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Lewyn Addresses America

“A little politics, a little urbanism- I also blog 100 percent on urbanism at https://www.planetizen.com/user/63 and http://www.cnu.org/blog/194”

December 31, 2020 What I read in 2020

From most recent to first (mostly)

1.  Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago, Klinenberg

2. Boardwalk of Dreams: Atlantic City and the Fate of Urban America, Simon

3. Hanukkah in America: A History, Ashton

4. Chester Alan Arthur, Karabell

5. The Unexpected President: The Life and Times of Chester A. Arthur, Greenberg

6.  Detroit Hustle: A Memoir of Love, Life and Home, Haimerl

7.  On Division, Goldbloom

8.  The Oppermanns, Feucthwanger

9. Seventh Heaven: Travels Through Jewish Latin America, Stavans

10. Dissident Rabbi: The Life of Jacob Sasportas, Dweck (really liked this)

11. The Vienna Model 2, Forster

12. Buffalo at the Crossroads: The Past, Present and Future of American Urbanism, Christensen

13. Fear City: New York’s Fiscal Crisis and the Rise of Austerity Politics, Phillips-Fein

14. A Rich Brew: How Cafes Created Modern Jewish Culture, Pinsker

15. Between Heimat and Hatred: Jews and the Right in Germany, 1871-1935, Nielsen

16. No Place to Go: Answering the Call of Nature in the Urban Jungle, Lowe

17. Babylonian Life and History, Budge

18. The Scholems: A Story of the German Jewish Bourgeousie from Emancipation to Destruction, Geller

19. Manasseh ben Israel: Rabbi of Amsterdam, Nadler

20-22. Derashot Ledorot, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, Lamm

23.  Right of Way: Race, Class and the Silent Epidemic of Pedestrian Deaths in America, Schmitt (really liked)

24. Worship of the Heart: Essays on Jewish Prayer, Soloveitchik

25. High Point: The Inside Story of Seattle’s First Green Mixed-Income Neighborhood, Phillips

26. Salty Coffee: Untold Stories By Jewish Women, Pesci

27-29. The Commentators’ Bible: The Rubin JPS Miqraot Gedolot, Carasik (Genesis, Numbers and Deuteronomy volumes- read parts of the other two)

30.  From Mobility to Accessibility: Transforming Urban Transportation and Land Use Planning, Levine

31.  How Paris Became Paris: The Invention of the Modern City, Dejean (really liked this)

32. Disability Law for Property, Land Use and Zoning Lawyers, Malloy

33.  Bubble In the Sun: The Florida Land Boom of the 1920s and How It Brought On the Great Depression, Knowlton

34.Rebuilding Jewish Life in Germany, Geller

35. “Rescue the Surviving Souls”: The Great Jewish Refugee Crisis of the 17th Century, Teller (really liked)

36. Pogrom:Kishinev and the Tilt of History, Zipperstein

37. The Address Book: What Street Addresses Reveal about Identity, Race, Wealth and Power, Mask

38. Five Days: The Fiery Reckoning of An American City, Moore

38. Abyss of Despair, Hanover

40. Our People: Discovering Lithuania’s Hidden Holocast, Vanagaite (really liked)

41.  Cities of Refuge: German Jews in London and New York, 1935-45, Bihler

42. What ifs of Jewish History: From Abraham to Zionism, Rosenfeld

43. A Place They Called Home: Reclaiming Citizenship. Stories of a New Jewish Return to Germany, Swarthout

44.  Jerusalem Unbound: Geography, History, and the Future of the Holy City, Dumper

45. The Urban Mystique: Notes on California, Los Angeles and Beyond, Stephens

46. Leading A Worthy Life: Finding Meaning in Modern Times, Kass

47. The Garments of Torah: Essays in Biblical Hermaneutics, Fishbane

48. Kiss the Hand You Cannot Bite: The Rise and Fall of the Ceaucescus, Behr

49.  Munich 1938: Appeasement and World War II, Faber

50.  Jerusalem: City of Longing, Goldhill

51. Five Rules for Tomorrow’s Cities: Design in an Age of Urban Migration, Demographic Change, and a Disappearing Middle Class, Condon (interesting)

52. East Central Europe Between the Two World Wars,Rothschild

53. Queens Noir, Knightly

54.  Kansas City Noir, Paul

55.  The Holocaust Averted: An Alternate History of American Jewry, 1938-67, Gurock

56.  Five Days In Philadelphia: The Amazing “”We Want Willkie!”” Convention of 1940 and How It Freed FDR to Save the Western World, Peters (very well done)

57.   Right Here, Right Now: The Buffalo Anthology, Biehl (the best of its type that I have read)

58. The St. Louis Anthology, Schuessler

59.  Germany On Their Minds: German Jewish Refugees in the United States and Their Relationships with Germany, 1938–1988, Schendlein

60. Cleveland Neighborhood Guidebook, Belt Publishing

61. The Chicago Neighborhood Guidebook, Bayne

62. Running the Books: The Adventures of an Accidental Prison Librarian, Steinberg

63. When they Come for Us, We’ll Be Gone: The Epic Struggle to Save Soviet Jewry, Beckerman

64. The Great Escape: Nine Jews who Fled Hitler and Changed the World, Marton

65. Maimonides’ Hidden Torah Commentary: Exodus 1-20

66. Budapest 1900: A Historical Portrait of a City And Its Culture, Lukacs

67. The Holocaust in Hungary: An Anthology of Jewish Response, Handler

68.  Under the Frog, Fischer

69. Neighborhood Defenders, Einstein et al. (another impressive book on zoning)

70. Crossing Lines: History of Jews and Gentiles in Three Communities, Goldstein

71. Red Star, Blue Star: The Lives and Times of Jewish Students in Communist Hungary, Handler

72. Fighting Back, Levin

73. Until the Dawn’s Light, Appelfeld

74. Greetings from Old Budapest, Kollin

75. Worship of the Heart: A Study of Maimonides’ Philosophy of Religion, Benor

76.  New York, Revesz

77. Memoirs of a Jewish Extremist: An American Story, Halevi

78. Alone Together, Cromley

79.  To Worship God Properly: Tensions Between Liturgical Custom and Halakhah in Judaism, Langer

80. Golden Gates: Fighting For Housing in America, Dougherty

81. A History of Street Networks: From Grids to Sprawl and Beyond, Aurbach

82. The Town Beyond the Wall, Wiesel

83. Jewish Liturgy: A Comprehensive History, Elbogen (often dull but encyclopedic)

84. Manhattan Moves Uptown: An Illustrated History, Underwood

85. Highrise: Idea and Reality, Janser

86. Tunneling to the Future: The Story of The Great Subway Expansion that Saved New York, Janser

87. In This Hour: Heschel’s Writings in Nazi Germany and London Exile

88. Bloomberg: A Billionaire’s Ambition, McNickle

89.  The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela: Travels in the Middle Ages

90.  The House That Hitler Built, Roberts

91. Young Lothar: An Underground Fugitive in Nazi Berlin

92. The Outside World, Mirvis

8 fiction

29 urban planning/studies/zoning

40 Judaism/Jewish history/Jewish studies

15 other non-fiction

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