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IF ALL THE SEAS WERE INK

A MEMOIR

An intriguing, scholarly memoir of being a woman and studying the Talmud that will appeal most to those deeply interested in...

Gleaning wisdom from the Talmud during a time of personal crisis.

When Kurshan, who has worked in publishing as an editor, translator, and foreign rights representative, left her job and home in New York City to follow her new husband to Jerusalem, she never imagined she'd be divorced in a year's time. With only a few friends, she was unsure of what to do with herself until a friend suggested she adopt the practice of daf yomi: reading a page a day of the Talmud. Undaunted by the idea that it would take more than seven years to complete the full text on Jewish law, Kurshan dove in, embracing each day and reading with an open mind. What she discovered was invigorating, exciting, and challenging as she worked her way through a text geared primarily for the male half of the Jewish population. She also found that the commitment to follow daf yomi connected her to a worldwide network of people also following the same practice; all participants used a schedule set up by a rabbi in 1923 so that everyone would literally be on the same page on the same day. Kurshan expertly incorporates quotes from the Talmud in her reflections on the various arguments and the important events in her life that she recorded in a journal as she progressed. Readers witness the sinuous progression of her devotion and her movement into a new marriage and the births of her children as the seven-plus years unfold. Though the author claims one doesn't need to be Jewish or even religious to study the Talmud, a basic understanding of Judaism, the customs, and important religious holidays would be useful to anyone reading Kurshan's memoir.

An intriguing, scholarly memoir of being a woman and studying the Talmud that will appeal most to those deeply interested in Judaism.

Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2017

ISBN: 978-1-250-12126-4

Page Count: 320

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: June 4, 2017

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2017

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NIGHT

The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...

Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children. 

He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions. 

The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the sphere of suffering shared, and in this case extended to the death march itself, there is no spiritual or emotional legacy here to offset any reader reluctance.

Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006

ISBN: 0374500010

Page Count: 120

Publisher: Hill & Wang

Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006

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WHEN BREATH BECOMES AIR

A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...

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A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.

Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”

A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.

Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016

ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6

Page Count: 248

Publisher: Random House

Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015

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