Alexandria Book Club — “The Book of Lost Names” by Kristin Harmel

Thursday, February 17, 2022
7:30 pm - 8:30 pm

About the Book

In 1942, Eva is forced to flee Paris after the arrest of her father, a Polish Jew. Finding refuge in a small mountain town, she begins forging identity documents for Jewish children escaping to neutral Switzerland. But erasing people comes with a price, and along with a mysterious, handsome forger named Rémy, Eva realises she must find a way to preserve the real names of the children who are too young to remember their own identities.

When Rémy disappears and the resistance cell they work for is betrayed, the records they keep in The Book of Lost Names become even more crucial to remembering the truth…

A present day discovery of the book leaves researchers fascinated by its origins and desperate to decipher its codes. Only Eva holds the answer but will she have the strength to face old memories and help reunite those lost during the war?

About the author

Kristin Harmel is a former reporter for PEOPLE magazine. Kristin has been writing professionally since the age of 16, when she began her career as a sportswriter, covering Major League Baseball and NHL hockey for a local magazine in Tampa Bay, Florida in the late 1990s. After stints covering health and lifestyle for American Baby, Men’s Health, and Woman’s Day, she became a reporter for PEOPLE magazine while still in college and spent more than a decade working for the publication, covering everything from the Super Bowl to high-profile murders to celebrity interviews. Her favorite stories at PEOPLE, however, were the “Heroes Among Us” features—tales of ordinary people doing extraordinary things.

Kristin was born just outside Boston, Massachusetts and spent her childhood there, as well as in Columbus, Ohio, and St. Petersburg, Florida. After graduating with a degree in journalism (with a minor in Spanish) from the University of Florida, she spent time living in Paris and Los Angeles and now lives in Orlando, with her husband and young son.

About the event

All state and federal COVID-19 mandates will be followed.

If Campbell County is ORANGE on the Kentucky Department for Public Health’s COVID-19 Dashboard, everyone, age 2 or older, who attends library programs are required to wear masks.

Please note any accommodation requests in the Special Needs section of the registration form.

Zoom accommodation is available. To attend via Zoom or if you have any other questions, please contact Carrie Ratterman at cratterman@cc-pl.org

Alexandria Branch