Joshua Henkin, author of “The World Without You” (Pantheon Books, $25.95), has frequently said in interviews that he first fell head over heels in love with reading and then convinced himself he could become a writer because he intuitively sensed what was missing in other people’s fiction.
Summer is here, and the time is right for touring authors. Here are the highlights of the season for poolside and airplane reading, including some local appearances by the authors themselves.
For Walt Whitman, the Civil War was about the body. The crime of the Confederacy, Whitman believed, was treating blacks as nothing but flesh, selling them and buying them like pieces of meat. Whitman\’s revelation, which he had for the first time at a New Orleans slave auction, was that body and mind are inseparable. To whip a man\’s body was to whip a man\’s soul.
Jonah Lehrer\’s book, \”Proust Was a Neuroscientist,\” is based on a misunderstanding. Nonetheless, it is engaging, informed, wide ranging and altogether worth reading. At times it has the whip-smart feel of the best term paper you\’ve ever read; if only one could adjust the thesis a bit, it would settle in to what is its real nature — a provocative meditation, not a genuine discovery.
In celebration of Jewish Book Month, here are some suggestions for fostering critical literacy skills and igniting a lifelong love of reading in your child:
With few exceptions, I sincerely hate bugs … a lot. I hate the way they look. I can\’t stand it when they bite. And most of all, I feel violated each time I catch one crawling up my leg. Yeeech!
When author Marge Piercy was a little girl, her grandmother set a special place at the Passover seder for Blackie, her grandmother\’s cat.
Each Christmas, Barri Evins and a group of volunteers give away thousands of books at Head Start magnet centers throughout the Los Angeles area. At each center, volunteers greet each child individually, ask them their age and then present them with a brand new book especially selected for them.
\”Jewtopia: The Chosen Book for the Chosen People\”
children\’s fable \”In God\’s Hands,\” written by Lawrence Kushner and Gary Schmidt, fancifully illustrated by Matthew J. Baek. (Jewish Lights Publishing, $16.99). Kushner\’s other children\’s books include \”Because Nothing Looks Like God\” (Jewish Lights, 2000) and among his adult books is \”The Way Into: Jewish Mystical Tradition\” (Jewish Lights, 2004), Schmidt is the author of Newbery Honor Book \”Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy\” (Clarion, 2004).
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