We’re just past mid-summer here in Israel and the days are long and slow. It’s a good time to relax in the shade with a good book and a glass of something cold. Here are some recommendations from around the Jewish blogosphere (in more or less alphabetical order). Note that cover images link to the relevant affiliate-linked book page on Amazon.
Enjoy!
Barbara Beitz interviews author Jamie Kiffel-Alcheh author of Can You Hear a Coo, Coo.
Every Friday, Erika Dreifus features “Pre-Shabbat Jewish Literary Links” on the My Machberet blog. Here’s one recent post.
Deborah Kalb interviews a wide range of authors on her blog, deborahkalbbooks.blogspot.com. Here’s a recent Q&A with Yermiyahu Ahron Taub about his new story collection, Prodigal Children in the House of G-d.
Chava Pinchuck has the distinct pleasure of meeting two award-winning authors: If All the Seas Were Ink’s Ilana Kurshan, and Rachel Kadish, author of The Weight of Ink, who was at the Association of Jewish Libraries Conference in Boston in June to accept the Association’s inaugural Jewish Fiction Award:
In July, Jill at Rhapsody in Books reviewed The Orchard by Yochi Brandes (originally published in Hebrew as “Hapardes shel Akiva”). Rabbi Akiva is venerated in Judaism as one of the greatest rabbinic sages, although much of the stories about him are sketchy and wrapped in myth and mystery. This book purports to tell his story from the point of view of his wife Rachel.
On her blog, Flight of Fantasy, Hannah Ross hosted a guest post by author Daniella Levy on How to Research Your Novel from the Comfort of Your Home. Levy writes: “Fortunately for me and for other inert, introverted writers, technology and the Internet have developed in our favor. I actually managed to research quite extensively without ever setting foot outside my home.”
Wayne Turmel interviews Mrta Innes Trupp, author of Becoming Malka, a “Russian-Argentine-Jewish-Historical-Fantasy-Mashup”.
And lastly, here at the Memory & Redemption blog, I review the first book of Dan Sofer’s Dry Bones Society trilogy, An Unexpected Afterlife. Every single one of these books is great fun, and this one gets the series off to a rollicking good start!
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