The Thin Red Line

Sometimes,  you just have to break the mold.   That certainly seems to be the attitude of the editors and publisher of BOMA Books a new London UK publisher that is now offering its very limited edition a book of JEWS which is easily one of this year’s most unique and noteworthy offerings.    Weighing in at over fifteen pounds, a book of JEWS is quite literally a  HUGE book of photographs documenting the Jewish people and experience.   The photographs, taken by an exceptionally large number of photographers, all over the world and in many different time periods,  depict an extraordinary number of Jewish people, both famous and anonymous.

The list of included names is nearly endless, such as Niels Bohr, Miriam Rothschild, Walter Matthau, Elliott Gould, Isaac Stern, Phillip Roth, Louis Kahn, Dorothy Parker, Lillian Hellman, Kinky Friedman, Uri Geller, Howard Cosell, Jonas Salk,  Noam Chomsky, Annie Leibovitz, Linda McCartnery and Ethan and Joel Cohen, just to name, a very very few.   The pictures have been selected with great editorial care and the connections of people from different fields, periods and tied to different events is truly remarkable.   Also most noteworthy are the pages and pages and pages of biographical sketches of many of the prominent people pictured, giving this work real value as a reference tool for students of history and of the Jewish experience.

While I definitely feel this book would have a place in a large library’s reference collection,  that probably is not going to happen.   So if you would like to experience and own this remarkable book that combines photography and biography into a very visual and hands on history, you will have to visit the publisher’s web site and order it for yourself.   I have to warn you that it is not cheap ($550 US,  £275  or €345),  but this price does include courier shipping to your door,  where someone must be home to sign for the package.  My copy arrived safe and snug in a handsome keepsake box.    If you have an interest in photography and in the experiences of the Jewish people, a book of Jews comes Highly Recommended.   Below you will find a remarkable sample page from the book.   This page and the book cover image are both ©2008 BOMA Books Ltd.

Be sure to visit the interactive web site to view a wide array of sample pages and photographs.   My thanks again to Mr. Robert Marcuson of BOMA Books Ltd for providing me with this opportunity to publish the very first web review of a book of JEWS.    I hope my regular readers will forgive me for breaking the mold and reviewing this very special book.   I’ll be back tomorrow with more great books that you can get from your local library.  

OOPS.   The full post page and comments are not working.   I apologize for the inconvenience and will get this fixed ASAP.   Alan 

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This one is for Golfwidow.   I’ve long been a big fan of Shel Silverstein, particularly of his extremely popular children’s book Where The Sidewalk Ends.   I was also aware that he was an accomplished recording artist, having heard him sing "I Got Stoned And I Missed It" on his album "Freaking At The Freakers Ball".   But I honestly didn’t know much at all about the man himself.   Lisa Rogak has fixed that.

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Moving on is a chance you take
Every time you try to stay Together
You say a word out of line and you find
The friends that you had are gone.
Forever
Forever"

Billy Joel "Say Goodbye To Hollywood"

Relating a tale from the Class of ‘82 in presenting a couple of books on condominium ownership got me galloping down memory lane to a time when life was lived to a soundtrack of Billy Joel (especially Glass Houses and The Stranger) Supertramp (Breakfast In America), Styx and a few others that are or aren’t still big names in music these days. And that’s a perfect frame of mind in which to read and review Billy Joel: The Biography by Mark Bego.

"You may be right
I may be crazy
But it just may be a lunatic you’re looking for
Turn out the lights
Don’t try to save me
You may be wrong for all I know you may be right"

Billy Joel– "You May Be Right"

Biographies of living celebrities tend to come in only two flavors– the very softball sort that reads like the author was on the payroll of the celebrity’s PR firm, and who knows maybe he Was OR the Kitty Kelly Kremates variety where Everyone with an axe to grind has been painstakingly unearthed and the axe it does get ground sort, which will send any self-respecting celebrity rushing to hire a new PR firm. For Billy Joel fans, Mark Bego writes somewhere in between these extremes.

Reports that Joel can be bitter and rude and stories that he has been stingy and unfair to the band members whose hard work clearly contributed to his rise to major success in the music business are not glossed over and the people behind these reports are quoted at length and given the opportunity to provide a nuanced look at the complicated truth behind these hot rumors. For anyone who as I did grew up listening to the story of Brenda and Eddie, longing like Anthony to ditch the shitty job, jump in a fast car and Move Out this biography is Highly Recommended.

And of course, if this music does Nothing for you, you don’t need me to tell you you’d be bored silly so don’t bother.

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If you are not already a Robert Heinlein fan, Grumbles From The Grave is Not the place to start. A collection of Heinlein’s private correspondence edited by Heinlein’s widow Virginia, Grumbles is an extraordinary glimpse into the life of an exceptional author and a no-holds-barred look at the Business of writing.

Fans of Heinlein’s fiction may not be surprised to learn that the character he most resembled in real life is Jubal Harshaw in Stranger In A Strange Land, the unsentimental writer who makes a very comfortable living giving his editors and readers Exactly what they Want. From his very first efforts writing for Heinlein was first and foremost a business. He quickly developed a canny understanding of what editors want and will pay for and he Always gave them exactly that. He sold a Lot of books and made a Lot of money from writing which is something that is not easy to do. (Much like in the performing arts the huge money superstars like Heinlein are the rare exception to the sad fact that most writers and artists earn very little for their efforts, even when they are good.)

The flower power generation for whom Heinlein’s books and particularly Stranger, which became a kind of bible to them, were a rite of passage must read may be disappointed to learn that all of his writing about sexual liberation and plural marriages was written because it was a story they would buy and not because Heinlein particularly believed in it. By all accounts he had a very conventional and faithful marriage which bore much resemblance to the sort of marriage good boys from Missouri around the turn of the century were expected to make and keep to, rather than any of the muti-amorous arrangements with emotional depth that Heinlein was so noted for in his later works of adult science fiction.

In addition to hard core Heinlein fans this book is Highly Recommended to aspiring writers, those who are interested in earning an income from writing rather than those who write as art. While the publishing scene today is certainly very different than that prevailing when Heinlein wrote this correspondence with his various editors and agents, this inside look at how Heinlein handled the Business of being a writer can provide a number of invaluable lessons to anyone trying to earn money by typing words on a screen.

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A question I have frequently been asked since starting this blog is "how do you read so many books?" or "do you really read all of those books you write about?". I have often answered that I read fairly quickly and that it’s not always necessary to read the entire book before writing a useful and engaging blog post about it.

But a sad truth that I am learning, as I become more committed to improving and professionalizing this blog is that with all the hours I spend online these days, I have much less time for reading. And I find myself wondering how you, my blog readers, feel about this. Do you think it’s OK for me to blog about books that I have not finished reading? Please take the poll or leave a comment and let me know. I’m genuinely interested in what people think about this.

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