Named one of the Best Books of 1999 by theLos Angeles Times,The Pianistis now a major motion picture directed by Roman Polanski and starring Adrien Brody (Son of Sam).The Pianistwon the Cannes Film Festival’s most prestigious prize — the Palme d’Or.

On September 23, 1939, Wladyslaw Szpilman played Chopin’s Nocturne in C-sharp minor live on the radio as shells exploded outside — so loudly that he couldn’t hear his piano. It was the last live music broadcast from Warsaw: That day, a German bomb hit the station, and Polish Radio went off the air.

Though he lost his entire family, Szpilman survived in hiding. In the end, his life was saved by a German officer who heard him play the same Chopin Nocturne on a piano found among the rubble. Written immediately after the war and suppressed for decades,The Pianistis a stunning testament to human endurance and the redemptive power of fellow feeling.