Part II: Cartoon Book Reviews are FINALLY here!

Posted by Naomi Firestone

And let the trend begin! From Jbooks.com, Rabbi Harvey reviews…Leaves from the Garden of Eden (Howard Schwartz). Click here to view.

From the HBI

Posted by Naomi Firestone

Two endeavors from the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute worth checking out:

Jewish Fiction Goes Outside of the Box

For the 2nd annual issue on Jewish books, 614: The HBI eZine found young Jewish women who were writing about themes we haven’t seen dozens of times. This is why you’ll find mention in this issue of cowboys, Madame Bovary, a modern day Jewish heiress, a 12-year-old Iranian, Jewish spies, and a heroic German baker. Rather than post book reviews, we talked to the authors behind these stories and asked them about the inspirations for their books, and also what they think about today’s Jewish fiction in general. Meet Joanna Hershon, Tova Mirvis, Laurie Gwen Shapiro, Dara Horn, Jenna Blum, and Gina Nahai. For more information, please click here.

HBI Announces Book Translation Competition

The Hadassah-Brandeis Institute is pleased to announce an annual competition to translate a book on a topic that deals in a significant way with Jews and gender. The amount of money that will be awarded is contingent on the particular translation needs of the book. The award goes exclusively towards the translation costs. Applications are due by November 15, 2009, and decisions will be announced by February 15, 2010. For guidelines and submission instructions, please click here.

Build your JPS Library

Posted by Naomi Firestone

Into series? Into JPS series? If so, you have much to look forward to in 2009! Three-yes THREE–new books are scheduled for publication to build on the following series:

JPS Guides
Jewish Choices, Jewish Voices
Celebrating the Jewish Year

COMING IN JANUARY 2009:

American Jewish Fiction: A JPS Guide (Josh Lambert)

This new volume in the JPS Guides series is a fiction reader’s dream: a guide to 125 remarkable works of fiction. The selection includes a wide range of classic American Jewish novels and story collections, from 1867 to the present, selected by the author in consultation with a panel of literary scholars and book industry professionals.

Roth, Mailer, Kellerman, Chabon, Ozick, Heller, and dozens of other celebrated writers are here, with their most notable works. Each entry includes a book summary, with historical context and background on the author.

Suggestions for further reading point to other books that match readers’ interests and favorite writers. And the introduction is a fascinating exploration of the history of and important themes in American Jewish Fiction, illustrating how Jewish writing in the U.S. has been in constant dialogue with popular entertainment and intellectual life.

Included in this guide are lists of book award winners; recommended anthologies; title, author, and subject indexes; and more.

Celebrating the Jewish Year: The Spring and Summer Holidays–
Passover, Shavuot, The Omer, Tisha B’Av (Paul Steinberg and Janet Greenstein Potter)

JPS’s new holiday series is now complete, with publication of The Spring and Summer Holidays volume

As we move from season to season, Paul Steinberg shares with us a rich collection of readings from many of the Jewish greats—Maimonides, Rashi, Nehama Leibowitz, Irving Greenberg, Shlomo Carlebach, Marge Piercy, Elie Wiesel, Martin Buber, Abraham Joshua Heschel, Arthur Green, and others—and he guides us in discovering for ourselves the many treasures within each text.

Some of the readings teach us about the history of each holiday, as well as its theological, ethical, agricultural, and seasonal importance and interpretation; others give us inspiration and much food for thought. These stories, essays, poems, anecdotes, and rituals help us discover how deeply Jewish traditions are rooted in nature’s yearly cycle, and how beautifully season and spirit are woven together throughout the Jewish year.

AND, IN MARCH 2009:

Jewish Choices, Jewish Voices — Power (Louis E. Newman and Elliot N. Dorff)

This JPS ethics series deals with some of the most critical moral issues of our time.

How do we use power once we’ve gained it? Is it completely for our individual benefit, or do we use it to help our neighborhoods, or society at-large? What kinds of decisions must CEOs and business owners make regarding suppliers and customers? How should bosses treat workers? Teachers treat students? Parents treat children? Government treats citizens?

Power dynamics affect people on a political level, a social level, and a deeply personal level as well. The newest volume in the Jewish Choices, Jewish Voices series examines these dynamics and includes essays by such fine contributors as U.S. Representative Henry Waxman, NBC Universal Television-West Coast President Marc Graboff, and author and scholar James.

We’ll report back soon with reviews of these forthcoming titles!

Janna Gur on Hummus

Posted by Naomi Firestone

Remember the JBC’s earlier post about the delicious new cookbook New Israeli Food by Janna Gur? Well, lucky for us, Janna will be guest blogging on Jewcy.com all week! Check out her first entry here.

Also, we reviewed her book in Jewish Book World’s Winter 2007 issue (before the book was reissued by Schocken Books)…you can read it here.

It’s 9:55

Posted by Naomi Firestone

In Lili Marlene, authors Liel Leibovitz (Aliyah) and Matthew Miller reveal the dramatic story of an iconic love song, its three creators, and their lives under the Nazis. “Lili Marlene,” the unlikely anthem of World War II, cut across front lines and ideological divides. This love song began as a poem written by a German soldier during World War I. The soldier poet’s words found their way to Berlin’s decadent cabaret scene in the 1930’s, where they were set to music by one of Hitler’s favored composers. The song’s singer, however, soon found herself torn between her desire for fame and her personal hatred of the Nazi regime. In Leibovitz and Miller’s narrative, the three artists’ remarkable stories of arrests and close calls intertwine with the recollections of soldiers on all sides who found solace and hope in “Lili Marlene.”

To read more about Lili Marlene, check out the wiki entry here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lili_Marleen