Makeup Tips from Auschwitz: How Vanity Saved My Mother's Life

Written by a second-generation child of survivors, it is the story of a Hungarian Jewish refugee family's cultural collision and delightful dysfunction. With the growing pains of Shtisel, the earthiness of The Simpsons and the fierce family loyalty of The Sopranos, it tells the story of newcomers who defy authority. Exploring the souls of a family for all to see, the memoir by an award-winning Montreal broadcaster is an addictive page-turner. Like the Oscar-winning film, Life is Beautiful, it revisits the Holocaust with rays of light in the darkness. Set in Montreal with side trips to New York City, the Academy Awards in Los Angeles, and the Cannes film festival, it has a lyrical cadence of its own as well as an unsettling candor reminiscent of humorist David Sedaris and essayist Augusten Burroughs. As you hear the stories of this dynamic mother and son duo, you get to laugh out loud at the antics of an eccentric psychologist and a superstitious hypochondriac named Paris. You will even find out how the author managed to avoid a war over the lyrics to "Give Peace a Chance."