The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer (Penguin, Viking, 2010)

This is a real door-stop, 600 pages, which focuses on a young man, Andras Levi and his kin in Budapest during the dark years of 1937 to 1945. Julie Orringer writes about this with great skill and empathy.

I found this book to be quite riveting, and was unable to put it down. Orringer captures the growing threat of Hitler and the different ways in which this impinged on the everyday life of the jewish citizens who struggle to cope with events far beyond their individual abilities to master. Orringer has her own page on Wikipedia.