Ahead of Time: My Early Years as a Foreign Correspondent

Rating:
Summary: interesting woman; boring book
Review: I bought this because I was interested in early women's lib-ers who "just did it" and in her 1930s era access to Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Soviet Union. She certainly is an interesting woman with a will power, but her access and her insights into these two countries were minimal and superficial. While she ackowledges that she was a pawn, the information she does present adds nothing to the understanding of those two countries or to what it must have been like to BE there. The Artic adventures are more promising, but like the rest of the book suffer from a really quite juvenile writing style that does little to effectively or movingly capture the moments she experiences. Finally, her lack of introspection seem to suggest that she really did "just do it" without much of a real reason and without much struggle and that just isn't very interesting reading.

Rating:
Summary: Inspiring
Review: I was inspired to purchase this book along with Haven after watching the mini-series on TV. Ruth Gruber is a woman definitely ahead of her time. She puts modern day "women's libbers" to shame. This is a woman who, when she decided to do something, didn't live her amazing life so she could show the world what a woman could do. She lived her amazing life because she took advantage of any and all opportunities offered her. She didn't say, "Let me do it so I can show the world a woman can do it." She just said, "Let me do it because I can." She should be an example to all -- men and women alike. I would recommend this book and Haven to anyone interested in learning more about the history of the period as well as to anyone simply interested in a good read. Ms. Gruber writes her books in a way that brings them alive. They are not historical textbooks, nor are they "me" books. They are simply wonderfully inspiring books about a wonderfully inspiring woman.

Rating:
Summary: The life of an amazing young woman
Review: This very engaging book covers so many experiences that you have to keep reminding yourself it's only about Ruth Gruber's first 25 years. While others have commented negatively on her simple writing style, I found it refreshing. She doesn't come across as a Ph.D. disseminating her vast knowledge, but as the young woman she was at the time, amazed at being able to have all the experiences she had. She seems to write from that viewpoint, so that even though she wrote this book much later in life, you feel like you're having a chat with "Rut," as the Russians call her, who is a very intelligent, but still very young woman. She apparently based this book on notes she took at the time, so its youthful attitude is authentic. Be warned, though, if you're older than 25 you're going to come away from this book feeling like a complete slacker.