The House of Twenty Thousand Books by Sasha Abramsky (New York Review Books, 2015). Sasha Abramsky, a continuing lecturer in the University Writing Program, examines the life of his grandfather Chimen Abramsky and his remarkable collection of books on Jewish life, history, communism and socialism. For more than 50 years Chimen and his wife, Miriam, hosted gatherings in their house of books that brought together many of the age’s greatest thinkers. Abramsky’s writing has appeared in The Nation, The American Prospect and The New Yorker online.

Sasha Abramsky has taught in UWP for 18 years. A freelance journalist, his work has been published in the Nation -- where he is currently the West Coast correspondent and a weekly columnist -- New Yorker online, the Atlantic, the American Prospect, Rolling Stone, Mother Jones, Salon, Slate, the London Guardian, the Observer, the Village Voice, the LA Weekly, Sacramento News & Review, Sacramento Magazine and many other publications. He is the author of nine books, including The American Way of Poverty, listed by the New York Times as among the 100 Notable Books of 2013, the recently published family memoir The House of Twenty Thousand Books, and the biography Little Wonder: the Extraordinary Story of Lottie Dod, the World's First Female Sports Superstar, which was shortlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year prize in 2021. She specializes in political reporting and social justice journalism, with an emphasis on reporting on poverty, immigration, the criminal justice system.

View the book at New York Review Books