A JUDITH LEIBER HANUKKAH BOOK
I’m delighted to present this interview with writer Deborah Blumenthal, who together with artist Masha D’Yans created PARROTS, PUGS, AND PIXIE DUST: A Book About Fashion Designer Judith Leiber. While this book would be splendid for the young (and the young at heart) all year long, it’s especially appropriate as a Hanukkah gift, as Judith…
Read MoreDAVID MARWELL’S OUTSTANDING BOOK ON MENGELE
This post is about David G. Marwell’s brilliant book MENGELE: UNMASKING THE “ANGEL OF DEATH”, which you may view on Amazon here. *** Hailed by the New York Times as “a leading American investigator of Nazi war crimes,” Dr. David G. Marwell trained as an historian and then put his training to superb use outside the…
Read MoreBERLIN PHOTOGRAPHER FLORIAN REISCHAUER
(An intriguing photo from Florian Reischauer’s project GRÜß GOTT — A FAIRY TALE) *** My interview today is with the talented, Berlin-based photographer Florian Reischauer, whose award-winning PIECES OF BERLIN project features retro-style photos of individual Berliners along with expressions of their thoughts about life today in the German capital. Following PIECES OF BERLIN is…
Read MoreJASON LUTES’S EPIC GRAPHIC NOVEL “BERLIN”
Jason Lutes is the creative force behind the blockbuster graphic novel BERLIN, which chronicles the German capital in the years of the Weimar Republic. Writing about BERLIN in Forbes magazine, Rob Salkowitz called Lutes’s book “one of the most ambitious, important and fully-realized works of graphic literature yet created, a real masterpiece of both story and art.” As…
Read MoreTHE HOLOCAUST: A DEEPER UNDERSTANDING
For this post, I am honored to have as my interviewee the distinguished psychiatrist Dr. Ira Brenner, editor of the recently published “Handbook of Psychoanalytic Holocaust Studies: International Perspectives.” Each of the contributions to this book is written in an accessible style, and I consider the volume indispensable to all readers who want to deepen…
Read MoreBERLIN NOIR
The Berlin-based THOMAS WÖRTCHE is a latter-day Renaissance man of German Literature with specialties in crime fiction and thrillers. Name a top German publication, and Thomas Wörtche most likely has contributed to it. Here’s something Thomas Przybilka has said about Wörtche: “Wörtche’s view of crime fiction is expansive, because his activities are not restricted to…
Read MoreAUTHOR INTERVIEW: SONJA DÜMPELMANN
Sonja Dümpelmann is a highly-accomplished scholar of Landscape Architecture on the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania’s Stuart Weitzman School of Design. Her latest book — SEEING TREES, A History of Street Trees in New York City and Berlin — is full of fascinating information presented with an appealing flow. And I am now pleased to…
Read MoreWORRIED ABOUT ANTISEMITISM?
(Rachel Weisz as Deborah Lipstadt in the film DENIAL) (Credit: Bleecker Street Media) ********** (NOTE: I previously interviewed Deborah Lipstadt about her latest book. You may read that interview here.) ********** Q: What is the goal of this new interview? A: To let people worried about antisemitism know we all have an indispensable, one-of-a-kind resource…
Read MoreINTERVIEW WITH AUTHOR DEBORAH LIPSTADT
Author and educator Deborah Lipstadt counts among the contemporary public intellectuals I most admire. She is widely-known for her victory in a libel suit filed by Holocaust denier David Irving. Her superb book about that experience, HISTORY ON TRIAL: MY DAY IN COURT WITH A HOLOCAUST DENIER is the basis for the film DENIAL in which…
Read MoreMENDELSSOHN EXPERT MICHAH GOTTLIEB
Michah Gottlieb is Associate Professor in the Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University. A leading expert on the towering German-Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn (1729 – 1786), Dr. Gottlieb was kind enough to grant me this interview. Q: How did you first become interested in Moses Mendelssohn? A: I was first…
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