Once again, there’s so much to share this week. Let’s get started.
You may recall how much I admired HHhH, the Laurent Binet novel translated by Sam Taylor. Now, I’m thinking that I should try to pick up a copy of the original French edition. Plus: In The New Yorker, James Wood weighs in with a review that’s definitely worth reading (and thinking about).
Mazel tov to Israel on the recent honor it received at the International Book Fair of Buenos Aires.
“The Philip Roth Society proudly announces a call for papers for Roth@80, a conference event organized, in conjunction with the Newark Preservation & Landmarks Committee, to mark the 80th birthday of Philip Roth. It will take place on March 18-19, 2013, at the Robert Treat Hotel in Newark, NJ.” Proposal deadline is September 1, 2012.
And a job announcement from the Forward, which is looking for an Arts & Culture Editor.
Finally, a personal note: This week marked the 30th anniversary of my becoming a Bat Mitzvah. The secular and Hebrew calendars seem to be aligned, because this week’s Torah portion, Parashat Emor, was mine. Last year, New Vilna Review published “Emor,” a poem inspired by my attendance at a more recent May Bat Mitzvah ceremony.
Did you miss the Jewish Book Council’s Twitter Book Club chat with Anna Solomon this week? You can read the transcript here. Next up for the club: Nathan Englander (March 27) and Natasha Solomons (April 26).
On “Good Letters,” the Image journal blog, poet Rick Chess reflects on listening, psalms, and Night.
If you’re in the Bay Area this weekend, you have the opportunity to attend a pretty spectacular-looking BookFest at the JCC of San Francisco. Take a peek at Sunday’s schedule.
Some controversy is swirling around Deborah Feldman’s Unorthodox.
Washington Jewish Week (based in Rockville, Md.) is looking for a Senior Writer.
The New York Times divulges author Nathan Englander’s Sunday routine.
Speaking of Nathan Englander, not everyone will agree with Adam Kirsch’s take on his latest work, but you can’t deny that Kirsch’s conclusion is tantalizing and provocative: “Perhaps the great Jewish fiction of the near future will have to be less psychological and social than is currently the norm, and more explicitly political. And perhaps the great dividing line in contemporary Jewish life is not the one between religious and secular Jews, but between those who see themselves as members of a historical Jewish nation, and those who find such an identity archaic or delusional.”
JTA, “the global news service of the Jewish people,” is hiring.