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    A Well-Read Woman: The Life, Loves, and Legacy of Ruth Rappaport
    A Well-Read Woman: The Life, Loves, and Legacy of Ruth Rappaport
    A Well-Read Woman: The Life, Loves, and Legacy of Ruth Rappaport
    Audiobook10 hours

    A Well-Read Woman: The Life, Loves, and Legacy of Ruth Rappaport

    Written by Kate Stewart

    Narrated by Christa Lewis

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    The inspiring true story of an indomitable librarian’s journey from Nazi Germany to Seattle to Vietnam—all for the love of books.

    Growing up under Fascist censorship in Nazi Germany, Ruth Rappaport absorbed a forbidden community of ideas in banned books. After fleeing her home in Leipzig at fifteen and losing both parents to the Holocaust, Ruth drifted between vocations, relationships, and countries, searching for belonging and purpose. When she found her calling in librarianship, Ruth became not only a witness to history but an agent for change as well.

    Culled from decades of diaries, letters, and photographs, this epic true story reveals a driven woman who survived persecution, political unrest, and personal trauma through a love of books. It traces her activism from the Zionist movement to the Red Scare to bibliotherapy in Vietnam and finally to the Library of Congress, where Ruth made an indelible mark and found a home. Connecting it all, one constant thread: Ruth’s passion for the printed word, and the haven it provides—a haven that, as this singularly compelling biography proves, Ruth would spend her life making accessible to others. This wasn’t just a career for Ruth Rappaport. It was her purpose.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateMay 1, 2019
    ISBN9781721355143
    A Well-Read Woman: The Life, Loves, and Legacy of Ruth Rappaport
    Author

    Kate Stewart

    Bestselling author and Texas native, Kate Stewart, lives in North Carolina with her husband, Nick. Kate is a lover of all things ’80s and ’90s, especially John Hughes films and rap. She dabbles a little in photography, can knit a simple stitch scarf for necessity, and on occasion, does very well at whiskey. Her series, The Ravenhood Trilogy, consisting of Flock, Exodus, and The Finish Line, has become an international bestseller, a TikTok phenomenon and reader favourite.

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    Reviews for A Well-Read Woman

    3.5/5

    20 ratings3 reviews

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    • 3/5
      Got this as a freebie from Amazon First Reads, thought it sounded interesting. In fairness the book was interesting but after reading I thought why? The author never met Ruth Rappaport and relies on a lot of research of a relatively not famous person so the stories, antidotes and facts are thin. The author does well to try to put together a story but there are lots of unknowns and leaps of faith to make this story of Ruth. Personally I found the most interesting is Ruth's work in building a whole library infrastructure in Viet Nam during the 60s. Who even knew we had libraries in Viet Nam? Again I feel why did I read this? Still don't know.
    • 2/5
      I believe this was an Amazon first reads pick but I'm not entirely sure of that. I do remember thinking it would be interesting to read about a librarian--but the book really didn't touch on being a librarian as much as I thought it would--and I think by the time it did, there was so much information that I just found it tedious.I do remember that Rappaport seemed to come to library science later in her life. She seems to have had an interesting library career. It seemed she never quite got the feel for following the rules though she also had a social side that could charm people.
    • 3/5
      Although I found the life of Ruth Rappaport very interesting, the author kept inserting herself in the narrative. It distracted from the compelling story.