This past weekend I went to the annual Really Good, Really Big, Really Cheap Book Sale hosted by the Greenville Literacy Association. This is one of three major used book sales I attend every year. I can usually buy about 30 books for as many dollars, which is great for a bibliophile and broke college student like me. Most of the books I find, both new and old, are interesting for their content, but there are always a few which prove to be little time capsules containing artifacts from another person’s life and time. Then I have the privilege of playing “history detective” to discover as much as I can about the book’s former owner. This sale did not disappoint in that regard.
The Boy of Wilna
I just finished a children’s book called The Boy of Wilna, written by Abraham Burstein and illustrated by Sol Nodel. It was published in 1941 by the Hebrew Publishing Company in New York and dedicated to “Major Leon Ginsburg, Surgeon and Humanitarian.” I tried to identify Ginsburg but could only find a reference in an American … Read more