Quotes

"Spellbinding . . .evocative . . . remarkable achievement. China experience.....sets this book apart"
– Publisher’s Weekly

"Riveting . . . moving and memorable"
– Kirkus Reviews

"Kaplan's prose is simply stunning . . . Kaplan's descriptions bring wartime Shanghai, its people and smells, to life . . . Although nonfiction, Ten Green Bottles reads like a novel. Kaplan captures the mood and feelings of her mother experiences as if they were her own."
- Canadian Jewish News

"Kaplan writes in the first-person voice of her mother . . . a decision that gives her book an emotional power and vivid immediacy."
- Maclean's

"Her powerful, harrowing story grips the reader. In an odyssey of horrors that takes place over a decade . . . what shines through is the family's indomitable will to survive."
- Ottawa Citizen

Vivian Jeanette Kaplan was born in Shanghai, where her parents were married. As her family originated in Vienna, her mother tongue is German. When she was two years old, her parents arrived in Canada, settling in Toronto. She graduated from the University of Toronto, where she studied English, French, and Spanish. She is married and has three sons. For a number of years the family owned and ran a lakeside lodge in Muskoka, north of Toronto. For twenty years she had her own business, Vivian Kaplan Oriental Interiors, an import-export firm with interior design showrooms specializing in décor from the Far East. Ten Green Bottles, which tells her own true family saga, is her first book.

I could not help but be completely immersed in every aspect of this book. At times, I actually had to put the book down ,because it was too emotional to read. I cannot begin to comprehend of the unspeakable tragedy and grief that Vivian's mother Nini saw through her journey ,experienced, or felt. My heart defenitely goes out to the many many people and family member's whose lives were taken at the hands of such an unimaginable tragic circumstance in which their lives were placed. I am extremely touched by the story within this book, and I defenitely recommend this book to anyone who has either suffered as a repercussion of this ordeal,or have had family members that have befallen to the same tragic and untimely fate. This book defenitely tugs at your heart strings, and makes you aware of the amazing plight of the human spirit, against even the most dire and devistating odds.This book is a 10.

Also recommended: I think Mrs Kaplan is a natural- born story teller, and should defenitely consider a full-time career as a book author. She has an unbelievable way of drawing the reader's attention to each and every single page.