as it so often did. And he wasn’t silent about it. He spoke out, condemning the Party line on certain subjects…and he was reported to the Gestapo. He’s still not sure why he wasn’t arrested, why he was sent to Paris as the “library protector”…but he suspects it’s because he has an old friend much like him. A friend who had joined the police force before the Nazis came to power, who wanted to protect and serve. But the police became the Gestapo. Because this friend dragged his feet about joining the Party as well, he was relegated to a desk job in the filing department…where he fought back quietly by altering files. Christian’s, to start. But not just his. Whenever he could get away with it, he erased condemning information from the files that passed his desk, so he could continue to protect and serve the people of his city.

People really did this, guys. I’ll tell you one of the historical stories later in the month.

But these people are examples of a lot of people in Germany who were technically members of the Party. They were people who never really believed in it. Who wanted to keep fighting. And who chose to fight from the dubious safety within that Party.

Those, though, are the easy cases. There are more, and they’re represented in this book too. For instance, we have Kraus. He’s nineteen, and he enlisted for his slice of glory…only to be assigned as aid to a librarian. Boring, he thinks. He grew up in the Hitler Youth. He was indoctrinated from a young age into the Nazi ideals.

He’s never been taught otherwise. Never taught to think for himself. Never taught to question and learn and see the other as something deserving of freedom. Does that mean he’s beyond redemption? Not human? Does that mean he can’t learn, can’t come to realize that his “enemies”–people of different races, creeds, or politics–are people too, people who deserve life and freedom and respect?

There were many in Germany living in constant fear, who had to go along or they’d be sent to a concentration camp. There were many who couldn’t fathom that horrors were being committed, because they were unfathomable. Impossible. Couldn’t possibly be. There were plenty more who were bitter and defeated and desperate for a chance to reclaim what Germany had once been. Have you ever read the terms of surrender from the Great War? The German people were stripped of so much. Of course they were bitter. Of course they felt oppressed. Of course they wanted to restore Germany to its former glory. Who wouldn’t? They were people. They were humans. They were a lot like you and me.

But there were the monsters too. The true believers. The people who not only couldn’t believe atrocities were happening or were trying to quietly fight them, people who not only had been educated into the Nazi mindset, but who craved it. Who helped form it. Who were the first to sign up for it. Who really, truly thought this was the way Germany would claim the future it deserved. Who really believed they needed to purify their society (that’s what they called it) and get rid of anything “disgusting.” It included Jews, yes, and other races that were “degenerate,” like Slavs, Romani, and Blacks. It also included homosexuals. People born with deformities. Those with mental illness.

Like you, I look at people who euthanized–MURDERED–children or handicapped or those with illnesses beyond their control, and I am HORRIFIED. My first, gut reaction is to call them what we probably all think they are. “Monsters!”

And by the definition we have in mind, they were. There were people who had embraced evil. Who were letting it cavort through their streets, their schools, their homes, and certainly their government agencies.

But friends, here’s the thing. They were not demons. They, themselves, were not evil. They were people. Human. People who embraced evil, thinking it was good. They were monsters who were also men. They weren’t born without souls. They weren’t something Other, something Else, something we could never be.

They were just…like…us.

And that is why I will humanize Nazis. That is why I will write a book with many examples of Germans, some “good” and heroic, some “bad” and villainous. Because WE, you and I, are the same. We have the potential to be heroes or villains. Good or bad.  And we need to be careful, friends. Always, in every generation, every country, every church, every political party. We need to be careful that our pursuit of what we think is best doesn’t lead us into drawing lines that dehumanize.

Because when we say someone is no longer human, that they’re just a monster…that means it doesn’t matter what we do to them. It doesn’t matter if they live or die. That they are beyond redemption. That God does not love them.

Whose lie does that sound like?

The Nazis used that very tactic, and it’s what we hate them for. So…how can we do the same to them and not fall into the same trap?

So yes. I have Nazis in my book. Some are villains…and one is my hero. Many others are somewhere in between. True believers but who will still protect someone they like. Indoctrinated youths who can still learn there’s another way. All of them, even the nasty ones, are people. They are humans.

And I will show that. Because the moment we stop seeing them that way is the moment we become more like them than any of us want to be.

Word of the Week – Gorgeous

Word of the Week – Gorgeous

A couple weeks ago, my husband asked, “Are gorgeous and gorge related?” I had no idea. But of course, this being us, we both immediately said, “Word of the Week!” and I vowed to look it up. 😉 

And it turns out…YES! Gorgeous and gorge are indeed from the same root, meaning “throat.” Which immediately makes sense for gorge, right? It’s from the idea of cramming food down your throat. But gorgeous? How does that track?

The history is a bit iffy, but etymologists think it’s linked to necklaces that adorn the throat. Jewelry would have been the first things to be called gorgeous, meaning “elegant,” and from there, “splendid, showy, sumptuously adorned”…like jewelry. The word dates from around 1500 in English, coming to us from French, which in turn came from Latin, which is thought to come from the Greek gorgias…Gorgias being a man famous for his rhetoric (hence his voice and things that come from his throat–anyone who’s read the Socratic dialogues will be familiar with him!)

Word Nerds Unite!

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Discover Captivated

Discover Captivated

Discover Captivated

She isn’t ready to be queen…

It must have taken amazing people to raise Seidon…

My hero in Awakened is making readers go ga-ga…which is good, because I’d hate to be alone in my total love for this character! And though he talks and thinks about his parents, especially his mother, we never meet them in Awakened.

So naturally, I thought it would be fun to write a short about them!

Brenn, Crown Princess of Daryatla

Brenn isn’t ready to be queen…

But her father is aging, which means the Crown of Daryatla will soon pass to her. Desperate for advice from someone who understands the burden of ruling, she takes an unscheduled trip to visit her cousin, queen of the mer…only to find herself caught up in an uprising.

And of course, the guard she can never stop thinking about—Atlas, who decades ago chose to serve the mer kingdom beneath the waves instead of Daryatla—is there to frown and insist she leave…when all she wants is to be seen and understood.

Atlas will beg if he must.

The ambitious, often violent world of the mer is not where Atlas ever wanted to spend his life, but after his Awakening, he chose to join the mer queen’s guard so that he could tend his mother, who was wasting away from the surface sickness, after spending too long on land with him and his father. Now that she’s gone, he yearns to return to Daryatla…and serve the woman who had first captivated him decades ago.

Atlas

But unrest is brewing in the Sunken Kingdom, and to avoid being caught up in the would-be coup, Atlas and Brenn must make a quick escape to the surface…which isn’t as easy as it should be.

Fall in love with Brenn, the princess who never wanted to be queen, and Atlas, the noble guard who will do anything to serve her, in this Awakened world short.

The mermaid artwork ^^ is by my daughter!!