"Incredible ... Inspiring ... Important. " --Library Journal, starred review "A marvelous yarn, loaded with near-calamitous adventures and characters as memorable as Singer creations. " --The New York Post "What began as a quixotic journey was also a picaresque romp, a detective story, a profound history lesson, and a poignant evocation of a bygone world. " --The Boston Globe "Every now and again a book with near-universal appeal comes along: Outwitting History is just such a book. " --The Sunday Oregonian As a twenty-three-year-old graduate student, Aaron Lansky set out to save the world's abandoned Yiddish books before it was too late. Today, more than a million books later, he has accomplished what has been called "the greatest cultural rescue effort in Jewish history. " In Outwitting History, Lansky shares his adventures as well as the poignant and often laugh-out-loud stories he heard as he traveled the country collecting books. Introducing us to a dazzling array of writers, he shows us how an almost-lost culture is the bridge between the old world and the future--and how the written word can unite everyone who believes in the power of great literature. A Library Journal Best Book A Massachusetts Book Award Winner in Nonfiction An ALA Notable Book