Jonathan Rabb’s Followers (106)

Jonathan Rabb

Born

in The United States

January 01, 1964

Genre

Literature & Fiction, Mystery & Thrillers

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Jonathan Rabb grew up knowing he would be an academic. The son and grandson (on both sides) of historians, Rabb’s world shook at its very core when he opted to try his hand at political theory. As an undergraduate at Yale, Rabb divided his time among Locke and Hobbes and Hegel while spending his more reckless hours singing with the Whiffenpoofs and galloping across stage in such roles as Harry the Horse and a perfectly bean-poled Don Quixote in Man of La Mancha. He even went so far as to make his living his first years out of college as an actor in New York before settling on a PhD program at Columbia.

Somehow, though, that was not to be. While in Germany researching the very compelling and very obscure seventeenth-century theorist Samuel vo Jonathan Rabb grew up knowing he would be an academic. The son and grandson (on both sides) of historians, Rabb’s world shook at its very core when he opted to try his hand at political theory. As an undergraduate at Yale, Rabb divided his time among Locke and Hobbes and Hegel while spending his more reckless hours singing with the Whiffenpoofs and galloping across stage in such roles as Harry the Horse and a perfectly bean-poled Don Quixote in Man of La Mancha. He even went so far as to make his living his first years out of college as an actor in New York before settling on a PhD program at Columbia.

Somehow, though, that was not to be. While in Germany researching the very compelling and very obscure seventeenth-century theorist Samuel von Pufendorf (Whiffenpoof on Pufendorf), Rabb got the idea for a thriller in which a young professor at Columbia gets caught up in a vast conspiracy predicated on deciphering a centuries-old manuscript, a response to Machiavelli’s The Prince. Suddenly theater and history had come together in the form of historical fiction and, leaving his Fulbright and academia behind, Rabb spent the next two years teaching test prep and writing furiously.

In 1998, his first novel, The Overseer, reached bookshelves, followed three years later by The Book of Q—another historical thriller—and his marriage to Andra Reeve, the director of prime time casting at CBS television. Having discovered a new kind of bliss in his private life, Rabb decided it was time to dive into the decay and despair of Berlin between the wars. He set to work on what would be the first in his Berlin Trilogy, Rosa, and also began to teach fiction at the 92nd Street Y. In July 2004 his wife had twins, and for the next two years, while writing and researching Shadow and Light, Rabb became their primary caretaker. Somehow, they continued to grow and flourish, and Shadow and Light found its way to the page.

Rabb is now deep into the final book of the trilogy, and still finds time to perform Gilbert and Sullivan with the Blue Hill Troupe of New York, the Harrisburg Symphony, and anyone else willing to indulge his love of Patter roles. This fall, Rabb started teaching in the NYU Creative Writing Program and continues to write reviews for Opera News and essays for the series I Wish I’d Been There. ...more

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Jonathan Rabb’s books

Average rating: 3.63 · 3,989 ratings · 466 reviews · 14 distinct works • Similar authors

	Rosa (Berlin Trilogy, #1) 3.74 avg rating — 1,211 ratings — published 2005 — 38 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Among the Living 3.79 avg rating — 910 ratings — published 2016 — 7 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Shadow and Light (Berlin Trilogy, #2) 3.50 avg rating — 667 ratings — published 2009 — 8 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Overseer 3.31 avg rating — 457 ratings — published 1998 — 32 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Second Son (Berlin Trilogy, #3) 3.70 avg rating — 371 ratings — published 2011 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Book of Q 3.46 avg rating — 369 ratings — published 2001 — 20 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	La conspiración de los herejes 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	LA CONSPIRACIO DELS HERETGES 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Second Son 1st (first) edition Text Only 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	ミネルヴァのふくろうは日暮れて飛び立つ 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Jonathan Rabb…

Series by Jonathan Rabb

Berlin Trilogy (3 books)
by

Jonathan Rabb

3.66 avg rating — 2,249 ratings

Quotes by Jonathan Rabb (?)

“I was simply frightened for my daughter — more frightened than you can understand — and such things trump anyone’s feelings, no matter who they might be or what they might have gone through.”
― Jonathan Rabb, Among the Living

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“Yes, I know you know. And I know you know better than most. I understand, but this ain’t like what you had in the war in those camps. I’m sorry to say it, but it ain’t the same. They tried to kill you, all a you, all at once. I seen that. But here they kill us one at a time and that’s a difference.”
― Jonathan Rabb, Among the Living

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“That was the malleability of memories: They lived in pockets of the mind, vivid or dulled depending on the lens one chose to see them through.”
― Jonathan Rabb, Among the Living

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Polls

What work of fiction would you like to read in June?

Cakes and Ale by W. Somerset Maugham

5 votes, 33.3%

Save Me The Waltz by Zelda Fitzgerald

5 votes, 33.3%

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

2 votes, 13.3%

My Man Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse

2 votes, 13.3%

Rosa by Jonathan Rabb

1 vote, 6.7%

The Iron Heel by Jack London

0 votes, 0.0%

Up at the Villa by W. Somerset Maugham

0 votes, 0.0%

15 total votes

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Jonathan Rabb’s Followers (106)

Jonathan Rabb

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Combine Editions
Jonathan Rabb’s books