A mostly compelling chronicle of an oft-overlooked piece of 20th-century European history.
Rehavia, an Israeli neighborhood in the holy city of Jerusalem, is the central focus of this historical survey.
Sparr, publisher at large for German publisher Suhrkamp, tells Rehavia's story by way of its most notable 20th-century inhabitants and visitors. These include well-known figures like Gershom Sholem, Hannah Arendt, and Martin Buber but also lesser-known figures such as Anna Maria Jokl and Mascha Kaléko. “The history of this city district may be told through its geography, architecture, urban planning or chronology,” writes Sparr. “But the decisive thing is the biographies of its inhabitants, who moulded the history of the neighbourhood over decades, just as Rehavia shaped the paths of their lives.” In the years before and after the Shoah and the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Sparr contends that Rehavia (Hebrew for “the vastness of God”) endured not only as a refuge for German-Jewish hybrid culture, but as a site of major spiritual, intellectual, and artistic contributions to world history. While ably translated from the original German by Brown, the prose isn’t likely to win any awards. Sparr’s style is straightforward, and the author sometimes breezes past fascinating moments that could have garnered deeper study. The author’s main strength is his ability to weave the many strands he's gathered into a nuanced braid of history from a variety of perspectives. However, such nuanced history is almost exclusively written by and for the victors; readers looking for insight on contemporary Arab-Israeli issues should look elsewhere. Some may wish that Sparr had endeavored to make more connections between traumas endured by the German-Jewish settlers of Rehavia and the experiences of those mostly Arab civilians who were displaced by their arrival. The author instead focuses on intersectionality within Rehavia, privileging as his subject those Jews of German descent who gave the neighborhood its unique character and offered the world its most brilliant minds.
A mostly compelling chronicle of an oft-overlooked piece of 20th-century European history.Pub Date: June 30, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-912208-61-6
Page Count: 220
Publisher: Haus Publishing
Review Posted Online: April 23, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2021
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorkerstaff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.
A coffee-table book celebrates Michelle Obama’s sense of fashion.
Illustrated with hundreds of full-color photographs, Obama’s chatty latest book begins with some school portraits from the author’s childhood in Chicago and fond memories of back-to-school shopping at Sears, then jumps into the intricacies of clothing oneself as the spouse of a presidential candidate and as the first lady. “People looked forward to the outfits, and once I got their attention, they listened to what I had to say. This is the soft power of fashion,” she says. Obama is grateful and frank about all the help she got along the way, and the volume includes a long section written by her primary wardrobe stylist, Koop—28 years old when she first took the job—and shorter sections by makeup artists and several hair stylists, who worked with wigs and hair extensions as Obama transitioned back to her natural hair, and grew out her bangs, at the end of her husband’s second term. Many of the designers of the author’s gowns, notably Jason Wu, who designed several of her more striking outfits, also contribute appreciative memories. Besides candid and more formal photographs, the volume features many sketches of her gowns by their designers, closeups on details of those gowns, and magazine covers from Better Homes & Gardens to Vogue. The author writes that as a Black woman, “I was under a particularly white-hot glare, constantly appraised for whether my outfits were ‘acceptable’ and ‘appropriate,’ the color of my skin somehow inviting even more judgment than the color of my dresses.” Overall, though, this is generally a canny, upbeat volume, with little in the way of surprising revelations.
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9780593800706
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
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