What I Read This Summer

It's been a busy summer but not one with a trip away from home. For the better part of June and July, my nights have been filled with rehearsals and performances. I'm always listening to music for my radio show (here), my Courant blog (here) and pleasure - yet I also keep a steady supply of books around.

Here are 3 that have made this summer (so far) even more interesting.

Paul Krugman is the award-winning columnist and economist whose writings appear in The New York Times. He is both a supporter and critic of the Obama administration and was a vocal critic of many of the Bush policies. If you have ever wondered about the difference between a "liberal" and a "conservative", Krugman does an excellent job in this 2008 book spelling it out. Written before the most recent Presidential election, the reader learns about Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal and how, with the exception of President Eisenhower, Republican administrations have done their best to dismantle the programs put into place to get the country moving economically. The much-loved President Reagan and his belief in "States' Rights" did the most damage and it's not surprising that the gap between the "haves" and "have-nots" grew the most in his tenure. No matter what your political beliefs, Krugman's writing is sharp, easy to understand, and worth exploring in these days of bloviators such as Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly.

Sadia Shepard is an author, filmmaker and educator and a 1997 graduate of Wesleyan University. Her 2008 memoir "The Girl From Foreign" (The Penguin Press) is a fascinating story of a person looking for her roots. In Shepard's case, she is the daughter of a Muslim mother and Protestant father who discovers that her maternal grandmother was born a Jew in India (she converted to Islam to marry the author's grandfather.) That discovery leads the author to India, to study the Bene Israel tribe and to find her relatives still living in Pakistan. Set in the year after 9/11 when tensions between India and Pakistan were quite high, Shepard's journey leads her to many different discoveries and raised many questions about her own identity.

Ms. Shepard was in Middletown recently for the Wesleyan Writers' Conference and I hope to interview her on my Sunday morning radio show. In the meantime, her book is quite engrossing. Her year+ abroad also helped create the documentary "In Search of the Bene Israel " and she is also the producer of "The September Issue", the forthcoming movie about Vogue magazine.

Thanks to the blog NextBook.org (now VoxTablet), I discovered the David Sax's entertaining blog "Save the Deli" and his forthcoming book of the same name. I wrote to Sax to ask for an interview - not only did he say "yes" but also sent a galley proof of the book. And like a crunchy half-sour pickle, it's a real treat. If you've ever wondered about such Jewish "deli-cacies" as tongue, corned beef, pastrami, chopped liver, knishes, kneidlach (matzoh balls) and others, this is book for you. Spurred by the loss of so many delicatessens over the past 30 years (assimilation has its victims), Sax, a journalist born in Toronto and now based in New York City, traveled throughout North America and over to Europe to investigate the deli business and made many fascinating discoveries (and, along the way, ate extremely well.) His descriptions of the many dishes he tried are quite mouth-watering and may make readers yearn to make a pilgrimage to New York City, Chicago or, the new "deli capital" of the United States, Los Angeles, California.

"Save the Deli" - the book - will go on sale in September (click here for more information) but, like the sandwich that adorns the cover, is worth searching out.

Both the Krugman and Shepard books are available at The Russell Library (mea culpa - I still have the latter book out on loan.)