Over Thanksgiving I got a wonderful gift from my sister-in-law Kate...a copy of her newest book.  It is titled "On The Run" and is the first volume in a set of autobiographical short stories she's titling "The Cancelled Czech Files".  Here's an Amazon link if you want to buy a copy of the paperback (the ebook will be available in January).

http://www.amazon.com/On-The-Run-Cancelled-Volume/dp/162622014X/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1418840419&sr=8-1

Now, you may be asking why you will want to buy a copy.  The quick answer is that it is a quick and interesting read.  The longer answer is that Kate's background is unlike most people's.  She was born is Prague and defected (with her family) while Czechoslovakia was still part of the Eastern Bloc (and, for that matter, still existed as a single country instead of two).  The book contains stories about those experiences,  It has stories about being a refugee (in multiple countries), about being an immigrant in the US with little or no knowledge of English, about culture shock, about the problems that come with leaving behind everything and everyone you knew.

Now I have to wait for the next volume.  Looking forward to it.

On page 1 of the book, as the family is driving out of Prague (as far as they knew, forever), her mother tells her to look back at Hradcany:  "Across the river, panoramic, loomed th famous Prague Castle, seat of ancient Czech kings and modern usurpers.  It looked unapproachable.  Only the cliff and battlements jutted out into the breaking light of day."  This image of Hradcany was taken at night decades later (and doesn't show the cliffs), but hopefully gives a sense of why you'd want to keep an image of the castle in your head.