Nextbook

“Mr. Century’s strong narrative line and his interviews with Ross’s now aged younger brother help to snatch the sweet scientist with the cast iron chin from the waters of oblivion.”

“Barney Ross” is an intense biography. In barely 200 pages, Century has condensed all the essential information about tough kid Beryl Rasofsky, a Kohen (rabbinical royalty) who, in other eras, would have be destined for the Talmud.”

“It is good to have Douglas Century’s brief but informative biography…Not merely was Ross one of the prominent American Jews of his day, but he was the most prominent Jewish boxer in the 1920s and ’30s.”

“It is not often that a modern biography ennobles not only its subject but the genre itself, but this is exactly what Mr. Century has accomplished, crafting a narrative as unsparing and inspiring as its subject.”

“Wilson (A Palestine Affair) is an incisive, lively writer.”

“This is an excellent story of a man and his times. And proof positive that time does not relinquish its hold over men or monuments.”

“…a wonderfully easy read and sums up a long and complicated life.”

“Esther Schor’s intelligent, passionate and deeply sympathetic literary biography argues that Lazarus is a vitally important — even prophetic — writer, ‘more of our time than her own.’”

“While readers may not embrace Lazarus’s poetry—it bears all the ponderous, orotund tendencies of its time—they will come to agree with Schor’s assessment that Lazarus was a woman we might have liked to know.”

“…a sympathetic and balanced life of Lazarus.”

“Studying Maimonides’s biography and writings gives us a glimpse into the role of the often persecuted Jewish doctor in the medieval Islamic and Christian worlds.”

“Other writers have taken up the many intellectual challenges thrown down by Maimonides’ life-long effort to make Jewish law and learning as intellectually orderly and convincing as ancient Greek philosophy. But Nuland connects with a more emotional Maimonides, a human figure with familiar frailties and feelings.”

“[Nuland’s] book remains a deeply satisfying and humane introduction to the greatest of Jewish thinkers.”

“Nuland does a marvelous job of explaining the life, times and work of the Spanish-born rabbi whose 12th century codification of Jewish laws, guide to spiritual advancement and synthesis of science and religion made him an iconic figure not just in Jewish history but also in the history of medicine and the development of modern philosophy.”

“Rebecca Goldstein, a professor of philosophy and also a novelist, manages to write both a popular biography that explains Spinoza’s thought with considerable seriousness and a philosophic biography that is a remarkably good read.”