Post­ed by Nao­mi Firestone-Teeter

Like the music world, authors can now put out dig­i­tal ​“sin­gles” online, and lat­est author to jump on the trend is Nation­al Jew­ish Book Award win­ner Dara Horn (In the Image, The World to Come, All Oth­er Nights). We recent­ly received this email:

As of today, my newest work, ​“The Res­cuer,” is avail­able online. It’swhat I like to think of as a ​“mini book”– a 50-page non­fic­tion essayI wrote for Tablet Mag­a­zine (www​.tablet​mag​.com), which is being sol­das a ​“Kin­dle Sin­gle” on Ama­zon. (No, you don’t need a Kin­dle to rea­d­it– any com­put­er will do!) 

“The Res­cuer” is about Var­i­an Fry, a 32 year old Amer­i­can Har­vard­grad­u­ate who saved about 2,000 celebri­ties and their fam­i­lies from­Nazi-occu­pied France, includ­ing Han­nah Arendt, Marc Cha­gall, Marcel­Duchamp, and many oth­er world-famous peo­ple in an unpar­al­leled effort­to save West­ern civ­i­liza­tion… after which he was prompt­ly forgotten.The rea­sons why no one has heard of this man today are more dis­turbingth­an I ever would have guessed. 

“The Res­cuer” is on sale now for $1.99. Alter­na­tive­ly, you could usethat mon­ey to buy a bag of pota­to chips. (Or why not buy both, for thep­rince­ly sum of $3.98?) 

You can read an excerpt of the essay, and lis­ten to a pod­castin­ter­view of me, here in Tablet:http://​www​.tablet​mag​.com/​a​r​t​s​-​a​n​d​-​c​u​l​t​u​r​e​/​b​o​o​k​s​/​8​8​1​3​0​/​t​h​e​-​r​e​s​cuer/ 

Or if you are ready to take the leap with your $1.99, you can buy ithere: http://​amzn​.to/​z​nT3BI 

I would be thrilled if you would share this with any­one you know whomight be inter­est­ed in his­to­ry, or in the fate of civ­i­liza­tion, or inwhy we val­ue what we do. (It’s some­thing to think about while enjoy­ingy­our pota­to chips.)