It touched me to be trusted with something terrible.

I wondered why she craved this knowledge and found myself remembering that she was, after all, an anthropologist.

...History it seemed could be something entirely different a splash of blood whose agony didn't fade overnight or over centuries.

And how could anyone consent to give up the smell of open books, old or new?

...what will we someday do, I always wonder, without the pleasures of turning through books and stumbling on things we never meant to find?

Sometimes people damage paintings or sculpture because they love it. They throw their arms around a statue in a fit of hysterical passion and it falls over.

Natalie Bakopoulos has that rare gift, the ability to imagine a traumatic historical event in the form of individual lives and ordinary details. The Green Shore is compelling, personal, and full of quietly real moments.