Night by Elie Wiesel (9 of 156)

One Sentence Summary: Elie Wiesel's autobiographical account of his experiences during the Holocaust.

Excerpt: 

“Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed....Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never.” 

I read horror novels and thrillers regularly and if I have learned anything in the process it is that they cannot measure up against non-fiction. As soon as the human race imagines something more terrible than previously known they put it into practice and so history stretches on as a long legend of repeated ills. Elie Wiesel's story is more than a sickeningly bald-faced first-hand account of the Jewish nation's struggles in the Holocaust, it is a mirror and a warning. We are capable of anything, he reminds, on either end of the spectrum- no living thing can survive like a man and nor can anything parallel man's ability to destroy.

There is little to say aside from the fact that this is a necessary volume, slim and thoroughly haunting and an agony to absorb. I laid in bed and the phantoms gathered in the sea of darkness beyond my mattress and I was so very, very sorry.

There is really nothing more to say.