This is the Forward’s coverage of books and literature, including both non-fictional and fictional works.
Books
The Latest
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Books Dealing With the Side Effects of Fiction
Happy Mutant Baby Pills By Jerry Stahl Harper Perennial, 272 pages, $14.99 The narrator of Jerry Stahl’s new novel “Happy Mutant Baby Pills,” has a serious case of unrest. Lloyd earns his living writing pharmaceutical copy — specifically, disclaimers for the side effects of various drugs. He’s also got a fairly severe heroin habit, and…
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Books Dan Lewis Is Obsessed With Knowing It All
Here’s something you probably didn’t know: Back in the 1990s, advertisements for a drink called Limonana featuring celebrities such as soccer player Eli Ohana were placed on Israeli buses. But customers who actually tried to buy the lemon and mint lemonade in local stores wound up disappointed. The drink didn’t exist, but had been made…
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Books How David Laskin Discovered Family’s Past
A family rumor was the genesis of David Laskin’s extraordinary new book, “The Family: Three Journeys into the Heart of the 20th Century.” Laskin heard from his mother who heard it from her cousin Barbara who heard it from her parents: that they were related to Lazar Kaganovich, henchman of Joseph Stalin and a perpetrator…
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Books 10 Ways to Celebrate Jewish Book Month
The Holy Days are barely behind us, and we’re already preparing for Hanukkah (the first day of which, as some have realized, coincides with American Thanksgiving this year). But between these events comes something else that should be on your calendar: Jewish Book Month. Running this year from October 26 to November 26, Jewish Book…
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Books Bipartisan Charge To Return Iraqi Jewish Artifacts to Community, Not Government
Some Congress members are working to ensure that Iraqi Jewish artifacts now on display in Washington are returned directly to the Iraqi Jewish community and not the government. Reps. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.) and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) are leading the bipartisan effort to return the thousands of books, photos, texts and other materials that were found…
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Books A Uniquely Israeli Vision of the Afterlife
The World of the End By Ofir Touché Gafla Translated by Mitch Ginsburg Tor Books, 368 pages, $16.98 A recent cartoon published in the New Yorker shows a group of people standing by a grave. A woman is speaking, and the caption reads, “Wherever he is, I know he’ll be upgraded.” Might the afterworld —…
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Books Portrait of the Publisher as a Young Renegade
Samuel Roth: Infamous Modernist By Jay A. Gertzman University Press of Florida, 416 pages, $74.95 Biographies of book publishers are scarce, though the possibility of one or another is frequently announced, never to appear. Their lives, I once conjectured, had too many uncomfortable secrets that couldn’t be revealed, even after they’ve died. Consider that no…
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Books She Was a Novelist, Chicago-Born
‘Yudl’: And Selected Short Stories By Layle Silbert Seven Stories Press, 240 pages, $17.95 Layle Silbert’s “Yudl” opens with the protagonist, an immigrant Jew with a thick accent and heavy socialist leanings, inspecting a building that appears incomplete. “With its empty unglassed windows,” the three-story-high, red brick building “could be a new building not yet…
Explore
Most Popular
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Holy Ground A Jewish farmer broke ground on a synagogue in an Illinois cornfield. His neighbors showed up to help.
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Opinion I discovered anti-Zionism at the University of Michigan. I’m glad it lives on there
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Opinion An alarming new battleground in campus fights over Israel
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News Middlebury College Hillel votes to rebrand, distancing from parent group on Israel
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Fast Forward Kristof column alleging Israeli abuse of Palestinian prisoners sparks outrage, scrutiny and debate among Jews
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Fast Forward Long Island school district pays $125K to settle lawsuit over erased pro-Palestinian student art