{"product_id":"endpapers-a-family-story-of-books-war-escape-and-home-9780802158260","title":"Endpapers: A Family Story of Books, War, Escape, and Home","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA sweeping portrait of the turmoil of the twentieth century and the legacy of immigration, as seen through the German-American family of the celebrated book publisher Kurt Wolff\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eA literary gem researched over a year the author spent living in Berlin, \u003ci\u003eEndpapers\u003c\/i\u003e excavates the extraordinary histories of the author's grandfather and father: the renowned publisher Kurt Wolff, dubbed \"perhaps the twentieth century's most discriminating publisher\" by the New York Times Book Review, and his son Niko, who fought in the Wehrmacht during World War II before coming to America.\u003cp\u003eKurt Wolff was born in Bonn into a highly cultured German-Jewish family, whose ancestors included converts to Christianity, among them Baron Moritz von Haber, whose desire to demand satisfaction in a duel sparked off bloody antisemitic riots. Always bookish, Kurt became a publisher at twenty-three, setting up his own firm and publishing Franz Kafka, Joseph Roth, Karl Kraus, and many other authors whose books would soon be burned by the Nazis. Fleeing Germany in 1933, a day after the Reichstag fire, Kurt and his second wife, Helen, sought refuge in France, Italy, and ultimately New York, where in a small Greenwich Village apartment they founded Pantheon Books. Pantheon would soon take its own place in literary history with the publication of Nobel laureate Boris Pasternak's novel Doctor Zhivago, and as the conduit that brought major European works to the States. But Kurt's taciturn son Niko, offspring of his first marriage to Elisabeth Merck, was left behind in Germany, where despite his Jewish heritage he served the Nazis on two fronts. As Alexander Wolff visits dusty archives and meets distant relatives, he discovers secrets that never made it to the land of fresh starts, including the connection between Hitler and the family pharmaceutical firm E. Merck, and the story of a half-brother Niko never knew.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWith surprising revelations from never-before-published family letters, diaries, and photographs, \u003ci\u003eEndpapers\u003c\/i\u003e is a moving and intimate family story, weaving a literary tapestry of the perils, triumphs, and secrets of history and exile.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eALEXANDER WOLFF\u003c\/strong\u003e spent thirty-six years on staff at \u003cem\u003eSports Illustrated\u003c\/em\u003e. He is author or editor of nine books, including the \u003cem\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/em\u003e bestseller \u003cem\u003eRaw Recruits\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eBig Game, Small World\u003c\/em\u003e, which was named a \u003cem\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/em\u003e Notable Book. A former Ferris Professor of Journalism at Princeton, he lives with his family in Vermont.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Grove Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50512340386066,"sku":"9780802158260","price":12.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_98876060-cf14-4a13-ad7f-a947c108134e.jpg?v=1730952050","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/endpapers-a-family-story-of-books-war-escape-and-home-9780802158260","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}