Did you attend the Miami Book Fair last month? I posted my notes on Jewlicious, and thought I would share them here.
(the site as links to videos of some readings) http://jewlicious.com/2015/12/jewliciousreads-highlights-from-the-miami-book-fest/ Some people go to Miami for Art Basel, others for thebeaches. I go for the books. For over three decades, the Miami Book Fair has invitedauthors and readers to a casual confab to celebrate books. This year, the topreadings were televised live on the C-Span network and recorded by PBS. Therewere more than 600 authors present for books and media published in English,Espanol, Creole, Portuguese, and other languages. Plus at least two panels ofauthors were dedicated and titled to Jewish themes. The Fair kicked off with an appearance by punk poet PattiSmith, Professor Ilan “Don Quixote” Stavans, David Axelrod, and Robert B.Reich; and closed with readings by Attorney Alan Dershowitz and Rosie Perez andJohn Leguizamo. Actors Paul Giamatti and David Strathairn read LOUDLY fromSophocles. Ted Koppel frightened attendees with his likelihoods of cyberwarfare against America’s electrical grid. Jon Meacham discussed former U.S.President, VP, CIA Director and Congressman George H.W. Bush, Rabbi HaroldKushner discussed his concept of the non Santa Claus-like God, and actor/author Jesse Eisenberg frenetically read stories of a middle-school-aged restaurant reviewer. Held on the downtown Miami campus of Miami Dade College thehighlights (for me) included: Friday night: An Evening With The National Book AwardsWinners and Finalists. WOW. Nearly all the winners and finalists of theNational Book Awards, announced just days earlier, came to Miami to read fromtheir works for just two minutes each. I overheard the head of partner NationalBook Foundation mention that they would sponsor a variety of winners at talkson college campuses around the country in 2016 (Hey Jewish Book Council… howabout a college road tour of Jewish Book Award finalists or authors at Hillelsacross the USA in 2016/2017?) With the support of the John S. and James L.Knight Foundation, the presenters included Ilyasah Shabazz, a daughter ofMalcolm X’s daughter, who authored a YA/young adult memoir of her father X: ANovel; Steve Sheinkin, the author of a YA book on the Pentagon Papers – MostDangerous: Daniel Ellsberg and the Secret History of the Vietnam War; NellZink, the author of Mislaid: A Novel about a mother, sex, race, and hiding;Jesse Ball; Karen E. Bender; Angela Flournoy; poet Jane Hirshfield; and poetLawrence Raab, whose poems in Mistaking Each Other for Ghosts capture aging inplace in Florida and other themes. Ali Benjamin shared that she started writinga science book about Jellyfish, but turned it into the award winning novel, TheThing About Jellyfish; Neal Shusterman, who attended with his son – theco-author – told how he used his son’s illness (with permission) to writeChallenger Deep about a young man who is describing his mental illness andtelling the story of a trip to the deepest part of the ocean; Martha Hodes,with her book on Mourning Lincoln exposed how many people, as well as theantebellum South were quite happy with the death of Lincoln; and Stacy Schiff,author of The Witches: Salem, 1692 shared how the dark blackness of LowerManhattan during Hurricane Sandy helped her understand the fear that envelopedSalem in the 17th Century. ** Saturday morning opened with a chat with cookbook authorMadhur Jaffrey. Ms. Jaffrey is a seven-time James Beard Award–winning cookbookauthor and her newest book is Vegetarian India: A Journey Through the Best ofIndian Home Cooking. In conversation with chef Ayesha D’Mello, Jafrey explainedhow she would visit home cooks to find the best recipes and techniques, awayfrom the artificiality of restaurants that are designed for ingredientexpense-savings and speed. Jaffrey shared that she did not cook until age 20.As a child and teen in New Delhi, she would read Life and Time magazines andwish for the exotic food of Coke and canned fruit cocktail. She fell for MarlonBrando is the cinema and wanted to be an actor (her first husband was the lateactor, Javed Jaffrey). Actually, as a young woman in London in the late 1950’s,Madhur lived with a young Jewish family, the Golds (Blanche Gold), who allowedher to use their kitchen to cook her own food. Jaffrey did not become an authoruntil, as an actress in NYC, The New York Times profiled her as an actress wholiked to cook. The next thing she knew, an editor from Knopf called and askedher to write. I then ran out to hear Pamela Paul, the editor of The NewYork Times Book Review, who led a panel of top authors including SloaneCrosley, Margo Jefferson, Brad Meltzer, Rick Moody, and T.J. Stiles. Onepanelist mentioned that they enjoy reading “bad reviews” and famous books onAmazon.com. For example, the person who criticizes Moby Dick becuase the whale doesnt appear for hundreds of pages in the novel. Her first question was what book the authorswere reading on their way to the Fair. Meltzer read a Neil Gaiman comic bookwhile driving in Miami (his mother read the National Enquirer and Star growingup; there were no books in his home as a child); Sloane read H is for Hawk;Margo Jefferson is reading student papers and starting HHHH for the secondtime; TJ was reading Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain; and RickMoody was reading four books at the same time, including Unfaithful Music &Disappearing Ink by Elvis Costello. Paul’s advice. Read Tolstoy to understandAfghanistan. After listening to Dr. Jeffrey A. Lieberman on his historyof Psychiatry and the stigma of mental illness (Shrinks: The Untold Story ofPsychiatry), The Miami Book Fair presented “Jewish Stories, World Histories”which featured Dan Ephron and Rita Gabis. Dan Ephron, a reporter who spentdecades in Israel covering the Middle East, is the author of Killing A King:the Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. Ephron was actually at the rally whereRabin was murdered. In 2012, after seeing a grainy, short Youtube video on 20seconds of the interrogaton of Yigal Amir, Ephron decided to research themurder deeper, interview the interrogators, Amir’s family, and craft a portraitof the events surrounding the killing. Gabis, who lost her notes in a taxicab,still presented a great review of her book, A Guest at the Shooters’ Banquet:My Grandfather’s SS Past, My Jewish Family, A Search for the Truth. Gabis’father was Jewish, and her maternal grandfather was a well known LithuanianAmerican. Haunted by her grandfather once telling her, as a child, to not be“like her father,” and that “Jews no good,” she decided as an adult to researchher grandfather’s role in the slaughter of Jews in Lithuania during WWII. Herbook reveals more than she ever expected, and tells not only over hergrandfather’s role in murders but his actual primary leadership of them. On Sunday morning, Gail Sheehy (Passages) read with RabbiHarold Kushner (When Bad Things Happen to Good People; Nine Essential ThingsI’ve Learned About Life). Kushner, 80, appearing slightly fragile at first, expounded onhis belief or enduring truth to him that God sends if not a cure, then thestrength to people to cope with problems, and his realization as a rabbi manydecades ago that people do not want a theological discourse when they are inpain, but they want a hug and an understanding that they have not been rejectedby god and the community; and that god will make them brave (and it is the jobof the doctors and healthcare professionals to make them well). Kushner alsoshared a personal story of the time he was asked to visit Camp Ramah after acamper drowned. His advice; It is okay to be mad with god and vent anger,because if you can't get angry, then you can’t love with all your heart. (videos of these talks can be found on the Miami Book Fair website) In a session with "Paul Goldberger on Goldberg" (Frank Gehry)and his book: Building Art: The Life and Work of Frank Gehry, the discussionwas fascinating, since the discussion was led by Paul Holdengraber of the NYPL. Gehry, 86, actually changed his name at 25 before the birth of his child in LosAngeles. He did not come to this decision easily; it was the idea of his wife.The name Gehry was taken from the street name in San Francisco. Gehryespecially liked that Goldberg/Gehry allowed him to keep his “G” initial, andhad the same shape of a rise in the middle (db/h) and a drop at the end (g/y).For years afterward, at parties, Gehry would introduce himself as Frank "Gehryformerly Goldberg." On Sunday afternoon, Tablet Magazine hosted a panel on “Tragedy, Comedy, Versace:A Look at Jews, Identity, and the Creation of American Materialism.” Moderatedby Alana Newhouse, a founder and editor in chief of Tablet and past Forwardwriter, the panel included her husband and author David Samuels, as well asauthors Joshua Cohen, Bob Morris, and Gillian Laub. The theme was about howJews created and promoted many aspects of American material culture. Although Idon’t think the panel – fresh from a Materialistic lunch at the Four Seasons – stayed on topic,I found the discussion fascinating and entertaining. At one point, I believethat the NYC based panelists were in conflict with the many South Floridamembers of the audience. The discussion ranged from the influence of the WienerSecession to that of the garment industry, cutters, the mob, Miami Beach, andHollywood editors and producers. Joshua Cohen, who has a character named JoshuaCohen in his latest novel (The Book of Numbers) seemed to restrain himself during the panel. Ihad the feeling that he could have delivered a dissertation on the topic fromthe podium. (By the way, one of the best lines from his novel is that 'seagullsare goyim'). Bob Morris was so funny that I bought his book, BobbyWonderful, about the recent deaths of his parents (the last word of one parentwas Bobby; the other’s was Wonderful). The photos by Gillian Laub of her familymembers were priceless and more beautiful than Miami Beach's Lapis architecture. (pics can be seen at the Jewlicious link above) Other authors at Jewish / Israel interest at the Miami Book Fair were disgraced journalist Judith Miller (The Story: A Reporters’s Journey);Congressman John Lewis (March; Book Two); Bob Morris (Bobby Wonderful); ScottSimon (Unforgettable: A Son, A Mother and the Lessons of a Lifetime); Marvinand Ruth Sackner (The Art of Typewriting); Jose Refael Lovera (RetabloGastronomica de Venezuela); Lorena Garcia (New Taco Classics); Paul Levine(Solomon & Lord); Congressman Steve Israel (The Global War on Morris);Susan Abulhawa (The Blue Between Sky and Water); Greg Grandin (In Kissinger’sShadow); Harry Lembeck (Taking on Theodore Roosevelt); Hallie Ephron (Me, MyHair, and I); Thane Rosenbaum (How Sweet It Is); Joshua Cohen (Book of Numbers:A Novel); Suki Kim (Without You There is No Us); and Toni Tipton-Martin (TheJemima Code: Two Centuries of African American Cookbooks) http://jewlicious.com/2015/12/jewliciousreads-highlights-from-the-miami-book-fest/#sthash.xcTQwGhJ.dpuf Larry Editor MyJewishBooks.com
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