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The Schmooze Book Critics Nods to Roz Chast, Gary Shteyngart
Photo: Martyna Starosta Forward 50 members Roz Chast and Gary Shteyngart are among the 30 nominees for the 2014 National Book Critics Circle Awards. The award, given to books in the areas of autobiography, biography, criticism, fiction, nonfiction and poetry, is given by the book critics and book review editors of the National Book Critics…
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The Schmooze ‘I Think You’re Totally Wrong’ Goes to Hollywood
Photo courtesy Rabbit Bandini Productions Capital punishment. Bungee jumping. Cormac McCarthy. Waterboarding. Jackson Pollock. “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” Abortion. Rupert Murdoch. The Seattle Mariners. The war in Iraq. The “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.” Disneyland. Balding. These are just few of the subjects David Shields and Caleb Powell cover in their new book, “I…
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The Schmooze National Jewish Book Award Winners Are Here
The Jewish Book Council has announced the recipients of the 2015 National Jewish Book Awards. The council began giving out this award — the most prestigious of its kind — in 1948. Past winners include Philip Roth, Chaim Potok and Cynthia Ozick. It’s a pretty important way of giving recognition to the year’s most outstanding…
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Culture 12 Books We’re Looking Forward To in 2015
In 2015, Jewish stories will come in diverse guises — from flights of magical realism to groundbreaking history and biography. Assimilation and tradition assert their warring claims. While memoirist Judy Brown chronicles her escape from a suffocating religious upbringing, Bosnian immigrant and literary prodigy Aleksandar Hemon continues his embrace of Jewish characters and themes. Anniversaries…
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Opinion Let’s Make 2015 the Year of the Arab Jew
Call it a confirmation bias. Everywhere I turned this year, I saw a new expression of Arab Jewish identity. The revival seems to be happening across all fields — literature, food, music — yet somehow nobody’s talking about it. As an Arab Jewish writer (my family hails from Morocco, India and Iraq), I couldn’t be…
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The Schmooze The Most Jewish True Crime Book Ever
Photo: Germain McMicking/Riverhead Books John Safran’s literary debut, “God’ll Cut You Down: The Tangled Tale of A White Supremacist, A Black Hustler, A Murder, and How I Lost Year in Mississippi,” arrived in the U.S. with momentum. The Australian Crime Writers Association had already named it the best true crime book of 2014. New York…
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Culture The Year of the Former Soviet Author
In the recently published memoir “A Backpack, a Bear, and Eight Crates of Vodka,” Lev Golinkin recounts the story of his family’s 1989 departure from the rapidly disintegrating Soviet Union. The Golinkins make their way to America, relying on the kindness of strangers; unsure of what they might find, they are guided largely by the…
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Culture ‘Jewish Oprah’ Carolyn Starman Hessel Turns Page From Jewish Book Council
(JTA) — When Carolyn Starman Hessel joined the New York-based Jewish Book Council in 1994 – at the request of friend Marsha Posner – she knew nothing about the publishing world. Since then, she’s been called the “Jewish Oprah” for her ability to help authors find audiences, and has enjoyed enormous clout and influence among…
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Culture Why saying ‘L’shana Tova’ on Rosh Hashanah may not be the correct phrase
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Culture A Jewish prophet of the 1980s would be horrified to see that we didn’t heed his warnings
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Opinion This is the most disorienting Rosh Hashanah in memory
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Fast Forward Meet Lev Kreitman, who brought down Tel Aviv shooter and survived Nova music festival on Oct. 7
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Fast Forward World leaders mourn Israeli victims and call for a ceasefire on anniversary of Oct. 7 attack
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Fast Forward Was a viral Ta-Nehisi Coates interview a hit piece or fair play? A journalism ethics expert weighs in.
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Culture How my odious cousin Roy Cohn was responsible for creating Donald Trump — and me
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Fast Forward Nova survivor reveals she witnessed rape on Oct. 7 at Tel Aviv memorial ceremony interrupted by rocket sirens
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