By the way, I read Milan Kundera's The Joke on the bus ride from Prague to Budapest. It is an incredible book, and also a very sad one. The way it is written from various perspectives is quite impressive, and the way the stories twist together to eventually coalesce is even more so. I would say it is surprisingly tragic.
The other book we've read for our history class is Heda Margolius Kovály's Under a Cruel Star. I had read it before, but I read it again, and I love it even more than I did before. It is an autobiography of a Jewish woman who lived in Prague during the Nazi regime, survived the concentration camps (and escaped), and then joined the Communist Party. Her husband became a prominent party member and he was eventually executed in the purge "show" trials (fake trials set up to "purge traitors from within the party" - all false accusations and false pretenses of course). Kovály is such an incredible woman. She is one of the few people I really admire. Vera (professor) told us she saw Kovály on the metro in Prague once.
They are both on my list of all-time favorite books, and I have read a lot of books. If you haven't already, I would highly, highly recommend reading both.
I am definitely borrowing The Unbearable Lightness of Being (also Kundera) from Matthew when I get home.
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