The Zookeepers Wife, Diane Ackerman
The Zookeepers Wife, Diane Ackerman
74 Rating(s)
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The Zookeeper's Wife
A War Story

Bestseller

Author: Diane Ackerman

Narrator: Suzanne Toren

Unabridged: 10 hr 55 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 01/01/2007

Synopsis

The New York Times bestseller now a major motion picture starring Jessica Chastain.A true story in which the keepers of the Warsaw Zoo saved hundreds of people from Nazi hands.Jan and Antonina Zabinski were Polish Christian zookeepers horrified by Nazi racism, who managed to save over three hundred people. Yet their story has fallen between the seams of history.Drawing on Antonina’s diary and other historical sources, bestselling naturalist Diane Ackerman vividly re-creates Antonina’s life as “the zookeeper’s wife,” responsible for her own family, the zoo animals, and their “guests”: resistance activists and refugee Jews, many of whom Jan had smuggled from the Warsaw Ghetto.Jan led a cell of saboteurs, and the Zabinski’s young son risked his life carrying food to the guests, while also tending to an eccentric array of creatures in the house: pigs, hare, muskrat, foxes, and more. With hidden people having animal names and pet animals having human names, it’s a small wonder the zoo’s code name became “The House under a Crazy Star.” Yet there is more to this story than a colorful cast. With her exquisite sensitivity to the natural world, Ackerman explores the role of nature in both kindness and savagery, and she unravels the fascinating and disturbing obsession at the core of Nazism: both a worship of nature and its violation, as humans sought to control the genome of the entire planet.

About Diane Ackerman

Diane Ackerman is the author of many highly acclaimed works of nonfiction and poetry, including A Natural History of the Senses, a book beloved by millions of readers all over the world, and The Zookeeper’s Wife, a New York Times bestseller which received the Orion Book Award. She has taught at Columbia and Cornell and has been published in the New York Times, Smithsonian, Parade, the New Yorker, and National Geographic.

About Suzanne Toren

Suzanne Toren, award-winning narrator, has over thirty years of experience in narration. She was named a “Golden Voice” by AudioFile magazine in 2019. She has won the American Foundation for the Blind’s Scourby Award for Narrator of the Year, AudioFile magazine named her the 2009 Best Voice in Nonfiction & Culture, and she is the recipient of multiple Earphones Awards. She performs on and off Broadway and in regional theaters and has appeared on Law & Order and in various soap operas.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Toni on May 16, 2017

What a disappointment! I anxiously awaited the paperback version of this book, only to find the writing so scattered and choppy I could barely finish it. The author obviously did extensive and exhaustive research, but she kept going off on so many random tangents that finding a cohesive story is imp......more

Goodreads review by Will on June 09, 2021

...one puzzle of daily life at the villa was this: How do you retain a spirit of affection and humor in a crazed, homicidal, unpredictable society?On September 1, 1939, Nazi Germany, emboldened by the recently-signed Molotov-Ribbentrop pact with Stalin’s Soviet Union, invaded Poland. Warsaw was......more

Goodreads review by Kate on April 22, 2008

I can't decide whether I enjoyed this book or not. I think the idea of it is more interesting than the execution. It follows the true story of Antonina Zabinski and her family, caretakers of the Warsaw zoo during the Nazi occupation of Poland. Diane Ackerman, being a literary writer and not an histo......more

Goodreads review by Miranda on December 10, 2020

I don't understand all the fuss. If any creature is in danger, you save it, human or animal.Words to live by. Zookeepers Jan and Antonia Zabinski run (or used to run) the Warsaw Zoo. Shortly after Germany invaded Poland, the zoo is destroyed and most of the animals are put down.Yet, somehow the......more

Goodreads review by Amy on November 14, 2016

Five Amazing Incredible Stars…. One of the most incredible books I have read in quite some time. This is the story of how a bombed out Zoo in Warsaw, became the central hotspot for underground communications, in 1939. While the Zoo still operated at half mast and under the German's supervision - whil......more

Quotes

“Suzanne Toren’s respectful reading allows the horror of the Holocaust to emanate from the compelling story…Toren skillfully portrays the fear and revulsion expressed by Antonina in her diary and creates convincing accents for the many Polish characters.” AudioFile

“Suzanne Toren deftly reads this account of Jan and Antonina Zabinski…This audio version, brilliantly set and realized and deeply compelling, offers a significant example of courage under fire. The book has also been made into a film.” Library Journal (audio review)

“Ackerman…makes beautiful work of harrowing tales of [her characters’] determination to keep souls alive, in the actual and metaphorical sense both.” New York Daily News

“A true story—of human empathy and its opposite—that is simultaneously grave and exuberant, wise and playful.” Washington Post Book World

“Fresh and compelling…Ackerman has succeeded in a vivid, cinematically written book that’s bound to find its way to the screen.” San Francisco Chronicle

“An inspiring read…may join Schindler's List and Hotel Rwanda as popular accounts of heroism in the face of genocide.” Salt Lake Tribune

“This suspenseful, beautifully crafted story deserves a wide readership.” Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“An exemplary work of scholarship…Ackerman’s affecting telling of the heroic Zabinskis’ dramatic story illuminates the profound connection between humankind and nature and celebrates life’s beauty, mystery, and tenacity.” Booklist (starred review)

“Ackerman has done an invaluable service in bringing a little-known story of heroism and compassion to light. Highly recommended.” Library Journal

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