Technology magnate Zandman—founder of an enterprise doing $1 billion in sales each year, employer of more than 16,000 people in 11 countries, and at the core, Holocaust survivor—tells his story graphically. Zandman came of age in Hell. As a youth, he witnessed the extermination of Polish Jewry by the Nazis. Helpless, he watched his beloved grandfather, with three infants in his arms, taken from their home in Grodno to the gas chambers. Virtually his entire family gone, teenage Felix, an uncle, and a newly married couple were all hidden beneath the cottage of a courageous peasant family, in a hole dug under the floorboards. (The penalty for hiding Jews, of course, was immediate execution.) There they lived in fear for 17 months. Time after time Zandman escaped death. That's the first part of the memoir and it is compelling; his portraits of a gentle and wise family, of a ghetto packed with innocents, and of a historic civilization—all now gone forever—are powerful ones. His story then shifts to France after the war and a professional education, thence to America and his business adventures (starting, ironically, with a new method of measuring stress). Leveraging, merging, acquiring, incorporating, Zandman made himself into the quintessential tycoon. With perhaps pardonable pride (especially regarding his operations in Israel) the author (aided by Chanoff, coauthor of Portrait of the Enemy, 1986) presents his history of his firm, Vishay Intertechnology, and the commercial acumen that built it. The business bio is not a bad tale, but not nearly as arresting as the searing remembrance of his earlier days when survival was all. The two books are fused together for a unique addition the literature of the Holocaust. (16 pages b&w photos, not seen)
Pub Date: June 7, 1995
ISBN: 0-8052-4128-0
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Schocken
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1995
An enjoyable slice of 20th-century music journalism almost certain to provide something for most readers, no matter one’s...
Music journalist and musician Wald (Talking 'Bout Your Mama: The Dozens, Snaps, and the Deep Roots of Rap, 2014, etc.) focuses on one evening in music history to explain the evolution of contemporary music, especially folk, blues, and rock.
The date of that evening is July 25, 1965, at the Newport Folk Festival, where there was an unbelievably unexpected occurrence: singer/songwriter Bob Dylan, already a living legend in his early 20s, overriding the acoustic music that made him famous in favor of electronically based music, causing reactions ranging from adoration to intense resentment among other musicians, DJs, and record buyers. Dylan has told his own stories (those stories vary because that’s Dylan’s character), and plenty of other music journalists have explored the Dylan phenomenon. What sets Wald's book apart is his laser focus on that one date. The detailed recounting of what did and did not occur on stage and in the audience that night contains contradictory evidence sorted skillfully by the author. He offers a wealth of context; in fact, his account of Dylan's stage appearance does not arrive until 250 pages in. The author cites dozens of sources, well-known and otherwise, but the key storylines, other than Dylan, involve acoustic folk music guru Pete Seeger and the rich history of the Newport festival, a history that had created expectations smashed by Dylan. Furthermore, the appearances on the pages by other musicians—e.g., Joan Baez, the Weaver, Peter, Paul, and Mary, Dave Van Ronk, and Gordon Lightfoot—give the book enough of an expansive feel. Wald's personal knowledge seems encyclopedic, and his endnotes show how he ranged far beyond personal knowledge to produce the book.
An enjoyable slice of 20th-century music journalism almost certain to provide something for most readers, no matter one’s personal feelings about Dylan's music or persona.Pub Date: July 25, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-236668-9
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Dey Street/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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