Summer Reading

Members Of The Tribe, Members Of The Team

Dani Shetrit — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 21:24:00 +0000

Two new books — one about Hank Greenberg, one about Jews’ roles in the black leagues — explore the American Jewish baseball experience.

Steve Lipman

Staff Writer

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Hank Greenberg: The Hero Who Didn’t Want to Be One. Mark Kurlansky, Jewish Lives, 164 pages, $25.

Out of Left Field: Jews and Black Baseball. Rebecca Alpert, Oxford University Press, 236 pages, $27.95.

Lingering Moods And Voices

Dani Shetrit — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 21:22:45 +0000

Evan Fallenberg’s poetic tale of life, love and art in Tel Aviv is full of history and passion.

Sandee Brawarsky

Jewish Week Book Critic

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

I’m often asked about what makes a particular book worthy of attention. It’s easy to point to books that illuminate new ideas or inspire different ways of thinking; novels that are unforgettable for their characters or style of storytelling; works with luminous prose; or memoirs of extraordinary or even quite ordinary lives, recounted with large doses of candor and bigheartedness.

Summer Reading In The City

Dani Shetrit — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 21:19:54 +0000

From Brighton Beach magic shows to Upper West Side shoe store murders to Morocco and Ukraine, books by local Jewish authors travel the city and the world.

Sandee Brawarsky

Jewish Week Book Critic

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

‘I am Vaclav the Magnificent,” the young magician introduces his performance, explaining that he comes from a “land of enchanted knowledge passed down from the ages” and is reappearing “here, in America, in New York, in Brooklyn (which is a Borough), near Coney Island, which is a famous place of magic in the great land of opportunity (which is, of course, America), where anyone can become anything, where a hobo today is tomorrow a businessman in a three-pieces suit and a businessman yesterday is later this afternoon a hobo.”

Summer Reading June 2011

Dani Shetrit — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 21:11:00 +0000

Voices that linger after the pages are turned and a look back at the American Jewish baseball experience.

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

From Boxing To The Bedouins

Dani Shetrit — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 13:09:21 +0000

A roundup of new nonfiction titles.

Sandee Brawarsky

Jewish Week Book Critic

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

This season offers some remarkable new nonfiction titles, on some unexpected, previously unexplored topics. Readers can imagine — and try to understand — other lives, other times.

A Deep Freeze

Dani Shetrit — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 13:03:32 +0000

Thoughtful new novel introduces a cryogenically preserved
chasidic sage to modern-day suburban Memphis.

Diane Cole

Special To The Jewish Week

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

What better way to chill out at the beach this summer than with “The Frozen Rabbi” (Algonquin)? Novelist Steve Stern’s entrancingly zany fable interlaces the mystery and mysticism of Old World Yiddish folklore with the New Age spiritual yearnings of today, and all through the magic of a story well told.

Henry Roth’s Final Journey

Dani Shetrit — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 13:01:06 +0000

On the occasion of a new posthumous novel, Roth’s last editor reflects on a complicated legacy.

Robert Weil

Special To The Jewish Week

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Having worked intensely with the reclusive Henry Roth for the last four years of his life, sculpting thousands of manuscript pages into his four-volume “Mercy of a Rude Stream” series, and now having overseen the editing of his final, posthumous novel, “An American Type,” I have unwittingly become something of an Roth authority.

Song Of The Open Road

Dani Shetrit — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 12:56:00 +0000

In ‘An American Type,’ Henry Roth suggests that there is a heavy price to be paid for America’s freedom, and for Jewishness itself.

Eric Herschthal

Staff Writer

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

The wisest way to approach a posthumous novel is with low expectations. Given that, you wouldn’t be wrong to afford some grace to Henry Roth’s new posthumous novel, “An American Type” (Norton), cobbled together from 1,900 disordered manuscript pages that were left untouched for nearly a decade after he died. And yet the book hardly needs it.

Summer Reading

Dani Shetrit — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 12:53:24 +0000

Looking for good books for that upcoming beach trip? Here's the Jewish Week's annual Summer Reading section, featuring "The Frozen Rabbi," reflections by Henry Roth's last editor and a new book roundup, "From Boxing to the Bedouins."

Staff Writer

Wednesday, June 16, 2010