People Love Dead Jews- Dara Horn in Conversation
Speakers: Dar Horn A two-time National Jewish Book Award winner for her fiction, Dara Horn has also been publishing penetrating essays since she was a teenager, for publications including The New York Times, The Paris Review and The Wall Street Journal. Often asked to write on subjects related to Jewish culture – and increasingly in […]
Power Players: Ivor Crewe & Anthony Seldon
Speakers: Ivor Crewe, Anthony Seldon Who wants to be a Macmillan or Blair? 300 years after Robert Walpole became the first Prime Minister of the UK, the title of Anthony Seldon’s new book on the role The Impossible Office? sums up the challenges, while Ivor Crewe’s The Blunders of Our Governments shows that scandal, catastrophe […]
Spymaster: The Man Who Saved MI6
Speakers: Helen Fry, Robert Hutton Thomas Kendrick was central to the British Secret Service from its beginnings early last century through to the Second World War. Under the guise of a British Passport Officer he ran spy networks across Europe, facilitated the escape of Austrian Jews, and later went on to set up the M […]
Jewish Quarterly Conversations at Jewish Book Week: The Collectors
Speakers: Edmund de Waal, Anne Sebba, James McAuley Before the Second World War, several prominent French Jewish families built vast collections of art and treasures which sought to venerate beauty at a time of increasing hostility. But their collections – and their rarefied worlds, now vanished – also reveal the tragedy of their troubled lives […]
X Troop: The Secret Jewish Commandos
Speakers: Leah Garrett, Helen Fry After Quentin Tarantino’s fictional take in Inglorious Basterds, now for the first time the full, heart-stopping story of the real-life Jewish commandos who wreaked havoc against the Nazi war machine is revealed in X Troop by Hunter College director of Jewish and Hebrew Studies Leah Garrett. In desperation, as the […]
The Light of Days: Women Fighters of the Resistance
Speakers: Judy Batalion, Trudy Gold A New York Times bestseller and already optioned by Steven Spielberg, The Light of Days author Judy Batalion joins us live from the US to discuss what Philippe Sands called “an untold story of rare and captivating power” of the Polish Jewish women who took on the Nazis. These ‘ghetto […]
Alfred Wiener: The Fatherland and the Jews
Speakers: Matthew Stadlen, Daniel Finkelstein, Christine Schmidt, Joseph Koerner Dr Alfred Wiener, born in Germany in 1885, is best remembered as a leading figure in documenting Nazi and anti-Nazi literature, and as the founder of the world-renowned Wiener Holocaust Library. As early as 1918, as a de-mobbed soldier and passionate lover of his country, he […]
The Golden Rule
Speakers: Amanda Craig, Samantha Ellis A book of the year in all national newspapers and recently long-listed for the 2021 Women’s Prize, Amanda Craig’s ninth novel is a stunning contemporary twist on Patricia Highsmith’s Strangers on a Train, as razor-sharp satire combines with psychological thrills. The novelist and journalist who Bernadine Evaristo calls ‘a skilful […]
Prince of the Press
Speakers: Joshua Teplitsky, Raquel Ukeles David Oppenheim, Prague’s chief rabbi from 1702 until his death in 1736, built an unparalleled collection of Jewish books and manuscripts, which survive to this day at the Bodleian Library. Containing works of law and literature, prayer and poetry, his library of over 7,000 printed works and 1,000 manuscripts testifies […]
David Thomson: Movie Directors
Speakers: David Thomson, Francine Stock Over the last century our sense of what a director is or should be has shifted from a functionary to an important part of a wider team to the artist in charge. But now, which casual viewer could tell you who directed prestige TV shows like The Sopranos or Breaking […]
Boris Johnson: The Gambler
Speakers: Tom Bower, Matthew D’Ancona Hero or villain? Maverick or chancer? In his latest book Tom Bower, described by Tatler as “the master of the unauthorised biography”, takes on the current Prime Minister. Based on a wealth of new interviews and research, he asks what his real achievements and failures were as Mayor of London, […]
Around the World in 80 Plants
Speakers: Jonathan Drori After his bestselling Around the World in 80 Trees – and the accompanying full-house talk at Jewish Book Week 2020 – environmentalist Jonathan Drori returns, bringing to life the science of plants by revealing how their worlds are intricately entwined with our own history, culture and folklore. From the seemingly familiar tomato […]