Jewish Literary Links
Toward the end of each week, the My Machberet blog presents a collection of links, drawn primarily from the world of Jewish books and writing.
- Among this week’s recommended reads: Talya Zax’s superb reportage on the friendship between Philip Roth and Russ Murdock, a stonemason who also served as caretaker for Roth’s Connecticut home for many years. (PDF version also available.)
- And among this week’s online viewing: Adam Kirsch discusses “Who Wants to Be a Jewish Writer?” (also the title of one of his recent books), hosted by Jewish Book Week (which was super-prompt posting the recording!).
- The latest iteration of the Association of Jewish Libraries’ Jewish Book Carnival went online this past week (thanks to Yael Shahar for hosting).
- Speaking of the Association of Jewish Libraries: Registration is open for their annual (and, this year, virtual) conference, which begins June 28. (And speaking of Adam Kirsch—Adam and his father, Jonathan Kirsch, will be keynote speakers at this conference!)
- Wallace Stevens’s “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird” has inspired countless other “Thirteen Ways” pieces. Even I have written one (“Thirteen Ways of Looking at My Latest Cold,” which, yes, appears in Birthright.) The latest, lovely addition to this corpus is Lesléa Newman’s “Thirteen Ways of Looking at Life Before the Virus,” which was recently re-published on the Lilith blog.
Shabbat shalom.
