More in ‘Books’

I was sitting in the upstairs lounge of a small local tavern when a dozen women of various ages strode purposefully through the doorway and quickly commandeered three tables. After pushing the tables together, they called for the waiter, and, as he brought over a pile of leather-bound menus, the women made their way to ...

Today in Tablet Magazine, listen in on several Sephardim in Washington, D.C., the subjects of this week’s Vox Tablet podcast, as they enjoy their annual Hannukah gathering while speaking the nearly extinct Judeo-Spanish tongue of Ladino. Josh Lambert reports on forthcoming books of interest (a lot of Holocaust tomes this week). In her family column, ...

Today in Tablet Magazine, the weekly Vox Tablet podcast profiles Jerry Wicentowski, who plays Jewish-inflected bluegrass—Jewgrass?—but not on Shabbat. Family columnist Marjorie Ingall lists 2009’s best Jewish-themed children’s chapter books, while Josh Lambert gives his weekly report on forthcoming Jewish-themed adult chapter books. And each day on The Scroll is like a chapter book for ...

For years now, Amos Kenan couldn’t remember a thing. His mind gnawed by a neurological disease, he was motionless, blank, absent. When he died last week at the age of 82, the obits dryly listed his laurels: author, artist, political activist, bohemian. As is customary in such cases, most of the press reports kept the precise nature of his affliction—Alzheimer’s disease—deliberately vague. He died, they stated sotto voce, of a grave illness.

Reading Mein Kampf in Germany is no easy task: the book is currently banned from publication, and the Bavarian state, which holds the copyright to Hitler’s mad manifesto, will only dispense previously printed copies to individuals who can prove that their interest in the book is purely academic. This may soon change, however. A powerful ...

Regnery, the conservative publishing house, announced yesterday that former Virginia senator George Allen will be joining its author list with a book, due out next year, called The Triumph of Character: What Washington Can Learn from the World of Sports. Allen, you may recall, was famously swept off the national stage in 2006 after he ...

It’s National Book Week in Israel, and as befitting the People of the Book, the nation’s parliamentarians decided to mark the occasion by reading out loud from their favorite works. As you could probably guess—this is Israel, after all—their literary selections closely mimicked their ideological worldviews. Knesset member Daniel Ben Simon, for example, an intellectual ...

The Christian Civil Liberties Union in Wisconsin is suing for the right to publicly burn the book Baby Be-Bop by Francesca Lia Block, a novel beloved by alienated teens queer and straight alike for its daring portrayal of a young man’s coming out, including his experiences being beaten and harassed for his sexuality. The Christians ...

Knesset member Nitzan Horowitz has proposed legislation that would freeze the price of books for two years after they’re published, banning markdowns, the Jerusalem Post is reporting. The reason? To keep Hebrew-language publishers and retailers like the giants Steimatzky and Tzomet Sfarim from discounting themselves out of business. Horowitz’s impulse, however honorably motivated, clearly stems ...

In the 1940s, Isaac Rosenfeld was a rising star in literary circles, recognized as a sharp, deep, and original thinker. His admirers included Irving Howe, Alfred Kazin, Diana Trilling, and other luminaries. Many people considered him to be more promising than his childhood friend Saul Bellow.
But while Bellow went on to great success, Rosenfeld ...