Mark Rothko: The Man and his Art
Speakers: Annie Cohen-Solal, Andrew Renton Marcus Yakovlevich Rothkovitz, aka Mark Rothko, emigrated from the Russian Empire to the US aged 10 to become one of the most influential and original painters of the 20th century. Annie Cohen-Solal, the French cultural historian, has had unique access to previously unseen archival material Yale monograph and the result […]
Far From The Tree
Andrew Solomon talks about the idea of family and his multi-award winning book Far from the Tree with Rabbi Julia Neuberger. An event from 2015 Jewish Book Week.
Gemma Levine: Life Behind The Camera
Speakers: Gemma Levine, Miriam Stoppard Gemma Levine presents her photographic memoir: Just One More…. With talent and verve, Gemma has photographed many of the prime movers of the 20th century, from actors to artists, prime ministers to royalty. She developed a personal relationship with many of her sitters and, as she will be divulging to […]
Yuval Noah Harari
Political philosopher John Gray talks with Yuval Noah Harari about his breath-taking ride through our entire human history: Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. Based on a series of lectures Harari taught at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Sapiens guides the reader from mankind’s evolutionary roots to the age of capitalism and genetic engineering, to uncover […]
Chloe and Simon Schama
Speakers: Chloe Schama, Simon Schama, Francesca Segal Biographer and journalist Chloe Schama dedicated her first book, Wild Romance, to her father “who taught me how to tell a story.” Simon and Chloe engage in an intimate and lively conversation about family bonds, parental expectations, intergenerational values and the nature of creativity. Their interviewer is writer […]
The Talmud: The Book That Shaped Judaism
Speakers: Harry Freedman, Naftali Brawer, Jacqueline Nicholls The Talmud is a repository of centuries of rabbinic wisdom on law, legend and life, with a dialectic structure setting it apart from virtually any other text. Harry Freedman looks at the book’s history and Jacqueline Nicholls shares the drawings she is making to express her daily encounters […]
Claudia Roden: The Food of Italy
Tuscany has never been closer to King’s Cross. Claudia Roden, a sell-out speaker at the festival with The Food of Spain in 2012, returns to talk about an important update of her classic The Food of Italy, 25 years after it was first published. The history of Italian-Jewish cooking will be a highlight of Roden’s presentation of this appetising […]
Joseph Rykwert on Louis Kahn
Speakers: Joseph Rykwert, Deyan Sudjic 2014 marks the 40th anniversary of the death of American architect Louis Kahn, whose projects were considered as important as those of Le Corbusier or Mies van der Rohe. This year, too, sees the award of Britain’s Royal Gold Medal to historian and critic Joseph Rykwert, whose writing has had […]
Douglas Hurd & Edward Young on Disraeli
Speakers: Douglas Hurd, Edward Young Former foreign secretary Lord Hurd and Edward Young tell the story of Benjamin Disraeli, a bankrupt Jewish school-dropout and trashy novelist who reached the top of the Victorian Conservative Party. Separating the man from the many myths that followed him, they bring alive the true genius and wit of Disraeli, […]
A Sense of Direction
Speakers: Gideon Lewis-Kraus , Gary Shteyngart, Naomi Alderman “If David Foster Wallace had written Eat, Pray, Love it might have come close to approximating the adventures of Gideon Lewis-Kraus”, wrote Gary Shteyngart on his friend’s debut novel. JBW brings the two writers together with Naomi Alderman to discuss an incredible series of pilgrimages. Inspired by his rabbi […]
Gary Shteyngart: Little Failures
Speakers: Gary Shteyngart, Sarah Churchwell Little Failure is the alarming pet-name given to the young Gary Shteyngart by his father when growing up in pre-Glasnost Russia is a remarkable immigrant memoir. A candid and poignant story of a Soviet family’s trials and tribulations, and of their 1979 escape to the consumerised promised land of the […]
The Beatles Tune In
Speakers: Mark Lewisohn, Daniel Finkelstein Mark Lewisohn is the independent historian of The Beatles, who is working on a three-volume history, All These Years. The first volume was published in November 2013. In this conversation with Daniel Finkelstein he dwells at least a little on the story’s Jewish elements – from managers to marriages and the bravura blend […]