Erika Dreifus

My Machberet is proud to serve as June host for the Jewish Book Carnival, “a monthly event where bloggers who blog about Jewish books can meet, read, and comment on each others’ posts. The posts are hosted on one of the participant’s sites on the 15th of each month.”

Herewith, this month’s Carnival posts:

• On Jewish Muse, Linda K. Wertheimer shares excerpts from a phone interview with Rachel Simon, author of The Story of Beautiful Girl.
• The Whole Megillah‘s Barbara Krasner interviews Marcie Greenfield Simons, Director, PJ Library.
• Jonathan Kirsch, Books Editor for The Jewish Journal, reviews The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture, by David Mamet.
• Needle in the Bookstacks, the blog of the HUC-JIR librarians, describes “the largest gift this library has ever received.”
• On her bewilder blog, Laurel Snyder reviews The Inquisitor’s Apprentice, by Chris Moriarty, which Snyder describes as “a fantasy novel set in an alternate-version of turn-of-the-century New York, featuring a young Jewish boy, a rabbi’s-nephew no less. It is full of dybbuks and Thomas Edisons and Wobblies and Houdinis and Immortals and kugels and rabbis and magic magic magic. Excited yet?”
• Bagels, Books and Schmooze blogs about Jerusalem Maiden, by Talia Carner.
• On The Fourth Musketeer, Margo Tanenbaum reviews The Berlin Boxing Club, a new historical novel (technically, for teens) by Robert Sharenow.
• On forwordsbooks.com, Kathleen Bloomfield presents books for children and families on “This Sacred Land – Eretz Yisrael/Israel.”
• The Jewish Book Council recently celebrated the latest Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature and has made available remarks made at the prize gala by Deborah Lipstadt (“Jewish Books: The Building Blocks of Jewish Life”), Joseph Skibell (“Loneliness and the Novel”), and Austin Ratner (“If You Will It, It Is No Dream”).
• The Book of Life presents “double-dip” podcast interviews with Rona Arato, author of Mrs. Kaputnik’s Pool Hall & Matzo Ball Emporium.
• Jewish Books for Children with Author Barbara Bietz features an interview with Barbara Rosenstock, author of The Littlest Mountain, a new picture book from Kar-Ben about the legend of Mount Sinai.
• On Kveller, Amy Meltzer cites Barbara Diamond Goldin’s A Mountain of Blintzes at the start of a post about Shavuot.
• Sylvia Rouss expresses some “thoughts as the school year ends”–including a few book recommendations for Jewish preschools.
• Ann D. Koffsky shares some finds discovered from her foray into the Jewish Book Network.
• Last, but perhaps not least: On My Machberet, I, too, share a new tbr list culled from my debut experience with the Jewish Book Network.