This fall marks the 55th anniversary of the publication of Herman Wouk?s ?Marjorie Morningstar,? the novel that at its height ? what The Nation called the ?Age of Wouk? ? sold more copies than any American novel since ?Gone With the Wind.? ” photo-credit=”Image by EVELYN ROTZ (9/19/1924 – 9/6/2010) B??H,? BARA SAPIR” src=”https://images.forwardcdn.com/image/675x/center/images/cropped/grandma2-091510-1425715955.jpg”] ?Marjorie,?…
Orthodox by design By Jeremy Stolow University of California Press, 288 pages, $41.95 Despite the much-touted death of the physical book, the Orthodox Jewish publishing industry is booming. Perhaps because of the prohibition against using electricity on holidays or on the Sabbath, the ?ArtScroll revolution? is well under way. ?Orthodox by Design? by Jeremy Stolow…
Crossposted From Under The Fig Tree For centuries, taking to the road has been the stuff of grand adventure and equally grand literature. From Benjamin of Tudela’s 12th century “Book of Travels” to Jack Kerouac’s 1957 “On the Road,” travel has been bound up with freedom and an enhanced sense of self. But what if…
It seems obvious to note that Jesus — like Don Juan, Oedipus and Count Dracula — has a cultural life having little to do with his original narrative. Although it is now widely believed that he did exist, Jesus is so buried in centuries of Christian tradition that in 1906 Albert Schweitzer declared the search…
Uri Fink, who 30 years ago created Israel’s first superhero, in the form of Sabraman, has a theory about why comic book superheroes have caught on only in America. “It’s naive just thinking people will go out and fight the bad guys out of the goodness of their hearts,” he told the Forward. “It’s Americans’…
Last night, Susan Shapiro’s latest novel, “Overexposed” (St. Martins, August 2010), was “Book Mitzvahed” in an elaborate and touching candle lighting ceremony at Greenwich Village’s Arte Restaurant. A hilarious book about the intertwined lives of two women who are battling big-city ambitions, “Overexposed” took 13 years to be published. In the interim, Shapiro published successful…
Today, the name of pioneering advertising executive Albert Lasker is mostly associated with the Lasker Foundation, a non-profit organization that supports medical research. But as a forthcoming biography by Jeffrey Cruikshank and Arthur Schultz points out, Lasker himself was more likely to self-identify as a “propagandist” than as a philanthropist. “The Man Who Sold America:…
Fans of comic books and graphic novels are mourning the death of Harvey Pekar, who died today in his Cleveland home at the age of 70. Pekar was mainly known for authoring the autobiographical series “American Splendor,” which documented his lower-middle class Jewish upbringing in Ohio. Pekar also wrote “Our Cancer Year,” after being diagnosed…
Haha. Or if you’re Gary Shteyngart feigning a Russian accent in his new book trailer, it might sound more like chah-chah. Book trailers are often too long and boring: earnest author fidgeting on a Brooklyn stoop, reciting the plot of her novel. You’re watching it thinking, “Stop telling me what happens. That’s what your book…
Geese were a staple of Jewish life in Eastern Europe and Jewish women knew how to get the most out of their fowl of choice. The feathers were sold as quills for writing and stuffing for bedding, fat used as an alternative to butter or the Jewish version of lard, and the birds themselves were…
Non-Fiction • The newly translated “The Life of Irène Némirovsky: 1903-1942,” (Knopf) by French writers Olivier Philipponnat and Patrick Lienhardt, tells the life story of the author of the posthumous bestseller “Suite Francaise.” The biography covers Némirovsky’s childhood in Russia, her adulthood in her adopted country of France, and her death at Auschwitz. Philipponnat and…
