The Book Smugglers
Speakers: David Fishman, James Libson In a history book that reads like a thriller, The Book Smugglers charts the incredible story of the ghetto inmates who rescued thousands of rare books and manuscripts — first from the Nazis and then from the Soviets — by hiding them on their bodies, burying them in bunkers, and smuggling […]
Ben Hecht: The Greatest American Screenwriter
Ben Hecht was, according to Jean-Luc Godard, ‘a genius’ who ‘invented 80% of what is used in Hollywood movies today’. Besides producing dozens of now classic scripts — including Wuthering Heights, Gone With the Wind (for which he was never credited) and Notorious — Ben Hecht was also known as an ace reporter, celebrated playwright, taboo-busting novelist, […]
A Weekend in New York
Speakers: Benjamin Markovits, Alex Clark Paul Essinger, a tennis professional in his 30s, is about to play his final US Open. The bookies give him 1,200-1 odds on winning the title. Anxiety-ridden, comically unaware and boiling with tension, each member of the Essinger family — Paul included — is painfully trying to unpick an idea of […]
Jewish Voices 2019
The grand finale of Jewish Book Week 2019, in partnership with World Jewish Relief, is a celebration of the power of words. A stellar line-up, featuring Henry Goodman, Nicholas Hytner, Jason Isaacs, Brian Leveson, Emily Maitlis, Simon Sebag Montefiore, Jay Rayner, Philippe Sands, Janet Suzman and Zoe Wanamaker, will read poems, letters and speeches, stretching […]
Voices on the Page
Speakers: Alba Arikha, Yvonne Green, Alex Clark Critically-acclaimed memoirist and author Alba Arikha joins poet and translator Yvonne Green in an exploration of how the literary voice represents the multiplicity of the Jewish experience. They tackle identity, nationhood, family and literary form in a wide-ranging discussion of the voices, people and ideas that are represented […]
Tom Bower on Jeremy Corbyn
Speakers: Tom Bower, Mark Lawson Acclaimed investigative journalist and bestselling biographer Tom Bower, author of 24 books including the lives of Robert Maxwell, Richard Branson, Tony Blair and Prince Charles, has penetrated the shadows and myths about Jeremy Corbyn and discusses his biography with Mark Lawson.
To Kill The Truth
Speakers: Jonathan Freedland, Matthew d’Ancona Acclaimed journalist Jonathan Freedland presents a gripping new thriller, the latest from his blockbuster novelist alter ego Sam Bourne. Somebody is murdering the world’s last remaining Holocaust survivors; libraries are burnt to the ground and important digital archives are wiped. Somebody is setting out to erase the past, even to destroy […]
Antisemitism: The Longest Hatred
Speakers: David Triesman, Ruth Deech, Rod Liddle, Trudy Gold, Gavin Esler Judeophobia, the great hatred. Is it a psychic aberration, a 2,000 year-old disease? Loathing of Jews has been a feature of Christendom since the first accusation of deicide and this, combined with enforced employment patterns – usury and trade – made the Jews the […]
Anita Lasker-Wallfisch: Addressing the Bundestag
In January 2018, cellist Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, a survivor of Auschwitz, and then of Bergen-Belsen, addressed the Bundestag to commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day. In an extraordinary speech, she said, “Antisemitism is a virus which is two thousand years old and apparently incurable… No other genocide is as comprehensively documented as the Holocaust. And yet there are still […]
Seven Types of Atheism: To Believe or Not to Believe
For a generation, public debate has been corroded by a narrow derision of religion in the name of an often vaguely understood ‘science’. Bestselling author and eminent philosopher John Gray describes the rich, complex world of the atheist tradition. His book sheds an extraordinary and varied light on what it is to be human and […]
Is Humanity in Denial?
Speakers: Jodie Ginsburg, Keith Kahn-Harris, Mark Levene, James Libson, Jane Haynes, Lucy Siegle The Holocaust never happened. The planet isn’t warming. Vaccines cause autism. All of us deny inconvenient truths sometimes, but what happens when denial becomes ‘denialism’, a systematic attempt to overturn established scholarly findings? And how do we relate to this phenomenon in […]
Descent into Darkness
Speakers: Marina Benjamin, Lisa Appignanesi, Amanda Craig In Insomnia, Marina Benjamin has produced an unsettling account of an unsettling condition, treating our inability to sleep not as a disorder, but as an existential experience that can electrify our understanding of ourselves, and of creativity and love. Lisa Appignanesi, in Everyday Madness, writes of the rage […]