Poland

The Breaking of Eggs A Novel Jim Powell Penguin: 342 pp., $15 paper In his debut novel, "The Breaking of Eggs," British writer Jim Powell surveys an impressive breadth of time ? and trains his focus on a small slice. The book's historical scope encompasses Poland at the turn of the 20th century and Columbus, Ohio, in the early 1990s. The story is framed, however, by a fraction of that distance, beginning New Year's Day 1991 , in a Paris apartment and concluding on Dec. 31 of that same year, in the same apartment.

COMEDY Doug Benson's Movie Interruptions: 'Mac and Me' The interruption-prone cinema buff makes a respectable living by giving his two cents at every chance he gets. "Doug Benson's Movie Interruptions" follows in the same vein as the comedian's beloved appearances at Upright Citizens Brigade, but instead of peppering fellow comics' acts with unsolicited commentary from the front row, the mayor of the peanut gallery supplies hilariously cutting feedback throughout forgotten gems from film history.

It's hard to imagine a more profound expression of the healing power of music than Matthew Asner and Danny Gold's deeply affecting "100 Voices: A Journey Home. " The film follows cantor Nate Lam, of L.A.'s Stephen S. Wise Temple and father of the film's co-writer and co-producer, as the 72 cantors he gathered from around the world perform at the Warsaw Opera House, the largest theater of its kind in Europe. They also appeared at the Krakow Philharmonic, participated in Poland's annual Jewish Cultural Heritage Festival and conducted the first Jewish service at Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Felicia Haberfeld, a native of Poland who fought to reclaim her husband's ancestral home in Auschwitz decades after it was seized by the Nazis, has died. She was 98. Haberfeld died April 19 of natural causes at her Los Angeles home, said her son, Stephen. She was a leader in the Holocaust-survivor community in Los Angeles and almost 60 years ago co-founded the 1939 Club, one of the oldest and largest organizations of survivors of the Holocaust. In 1961, she became a founding board member of the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust and was on the board at the time of her death.

Boxing's heavyweight division, a general bore to the public for several years with the dominance of the Klitschko brothers, finally got an old-time, rock 'em, sock 'em show Saturday night. And Poland got a winner. Tomasz Adamek, the light heavyweight moving up to take on the real big boys, spoiled the dreams of Riverside's Chris Arreola at the Ontario Citizens Business Bank Arena. The victory came in a majority decision. Two judges had Adamek winning -- one of them with a ridiculous 117-111 margin -- and the third had it a draw.

Polish President Lech Kaczynski was laid to rest in a centuries-old crypt Sunday alongside the remains of some of the most revered figures in this nation's often tragic history. The funeral Mass and procession to the nation's most sacred cathedral put a somber end to a week of mourning in Poland. Kaczynski and his wife were killed last weekend when the presidential plane clipped a tree and crashed while landing at a fog-shrouded provincial Russian airport. Many top Polish military officials, lawmakers and leading figures from the nation's recent history also died in the crash.

Within hours of the state funeral for Polish President Lech Kaczynski and his wife in Krakow, members of Los Angeles' Polish community gathered for a memorial Mass to honor Polish dignitaries killed in the April 10 plane crash in Russia. Polish scouts -- girls in gray uniforms with green scarves knotted at the neck and boys in khaki shirts with yellow ties -- silently lined the walkways leading to the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels downtown. Inside, more than 400 Angelenos of Polish descent, including members of Polish parishes in West Adams and Yorba Linda, filled pews near the altar, many holding red-and-white Polish flags.

President Obama, who was to fly to Poland on Sunday night to attend the funeral of former Polish President Lech Kaczynski, on Saturday canceled that planned journey because of the plume of volcanic ash from Iceland that has closed airports throughout Europe. "I spoke with acting President [Bronislaw] Komorowski, and told him that I regret that I will not be able to make it to Poland due to the volcanic ash that is disrupting air travel over Europe," Obama said in a statement issued Saturday afternoon by the White House.

The surviving members of the Polish political elite turned their attention Monday to the delicate task of reconstituting the country's leadership after a plane crash killed President Lech Kaczynski, heads of key institutions, lawmakers and military chiefs. It was a delicate, often distasteful, task. The Polish people are still mourning in streets littered with dying flowers and slick with hardened puddles of candle wax. Kaczynski's body was brought back to Poland, but the remains of the other 95 dead were taken to Moscow for identification.

The body of their president was finishing a long journey home Sunday, and by the tens of thousands, Poles poured into the streets of a paralyzed capital to watch it pass. It seemed as if nobody could bear to sit at home, as if they had to take some physical part in a national tragedy that happened in a place that was braided into the Polish psyche -- and yet lay distant, on the far side of a geographic border and an ideological boundary. The remains of President Lech Kaczynski were recovered from the site of the plane crash in Russia that killed 96 people Saturday, including many top Polish officials and leading figures from the nation's recent history.