A Chosen Few - Mark Kurlansky [0]
“This book is a fascinating review of the changing life of Jews and Judaism and Europeans in general since the Second World War.”
—Rocky Mountain News
“Kurlansky does an astonishingly informative job here, covering a vast array of individuals and communities throughout Europe, chronicling the economic, political, and cultural trends that reshaped and often played havoc with their lives and destinies. His descriptions of life in Antwerp, Paris, Budapest, and Amsterdam are superb, while his chapters on Poland are among the best I've read.”
—SUSAN MIRON Forward
“A richly descriptive and insightful survey of post-Holocaust European Jewry… With a novelist's eye for irony and description, [Kurlansky] offers many moments of transcendence and humor; entertaining culture clashes between communists and capitalists, religious and secular, Zionists and diasporists.… A lively, penetrating follow-up to Holocaust readings that speaks volumes about the resiliency of the Jewish people.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Kurlansky's collection of case histories unfolds like a novel.”
—The Jewish Advocate
Acclaim for the work of Mark Kurlansky
Salt
‘An immensely entertaining read… Kurlansky continues to prove himself remarkably adept at taking a most unlikely candidate and telling its tale with epic grandeur. Salt reveals all the hidden drama of its seemingly pedestrian subject. There is even a kind of poetry in the very chemistry of salt.”
—Los Angeles Times Book Review
“Bright writing and, most gratifyingly, an enveloping narrative… It is Kurlansky's neat trick to be both encyclopedic and diverting, to leave no grain unturned as he ties one intriguing particular to another, through time and space, keeping the reader's attention.”
—San Francisco Chronicle
“Mark Kurlansky is a writer worth his salt.… [He] always manages to bring out the sharpest flavors in his subject matter. For readers thirsty for well-told history, Salt hits the spot.”
—Minneapolis Star Tribune
“Throughout his engaging, well-researched history, Kurlansky sprinkles witty asides and amusing anecdotes. A piquant blend of the historic, political, commercial, scientific, and culinary, the book is sure to entertain as well as educate.”
—Publishers Weekly
Cod
“[An] eminently readable book… History filtered through the gills of the fish trade.”
—The New York Times Book Review
“[A] fascinating study of the interrelationship between humans and fish.”
—The Philadelphia Inquirer
“[A] naturalist triumph, a smoothly written, beautifully designed book… Kurlansky's steady tone, somewhere between Captains Courageous and the mourner's Kaddish, is perfect.”
—Boston magazine
“[An] engaging history… Highly recommended.”
—Library Journal (starred review)
The Basque History of the World
“Thoroughly engaging… Kurlansky writes history with a quirky verve that makes his books as entertaining as they are enlightening.”
—The Boston Globe
“A rich mix of mythos and reportage, history and anecdote, literature and etymology, culinary lore and recipes, this history may be the most important English work on Iberia since Robert Hughes’ Barcelona”
—Miami Herald
“[A] lively, anecdotal, all-encompassing history of Basque ingenuity and achievement.”
—The Atlantic Monthly
“Kurlansky's book makes for highly enjoyable history, food, and travel reading.”
—The Washington Times
Other Books by Mark Kurlansky
Salt: A World History
The Basque History of the World
Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World
A Continent of Islands: Searching for the Caribbean Destiny
The White Man in the Tree and Other Stories (fiction)
The Cod's Tale (for children)
To LISA BETH
“If God lets me live,1 shall achieve more than my mother ever did, I shall not remain insignificant, I shall work in the world for people.”
—ANNE FRANK'S diary, April 11, 1944
“Solange ed Juden gibt, wird es immer Nazis geben.” (As long as there are