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Available
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Publication
University of Nebraska Press (2013), 544 pages
Description
Larry Ruttman, Fellow of the Massachusetts Historical Society, is the author of Voices of Brookline, a national finalist for the Award of Merit of the American Association of State and Local History. He has practiced law in Boston for more than fifty years and produces and hosts a television interview show in his hometown of Brookline, Massachusetts.
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User reviews
LibraryThing member simchaboston
Worth reading for the breadth of interviews, not only about/with the usual subjects (Greenberg and Koufax) but also front office types, academics and even two women who played in the all-girls league during World War II. My one big complaint is with Ruttman, whose agenda and general interviewing
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style (including completely unnecessary summing-ups at the end of each interview) often makes his own viewpoint more prominent than those of the people he interviews. I particularly dislike how he tries to get certain people to admit that they feel their values are specifically Jewish, even right after they've said they don't feel that way. I could also have done without his usually long and often unnecessary explanations of Jewish concepts like Torah and Purim and mini-histories for every single baseball player mentioned, sometimes with accompanying photos that don't add anything to the book; he doesn't seem to realize that anyone who would pick this up would almost certainly have to be interested in Jews, baseball or both and thus would get annoyed at the constant interruptions by comments that would've made more sense in a glossary at the back. (And what book needs a foreword, a preface, acknowledgments that repeat a lot of the preface, AND an introduction?) I don't regret reading the book, but I do wish the mix of voices in it didn't feature his own voice quite so much. Show Less
ISBN
0803264755 / 9780803264755