Books

Eleanor Reissa Wrestles with Holocaust Legacy in New Memoir

(NEW YORK, N.Y.) — Eleanor Reissa’s new memoir, The Letters Project: A Daughter’s Journey, will be published on Tuesday, January 18, 2022, by Post Hill Press. A second-generation Holocaust memoir, Reissa’s new book reads like a mystery, recounting the compelling story of her discovery of a cache of letters written in the 1940s from her…

What Albert Camus Teaches Us About Coronavirus

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…

Book Review: ‘How to Be Bored’ by Eva Hoffman

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…

Books I Read in 2019

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…

My 2019 Reading List

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…

What I Read in 2018

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…

Author Barbara Bonner ‘Inspires Courage’ with New Book

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…

Catskills Photographer Uncovers Forgotten World of Borscht Belt

  (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…

(Book Review) “My Life as an Animal” by Laurie Stone

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…

(Book Review) Eleanor Reissa’s Voice Fully Realized in Her Plays

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…