Creative Works

Martin Rubin review: Man who created L.A.’s economy

Man who created L.A.'s economy Washington Times, Sunday, March 1, 2009 Towers of Gold: How One Jewish Immigrant Named Isaias Hellman Created California By Frances Dinkespiel St. Martin's Press, $29.95, 376 pages, illus. Reviewed by Martin Rubin "By telling the now largely forgotten story of her…


On History: Daniel Walker Howe in Denver March 12

Chris Citron writes (Feb. 4, 2009): You're invited! to an evening talk in Denver, CO by prize-winning historian Daniel Walker Howe on Thursday, March 12, 2009 at 7 pm. Daniel Walker Howe, an emeritus professor at UCLA and Oxford who taught at Yale earlier in his career, will give a presentation on…


Harry Klebanoff: ‘Pause’

Harry Klebanoff writes (Feb. 9, 2009): Just published a book –-- PAUSE. My work as a clinical psychologist and organizational consultant  has helped clients manage crisis, explore who they are, learn what matters most, and then create a life or organization that inspires passion. My goal in writing…


Shelley Fisher Fishkin’s ‘Feminist Engagements’

Harry Levitt writes (Jan. 19, 2009): Shelley Fisher Fishkin has a new book coming out in March: Feminist Engagements: Forays into American Literature and Culture, published by Palgrave/Macmillan. Parts of the book discuss aspects of being in the first Yale College class to include women. From the…


Rubin Reviews: Du Maurier

From The Washington Times, Sunday, January 18, 2009-- BOOKS: A popular writer gets her due DON'T LOOK NOW: SELECTED STORIES OF DAPHNE DU MAURIER By Daphne du Maurier, Edited and with an introduction by Patrick McGrath New York Review of Books, $15.95, 384 pages (paper) By Martin Rubin Daphne du…


Review: ‘Mrs. Woolf and the Servants’

Washington Times, Nov. 30, 2008 MRS. WOOLF AND THE SERVANTS By Alison Light Bloomsbury, $30, 400 pages, illus. REVIEWED BY MARTIN RUBIN It is amusing that contemporary feminists who think of Virginia Woolf as their patron saint are usually shocked when they hear her recorded voice. Instead of some…


Review: Smyrna 1922

How the trading hub was destroyed Washington Times---Sunday, November 2, 2008 PARADISE LOST: SMYRNA 1922 By Giles Milton; Basic Books, $27.95, 426 pages, illus. REVIEWED BY MARTIN RUBIN On Wednesday, Sept. 13, 1922, the ancient city of Smyrna (now Izmir) on the Aegean Sea, which had long been a…


Rubin Review: ‘The Northern Clemency’

Britain as It Was, Even in Thatcher's Day By Martin Rubin--Wall Street Journal Nov. 14, 2008 The Northern Clemency By Philip Hensher (Knopf, 597 pages, $26.95) Anyone who thinks that the English novel has, to paraphrase Wordsworth, forfeited its "ancient English dower" -- i.e., lost its ability to…


Rubin on Diane Johnson’s ‘Lulu’

Friday, October 3, 2008 (SF Chronicle) 'Lulu in Marrakech' - worldly comic thriller Martin Rubin Lulu in Marrakech By Diane Johnson Dutton; 307 pages; $25.95    It should be a truth universally acknowledged that there is no better tonic for a writer in midcareer than a change of perspective. For…


Martin Rubin Reviews ‘Kenya’

Forging a Country in African Wilds By MARTIN RUBIN Wall Street Journal Sept. 27, 2008 Kenya: A Country in the Making 1880-1940 By Nigel Pavitt Norton, 303 pages, $50 "When most people think of colonial Kenya, the 'Happy Valley' comes to mind, that hellish paradise where rich English expats…