By Oliver B. Pollak
TETON VILLAGE, Wyoming — When I read a new book I want to turn my hours of page turning into a review. I have done this hundreds of times. Even compulsion has its limits. I list unpublished reviews in my 18,000 word resume under “Unsubmitted.” They were not rejected by an editor, they were never sent to one. Until yesterday it contained three books published between 2007-2014, and now has increased by 33 percent to four titles, totaling 1323 pages. I’m a non-fiction reviewer wary of speculation, creative non-fiction, and historical fiction.
What restrained me from publishing the reviews lay in the fact that I could not fully communicate the books’ value. They were without a doubt interesting books and in my area of interest, long distance bicycle riding, food, Germany during the 1930s, and Omaha history.
Without faulting the author or my ignorance, I did not feel comfortable or sufficiently sure footed to profess to readers my analysis, praise and criticism. Mia Culpa. All these books have been reviewed on Amazon. I have not submitted comments to Amazon but it is fun to read other people’s signed and unsigned appraisals.
Reviewing books on bicycling is a vicarious pleasure. Around the World on Two Wheels: Annie Londonderry’s Extraordinary Ride, by Peter Zheutlin (New York: Citadel Press, 2007). I could not adequately frame my reaction. Amazon reviews ranged from “One of the best biographies I’ve ever read!” to “Unnecessarily long and repetitious.” Zheutlin recently published a book about rescue dogs.
My mother was born in Hannover, Germany and was living there as a teenager in November 1938 when Kristallnacht, The Night of the Broken Glass, was fomented by the Nazis allegedly in retaliation for Herschel Grynszpan’s November 7 assassination of a German diplomat in Paris. Herschel was born in March 1921 in Hannover. His father, of Polish origin, was a tailor. My mother was born 40 days earlier in Hannover, her father was a First World War decorated and disabled physician.
For some, Kristallnacht marked a turning point, Germany had become intolerable for Jews. My mother left for England. Her father thought otherwise. He believed the Germans would come to their civilized senses, Hitler would be deposed. He stayed too long and went to Theresienstadt, which he blessedly survived. Hitler committed suicide. I wrote the review of The Short, Strange Life of Herschel Grynszpan: A Boy Avenger, A Nazi Diplomat, and a Murder in Paris (1913) by Jonathan Kirsch, attorney and journalist. But it just did not feel right or comfortable to publish.
There is always hummus for snacks in our refrigerator. I enjoyed divine fowl and falafel in Jerusalem’s Old City in 2014. The University of Nebraska Press sent me a review copy of Falafel Nation, Cuisine and the Making of National Identity in Israel (2015) by Yael Raviv. The book was enthralling and my mind spread to hummus and pita. It unsettled me that the same food fed Jews and Moslems yet they ate at separate tables. I regret not submitting the review, enough said.
My Omaha Obsession, Searching for the City, by Miss Cassette, also published by the University of Nebraska Press, appeared in 2020. I purchased it. Its right up my alley. I have been publishing Omaha history since 1982, four decades, but I’m conflicted about reviewing this book. Alexander Payne’s back cover blurb read, “Miss Cassette is a social and urban historian of the highest order.” That’s game show hype and movie talk.
I struggled with Miss Cassette’s (a pseudonym) obvious labor of love and diligence that utilized primary sources, the internet, but avoided reference to other academic scholars in the field, did not adequately document her sources, offer a bibliography, or provide the reader with the traditional book App, an Index. The reader does not even know the author’s name. Perhaps its fits the category of popular, rabbit hole or artificer history.
Finally, in my reviewing years, there is one book I regret I had not checked the author’s bona fides, the publisher had even greater misgivings for this oversight and negligence, almost to the level of the recent brouhaha over a Philip Roth biography. Binjamin Wilkomirski’s allegedly non-fiction account, Fragments: Memories of a Wartime Childhood appeared in 1995. The Swiss author, born in 1941, received the 1996 National Jewish Book Award for Autobiography/Memoir. In 1998 a Swiss journalist debunked the story as a fabrication.
Reviewers are responsible for assessing the credibility of the author, sources, accuracy of the account, readability of the book, and its contribution to knowledge. May the New Year bring you peace, joy, good health and opportunities to read.
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Oliver B. Pollak is an emeritus History professor and attorney who retired in 2016 from Nebraska with his wife to Richmond, California. He has published eleven books and several hundred articles. He has been reviewing books since the 1960s. He is a Northern California correspondent for San Diego Jewish World.