Welcome to the third annual One Book, One San Diego reading campaign. I am excited each year to learn about the new book that all of San Diego will be reading. I am pleased to announce the 2009 One Book, One San Diego selection is "The Zookeeper's Wife" by Diane Ackerman.
This is the remarkable true-story of Jan and Antonina Zabinski, the keepers of the 1930-1940's Warsaw Zoo, who, with extraordinary courage, compassion, and calm under pressure, managed to save hundreds of people from Nazi hands. With her inimitable blend of lyricism and insight into the natural world, Ackerman reveals how empathy for nature can, occasionally, allow us to triumph over the worst in human nature.
"The Zookeeper's Wife" is the winner of the 2008 Orion Book Award, which is conferred annually to a book that deepens our connection to the natural world, presents new ideas about our relationship with nature, and achieves excellence in writing. "The Zookeepers Wife" is a groundbreaking work of nonfiction in which the human relationship to nature is explored in an absolutely original way through looking at the Holocaust. Kathleen Dean Moore, the Orion Book committee's chairperson, said: "A few years ago, 'nature' writers were asking themselves, 'How can a book be at the same time a work of art, an act of conscientious objection to the destruction of the world, and an affirmation of hope and human decency?' "The Zookeeper's Wife" answers this question."
You can find a copy of "The Zookeeper's Wife" at your favorite branch of the San Diego Public Library or local bookstores. Whether you discuss it with family and friends, or attend one of the special programs, I hope you will have a good time reading and talking about "The Zookeeper's Wife".
One Book, One San Diego is presented by KPBS and the San Diego Public Library.
Jerry Sanders
Mayor
City of San Diego
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