Stories of hope, and stories of listening and how to listen - the premise to Heather Morris's new non-fiction book.

For those who've read The Tattooist of Auschwitz and Cilka's Journey, this is a complementary read - detailing more of the relationship that Heather builds with Lale Sokolov, and the process by which she listened to his story.

It's also a book to help us all listen, giving hints and tips on active listening, and how to look after yourself if you're listening to traumatic events. I enjoyed this, it was good to hear more from Heather Morris as herself and to gain an insight into how she crafts her work.

This is the 1st Book I have read by Heather Morris

What I can take from this book without giving any spoilers for the book away is to listen to your elders

With thanks to Netgalley & Bonnier Books for the arc of this exchange for this review

Having read and enjoyed the two previous books by Heather Morris, The tattooist of Auschwitz and Cilkas journey, I was eager to read her latest book.

The book is about listening and how by learning to listen you can see more clearly. The book starts at the beginning of 2020, the Australian bush fires then touches on the Covid19 Pandemic. She tells of her life growing up in New Zealand and tales from Gramps.

She tells how she met Lale, from The Tattooist of Auschwitz. how she listened and how he trusted her with his stories. I like how the book flits from the present to the past and how she added the stories she couldn't prove to be true in the first book but she added them to this book after being contacted by readers.

If your expecting another book that is similar to The Tattooist of Auschwitz and Cilkas Journey, this inst the same. You still get to hear stories but its more about how the author listened, she does share some stories that were not included in the books. This is a story of hope and it is beautiful!

I have read the previous two books by this author and was completely blown away by them so when I was given the opportunity to read this book I was really looking forward to it. Unfortunately this book left me very disappointed. the book is no more than a filler and would be better suited to a magazine article. Rather than being a fascinating read about the inspirational figures she had met, which the book hardly touched on, it explained how we should listen to our elders and speak to the young. The book was only 171 pages long and I would have been far more interested to hear of Heather Morris's experiences meeting Lale Sokolov, the tattooist at Auschwitz-Birkenau rather than a very patronisingly description of how I should deal with loved ones.

A very disappointing read and a rather kind 3 star rating.

I would like to thank both Netgalley and Bonnier books for supplying a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This book, smacking of contract-filler as it does, is going to shift millions. The first essay here recounts of our author's childhood memories, and tells us with as much depth, conviction and artistry as a Reader's Digest Magazine article might, about how it's good to sit and listen to old relatives. The second is a look back at why we know this author in the first place – the way she sat listening to the tattooist of Auschwitz, before turning it into a much-derided, yet damnably easy-to-read, novel. The third is a mixture of both these things, before we get taught to suck eggs regarding listening to our children and ourselves. An essay about doing background research for her sophomore novel is also present, before we find the umpteenth advert for the third in the series.

Now, before I sound too snide about this, I downloaded it as someone who was then a fan of the author, yet before belatedly picking up Cilka's Journey – you know the one where our heroine can do no bloody thing wrong in going from form-filler at a Soviet Gulag camp to nurse in her fifth language, to ambulance first responder to bloody rescuer-of-people-from-collapsing-mines. You know the book, the book that admits it was a secondary witness who alleges rumours existed from the times of the Holocaust that Cilka did certain things, and which lets our author insist Cilka did certain things, and which led to her relatives demanding their father be redacted from the book while insisting their real preference was for it to not ever exist. I'm sorry, but in the light of all that and these pages, it's not going to be Morris I'm listening closely to.

‘Stories of Hope’ is a truly captivating book, in which Heather Morris highlights how important it is to listen to the people around us.
Morris chronicles the development of her relationship with Lale Sokolov, the ‘Tattooist of Auschwitz’, when he asks her to tell his story after so many years of silence. The ensuing friendship that blossoms is truly remarkable and heartwarming.
Morris also talks about other Holocaust survivors she has met, and who have shared their stories with her, as well as how listening to everyone can have a positive impact.
This book was so well written, and thought out. Also so necessary, Everyone has a story to tell, if only there is someone to listen! Heather Morris was the perfect person to tell Lale’s story, and Cilka’s, she appears to be a very skilled listener and writes what needs to be shared. I absolutely think everyone should read Stories of Hope, and her other books. It is important that this part of history is not forgotten!

Thank you, Bonnier Books UK, for inviting me to view Stories of Hope by Heather Morris. I don’t usually read nonfiction but as it is the author of The Tattooist of Auschwitz, I thought I would give it a go.
This is the bio of Heather Morris after a troubled childhood she moves to Australia and the incidents that lead up to meeting Lale Sokolov and writing the Tattooist of Auschwitz. It was originally was going to be a screenplay but after the tale he told, and that Heather documented she thought that it would be better told as a story. This also tells us of the friendship that developed between them and introducing her to other survivors of the Holocaust and how the author spread the word from talking to children and even inmates in present day prisons.
I really don’t know really how to summarise this book. Only to say It was interesting to see how Heather Morris came to meet Lale Sokolov and what’s leads her to write the book about his life and the harrowing time incarcerated in Auschwitz. But also the troubles she had in her childhood and what leads her to be the person that she is. The only thing I didn’t get and didn’t think was relevant was the guide how to listen to people at the start and going throughout the book in between the stories about Lale. 4 stars from me.

Stories of Hope by Heather Morris is ostensibly about listening, not least as her childhood was blighted by the lack of communication and support from her Mother in her rural New Zealand upbringing. I say ostensibly as much of the book is the story of her 2 best-selling books,"The Tattooist of Auschwitz" and Cilka's Journey with similar treatment for her next book as well. Nothing wrong with that and she does mention the need to listen to people throughout but it seems she drifts quite often from the central premise into it being more partly autobiography ,partly a book about previous books.
Despite this I really enjoyed the book as I haven't read either of her best-sellers yet but from what I've read I will at the earliest opportunity. As I've not read either book I have no idea if the information here is a repeat of some of their content but the story of Lale Sokolov's relationship with the author, and from there her family,is very touching. There is also a bit of an update as Ms Morris tells of claims made by Lale that couldn't be verified and so were left out out of The Tattooist of Auschwitz being verified by those involved.
There's no need to have read any of Heather Morris's previous books to enjoy this one but I suspect you'll get more out of it if you have, Conversely reading it piqued my interest enough to want to read those as well.

Thanks to Heather Morris , Bonnier Books UK and Netgalley for the ARC in return for an honest review.

This short read is basically a guide on how to listen to your family or community elders and I found it slightly patronising to be honest. Recounting her interviews with Lale and how she came to write The Tattooist and how her other ideas were formed.
Thank you to netgalley and the publishers for this arc in exchange for my honest review.

This is another heartwrending story of loss and suffering by Heather Morris following her book The Tattooist of Auchswitz. What I found particularly sad was Heather's own story of growing up in a harsh, unloving family where girls were not worth much compared to male offspring. Her mother's cruelty was appalling, I'm so glad that Heather managed to get away from that environment and make a good life for herself despite her harsh upbringing. The rest of the book is very similr to Heather's previous one, stories about survivors of the death camp (where I lost numerous relatives of my own) in Poland. You need to be in a good frame of mind to tackle this and perhaps not directly related to this deathly period in European history.