by Seth Rogovoy There are two kinds of people during a pandemic: Those who read “The Plague” by Albert Camus, and those who don’t. I, like thousands if not millions of others, am in the first category. I’ve always been a fan of Camus, but I had never read “The Plague,” which, for those…
by Seth Rogovoy Don’t let the provocative title of Eva Hoffman’s How to Be Bored fool you. Hoffman’s book is not a how-to for being bored, but rather a how-to of how to be when one finds oneself being bored. Or, more precisely, a manifesto in favor of “boredom” as opposed to its opposite…
by Seth Rogovoy I failed in my book-reading goals for 2019. Not necessarily by not reading a total of 50 books, which I had set out to accomplish, but in not keeping better track of what I read nor taking better notes about what I read. Suffice to say that I hope to begin…
by Seth Rogovoy Here’s a list of books I hope to read in the year 2019. Add to this list new books that attract my attention via reviews and personal recommendations; books I will need to read for journalism assignments; plus many dozens of books about George Harrison and the Beatles I will read for…
By Seth Rogovoy I am both blessed and cursed in that my work determines to a large extent what I read. Since my work for the most part coincides with my interests, most of my “obligatory” reading or reading for research overlaps with what I might choose to read. On the other hand, my reading…
by Seth Rogovoy (CHATHAM and MILLBROOK, N.Y.) – Barbara Bonner, author of the award-winning Inspiring Generosity, will be signing copies of her new book, Inspiring Courage, at the Millbrook Literary Festival on Saturday, May 20, and at the Chatham Bookstore on Sunday, May 21, at 2pm. Inspiring Courage is a timely call to action…
(AMHERST, Mass.) – Photographer Marisa Scheinfeld will speak about her years-long project documenting the ruins of the once vital resorts in the Catskill Mountains and sign copies of her new book, “The Borscht Belt: Revisiting the Remains of America’s Jewish Vacationland” (Cornell University Press) at the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Mass., on Sunday, April…
by Seth Rogovoy “My Life as an Animal” (Triquarterly Books) by Laurie Stone features a series of interconnected and comic stories that blur the lines between memoir, fiction, and cultural criticism. Through the book’s impressionistic style, it builds a narrative via seemingly unrelated anecdotes and observations. Its tantalizing challenge to readers is that what is…
by Seth Rogovoy Perhaps best known as a singer, actress, and theater director, “The Last Survivor and Other Modern Jewish Plays” makes the case that Eleanor Reissa’s playwriting is perhaps her strongest mode of expression. These six plays are rich and full of life’s learned lessons. While forged out of the horrors of the Holocaust…
Jewhooing the Sixties by David E. Kaufman Brandeis University Press, 360 pages, $36 Review by Seth Rogovoy The final week of September 1961 proved to be an auspicious one in American Jewish history — or, at least, in the history of Jewish-American celebrities. Within a matter of just a few days, Sandy Koufax set his…
