by Erika Dreifus on Friday, July 15, 2011
This past week came the very excellent news that poet and professor Rick Chess has joined the blogging team over at “Good Letters,” the blog of Image Journal. Go read his first post, “Torah in My Mouth,” and look forward, as I am, to his future contributions.
Kenneth Sherman’s appreciation of Yuri Suhl’s One Foot in America (originally published in 1950), reminded me that Sherman’s own What the Furies Bring remains on my nightstand, still waiting to be read.
The New York Times reveals what’s interesting to Israeli author Etgar Keret.
I’ve been a fan of Curb Your Enthusiasm for many seasons, in part because my dad and his parents and grandmother were neighbors of Larry David’s family in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, way back when. Also, my dad is occasionally mistaken for Larry David himself! The show always makes me laugh, and this season, which began Sunday night, is no exception. Check out this column from The Forward, focusing on the show’s particularly Jewish qualities. (Bonus: some down-home NYC footage.)
On a much more serious note: Adam Kirsch has yet again added a book to my tbr list: “There is a double meaning in the subtitle of René Blum and the Ballets Russes: In Search of a Lost Life (Oxford, $29.95), the new biography by Judith Chazin-Bennahum. The life of René Blum was lost in the Holocaust: Like tens of thousands of French Jews, he was deported from Drancy, the internment camp in Paris, to Auschwitz, where he died in 1942. But it was the way he lived, not the way he died, that makes him such an elusive presence even in his own biography.”
Don’t forget that the next Jewish Book Council Twitter Book Club is scheduled for next Wednesday, July 20. Featured title: Deborah Lipstadt’s The Eichmann Trial. Lipstadt will participate in the chat.
Shabbat shalom!
Labels: Holocaust, Israeli Literature, Jewish-American literature, Random Cultural Notes, TBR
by Erika Dreifus on Friday, July 08, 2011
I love this piece by Erica Lyons. May it be a call to action for programs and those who run them–including programs for Jewish journalism–to recognize the potential contributions of those of us Jews who–horrors!–have passed our fortieth birthdays.
How did one collection of Jewish-focused fiction get its title? Read all about it.
What I’m reading right now: an advance copy of The Little Bride, by Anna Solomon.
Ken Schoen, proprietor of Schoen Books, chronicles a return to his family’s homeland.
Thirty-five years after Entebbe, Yonatan Netanyahu is remembered as a Harvard student. Which makes this Harvard alum especially moved, proud, and astonished that she wasn’t aware of this particular history.
Shabbat shalom!
Labels: Holocaust, Israel, Jewish Press, Jewish-American literature, Quiet Americans
by Erika Dreifus on Friday, July 01, 2011
by Erika Dreifus on Friday, June 17, 2011
Thanks for the Center for Jewish History for posting a video of its May 18 “Evening with Philip Roth.”
On Wednesday, the Jewish Book Council’s Twitter Book Club convened to discuss David Bezmozgis’s novel, The Free World. Here’s the transcript.
Meantime, the JBC has announced the title for its next Twitter Book Club: Deborah Lipstadt’s The Eichmann Trial.
I was deeply saddened to read of the death of Zev Birger, a man described by The New York Times as “an official in the young state of Israel who later revived and then led the Jerusalem International Book Fair, turning it into a major event on the literary calendar,” from injuries he sustained when struck by a motorcycle. Mr. Birger, 85, was a Holocaust survivor.
David Kaufmann introduces us to Robert Pinsky’s Selected Poems.
The Forward presents its new website.
Hoping to spend some quality time this weekend with all of the wonderful links in this month’s Jewish Book Carnival.
Shabbat shalom!
Labels: Holocaust, Israel, Jewish Press, Jewish-American literature, Resources for Jewish reading
by Erika Dreifus on Friday, June 10, 2011
I was lucky enough to attend the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature awards ceremony last week, so I heard Deborah Lipstadt’s speech when it was delivered. But thanks to the Jewish Book Council, you can now read the text of Lipdstadt’s remarks, too.
A.B. Yehoshua praises Haifa and reminds me that I want to spend more time there.
Novelist Emily Barton writes about The Jazz Singer.
The Boston Bibliophile reviews and recommends The Last Brother, a novel by Nathacha Appanah (trans. Geoffrey Strachan). My own review was filed a couple of weeks ago; when it’s published, you’ll see that I’m 100 percent in agreement.
From the Reform movement’s Religious Action Center: ideas for social-justice book clubs.
Hurry up and read David Bezmozgis’s novel, The Free World, before next week’s Twitter Book Club session for it.
You may have heard that Edith Pearlman is the latest recipient of the PEN/Malamud Award for short fiction. I’ve admired Pearlman’s work for a long time–I’m eager to read her newest book, Binocular Vision–and I was thrilled to see my own book discussed alongside hers (and Laura Furman’s) in this review by Rabbi Rachel Esserman.
Shabbat shalom!
Labels: Awards and Prizes, Holocaust, Israel, Jewish-American literature, Resources for Jewish reading, TBR
