Book Review: “A Well-Read Woman: The Life, Loves, and Legacy of Ruth Rappaport” by Kate Stewart

“A Well-Read Woman: The Life, Loves, and Legacy of Ruth Rappaport” by Kate Stewart (2019)

Genre: Biography, History, Non-Fiction

Page Length: 416 pages (hardcover edition)

Synopsis:

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. (description from Goodreads)

Review:

This book is a long, detailed narrative about the life of Ruth Rapport who found her life’s calling in librarianship. The book gives a inside account her life compiled of information gathered from diary entries, newspaper articles, photographs, etc.The books begins at her childhood in Germany and living under Nazi occupation until she retired from working at the library in her latter years.

She was admirable in her efforts for demanding equal rights in the workplace, going up and beyond for the while working for the government and within the libraries. The legacy of the work she did to improve the libraries is amazing.

While the book is very interesting and Stewart pays great attention to detail in showcasing and pay respect to Rapport’s work it did feel a little overbearing at times with the information that was packed into each chapter. This overload of information caused the narrative to feel bogged down and the story tended to drag a lot. I felt the pacing could have been a bit smoother. Sometimes Stewart interjects her own side notes into the story and this threw me off. I felt those section should have been separated, just put at the end of the chapter, or even footnotes.

I did liked how Stewart talks about actually going to some of the places Ruth did and her own journey to become a librarian. I could see that she empathized with Ruth’s struggles while also acting as a motivator.

All in all, this was a fascinating biography of some one in literary and library history that was unfamiliar to me. I appreciated reading Ruth’s story and how much libraries and books (ex. library technology, censorship, cataloging. The information overload made me loose interest in parts and hard to read.

Final Verdict: