Rebecca Goldstein
October 15 2003, 6:00 PM
Harold Washington Library Center
October 16 2003, 7:00 PM
Northbrook Public Library
"I'm often asked what it's like to be married to a genius." These words came to Rebecca Goldstein early one morning as she dressed for work; they became the opening line of her first novel,
The Mind-Body Problem, and the young philosophy professor found herself with a second career as a novelist. Raised in an Orthodox household and trained as an analytic philosopher, Goldstein creates stories of philosophers, physicists, and mathematicians who struggle with everyday dilemmas of love, family, passion, and betrayal. Her other novels include
The Dark Sister and
Properties of Light.
Amos Oz
November 12 2003, 6:00 PM
Harold Washington Library Center
November 13 2003, 7:00 PM
Northbrook Public Library
Amos Oz is one of Israel's foremost authors. Recipient of the Israel Prize in Literature, he is the author of 18 books, including
My Michael, Black Box, and
To Know a Woman. His most recent book,
The Same Sea, challenges traditional literary boundaries, moving back and forth between poetry and prose, and including moments when the characters chastise the author for the way he portrays them. Born in 1939 in Jerusalem, Oz rebelled against his conservative parents and joined a kibbutz at age 15; he is now a leading figure in the Peace Now movement. He lives in Arad, Israel.
I'm a Stranger Here Myself
Co-sponsored by WBEZ's Stories on Stage
December 10 2003, 6:00 PM
Harold Washington Library Center
December 11 2003, 7:00 PM
Northbrook Public Library
Ever since Jews arrived in America 350 years ago, they have had to grapple with how to be Jewish and American. For some, this has led to a sense of alienation from both cultures—a feeling of being strangers among their own people and in their own land. In partnership with WBEZ's
Stories on Stage, Nextbook presents an evening of dramatic readings, featuring stories of estrangement and homecoming by Delmore Schwartz, I.B. Singer, and others. Since 1992,
Stories on Stage has been producing and presenting live dramatic performances of literature by professional actors.
Jonathan Wilson
February 18 2004, 6:00 PM
Harold Washington Library Center
February 19 2004, 7:00 PM
Northbrook Public Library
One evening in 1924, after making love to his wife, Mark Bloomberg, a painter and recent immigrant to British Palestine, steps naked into his garden and is tackled by a man dying from a stab wound. Jonathan Wilson's new novel,
A Palestine Affair, traces the consequences of this death—the murder of an Orthodox Jew, blamed on an Arab teenager—for Mark's marriage and for the deeply divided society in which he lives. Wilson's fiction has appeared in
The New Yorker and
Best American Short Stories. Born in London in 1950, he is Chair of the English Department at Tufts University.
Gina Nahai
March 17 2004, 6:00 PM
Harold Washington Library Center
March 18 2004, 7:00 PM
Northbrook Public Library
Like many Iranian Jews, Gina Nahai left her homeland for good in the wake of the 1979 revolution. And yet, it is a world she often returns to in her fiction. The characters in
Cry of the Peacock and
Moonlight on the Avenue of Faith are drawn from Nahai's own sprawling multi-cultural family. One grandmother was French Catholic; one grandfather a Lubavitcher rabbi. Steeped in history and folklore, her novels are a window onto one of the oldest communities in the Diaspora. Gina Nahai teaches creative writing at the University of Southern California.
Anne Michaels
April 14 2004, 6:00 PM
Harold Washington Library Center
April 15 2004, 7:00 PM
Northbrook Public Library
Most Canadian novels never make it across the border into U.S. bookstores, but Anne Michaels'
Fugitive Pieces became an international bestseller in 1997 and has since been translated into 25 languages. The novel tells the story of Jakob Beer, a seven-year-old Jewish boy, rescued from the Nazis by a Greek archaeologist and brought to Canada, where he grows up to become a poet. The novel received the Lannan Literary Award for fiction and the Guardian Fiction Award. Anne Michaels is also the author of three collections of poems, including
The Weight of Oranges and
Skin Divers.
Myla Goldberg
May 12 2004, 6:00 PM
Harold Washington Library Cente
May 13 2004, 7:00 PM
Northbrook Public Library
"It's amazing how quickly a true talent can announce itself," Newsweek wrote upon the release of Myla Goldberg's debut novel,
Bee Season. "In the case of Myla Goldberg, it is not even a matter of pages, but of sentences."
Bee Season is the story of a Jewish family drawn together and pulled apart by overlapping and competing obsessions—mysticism, kleptomania, and the strange ways in which letters come together to form words. In the fourth grade, Myla Goldberg competed in a spelling bee; she lost on her first turn when she misspelled "tomorrow." She lives in Brooklyn, New York.