Hamilton Books
Pages: 374
•
Trim: 6 x 9
978-0-7618-6568-1 • Paperback • May 2015 • $55.99 • (£43.00)
978-0-7618-6569-8 • eBook • May 2015 • $53.00 • (£41.00)
Aleksandra Ziółkowska-Boehm is author of many books in her native Poland and in the USA and Canada.
List of Photographs
Preface
Chapter 1: Family
Chapter 2: Church
Chapter 3: Garden
Chapter 4: Pets
Chapter 5: School
Chapter 6: University - Marriage - Birth of Thomas
Chapter 7: Melchior Wańkowicz
Chapter 8: House on Studencka Street
Chapter 9: The Writer’s Illness
Chapter 10: Burial of Wańkowicz
Chapter 11: Fortune teller
Chapter 12: England Again
Chapter 13: Apartment on Kmicica Street
Chapter 14: First Book: Near Wańkowicz
Chapter 15: Ship Cruise
Chapter 16: Radziejowice - Professor Władysław Tatarkiewicz
Chapter 17: Tomek’s School
Chapter 18: Nieborów
Chapter 19: Zakopane
Chapter 20: Roman Rodziewicz
Chapter 21: CanadaChapter 22: Return to Poland
Chapter 23: Visiting the United States
Chapter 24: Norman
Notes and Thoughts
Endnotes
About the Author
Index
Using the unique literary device of forgoing the narrative structure, Ziolkowska-Boehm instead relates memories by drifting from topic to topic highlighting the important experiences of her life.
— Polish American Journal
Ziółkowska-Boehm is a prolific writer, and it is to be hoped that she will not quit at a relatively young age. The book is a chatty autobiography that involves Poland, the United States, and dozens of famous and not-so-famous people with whom the author maintained close or not-so-close relations. A good book to read by the fireplace, with a cup of tea in hand.
— The Sarmatian Review
Aleksandra Ziolkowska Boehm, emerges in this fascinating book as a complex, questing Polish/Canadian/American individual. She draws us, like threads through a tapestry, into the contrasting worlds of both Polish and American writers, musicians, journalists and artists and gives us unique glimpses into the minds of high officials and behind the scene views of Polish and American drama. Amusing, seemingly trivial, matters are interwoven with magical moments of significant value.
Aleksandra writes with moving honesty and candor about herself. She gives the reader a total sense of being right there with her—as she movingly recalls her childhood and formative years in Poland. As a student her destiny is interwoven with the great Polish writer Melchior Wańkowicz and his enlightened circle. We watch her growing and changing as she bonds with her son and beloved animals, as she travels around the planet, falls in love, marries an adventurous American and sympathetically evaluates her split worlds. Romantic, loving, strong, brilliant and intently responsive—this is Aleksandra, whose wise perceptions, struggles, failures and achievements illuminate and inspire us through this powerful and beautifully written book.
— Audrey Ronning Topping, American Publisher's 2013 Prose Award winner author
Through Aleksandra Ziolkowska-Boehm’s award-winning writings about Poles, Americans and Canadians and her personal visits, she has become an excellent ambassador for all three countries. The author's writings have motivated many Canadian citizens to rediscover their Polish roots.
— Jesse Flis, member of Canadian Parliament for fourteen years
Ziolkowska’s storytelling talents are on full display. This is more than an autobiography. Through the storyteller’s art, her talent becomes a lens for larger events, as well as her own life: from Warsaw to the Crazy Horse memorial that members of her family are carving in South Dakota, from Zbigniew Brzeziñski to Pope John Paul II.
— Bruce E. Johansen, Jacob J. Isaacson University Research Professor, communication and Native American studies, University of Nebraska at Omaha