A Well-Read Woman

The Life, Loves, and Legacy of Ruth Rappaport

By: Kate Stewart

Narrated by: Christa Lewis

Length: 10 hrs and 50 mins

Publisher's summary

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.

©2019 by Kathryn Stewart. (P)2018 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

Critic reviews

“Stewart is frank about Rappaport’s prickly personality…Those details, coupled with more admirable qualities like curiosity and drive, serve to make her an entertaining presence. A lively, chatty exploration of a life that veered in many intriguing directions.” --Kirkus Reviews

List, Lots of lists

A very interesting life well lived. Ruth sounds like a very self-sufficient, self-absorbed narcissist. She obviously had many friends & and an equal number of enemies (or as they are currently termed, haters). She was a brilliant thinker & organizer with very large ideas. She seemed to have a split personality with many positive attributes that drew people to her & an equal amount of negative characteristics that drove people away.

My major problem with the author was her obvious obsession with excessively long lists probably due to her librarian background. I found this to be really annoying.

I would recommend this to people who like obscure biographies & have plenty of time; it took me over a year to finish listening to it. I doubt I could ever have finished it by reading vs listening to it.

Amazing story, incredible life

Loved the independent and adventurous spirit, no BS attitude, and unbelievable history of Ruth Rappaport. I wish the author had kept to Ruth's story instead of adding her own political opinion at the end. Otherwise, a good book about an extraordinary woman.