Kids and
adults have
many offerings
to choose
from.

American publishers have a
number of Jewish works ready
for the new season.

EDWARD KARAM

Special to The Jewish News

mid acres of dis-
play booths in
New York City's
Jacob Javits
Convention Cen-
ter, the booksellers of Ameri-
ca convened last month to
look over the publishers' fall
booklists and place their
orders.
For the sellers who spend
all year behind a counter, the
convention is a Mardi Gras,
four days of schmoozing and
chatchkes. Along with books
that are handed out gratis —
many autographed by their
authors — there are pens,
Posters, corkscrews, T-shirts

Edward Karam is an Ann
Arbor freelance writer

and bookbags. A fishbowl at
one publisher's booth held
buttons urging "Let's Do It";
at a nearby booth the mes-
sage was "It's Been So Long
I Forgot How."
With all the hoopla, some-
times it's hard to remember
that there are books coming
out that may be worth
reading. It takes a bit of work
to cull the best from the
publishers' catalogues, but
between French for Cats and
a forest of acid-free paper
about Columbus, there is a
variety of books by and about
Jews, Jewish history, and the
Jewish experience. Herewith
is a selection of the most
promising.
Rizzoli, a publisher renown-
ed for its elegant, and expen-
sive, coffee table books, has
two impressive offerings. The
Jewish World of Yesterday by

Rachel Salamander (due out
in November) collects sepia
photographs of Central and
Eastern Europe from 1860 to
1938, and adds texts by Eins-
tein, Freud, Kafka, Werfel,
Mahler and Wittgenstein,
among others, for a look at a
bygone world.
Also due in November is

From the Ends of the Earth:
Judaic Treasures of the
Library of Congress, by Rabbi

Abraham J. Karp, a compila-
tion of everything from il-
luminated Torah scrolls to
marriage contracts to music
by the Gershwins and Irving
Berlin.
Miami Beach is the focus of
another photographic collec-
tion, Richard Nagler's My

"a satirical history of the
Jews." Mr. Steinberg's book
promises to answer questions
like "Can Jews play
baseball?" The comedian said
he knew he was a success
after his first appearance
with Johnny Carson.
"In a Jewish family, when
you appear on 'The Tonight
Show,' it's tantamount to win-
ning a Nobel Prize." His book,
from Crown, is due in
January.
For serious lovers of musical
theater, Fascinating Rhythm
by Deena Rosenberg takes a
look at the Gershwin bro-
thers' collaborations. Ms.
Rosenberg, a music historian,
draws on unpublished conver-
sations with Ira Gershwin

and provides photographs and
examples of the brothers'
music. The book (Dutton,
November) sounds 'swonder-
ful.
Theater lovers will also
want to pick up Hirschfeld, a
collection of more than 200
drawings by Al Hirschfeld,
the New York Times car-
toonist whose cariactures of
celebrities over the last 50
years have included the likes
of Leonard Bernstein, Ethel
Merman and Zero Mostel, as
well as the often hidden name
of his daughter Nina. The
new collection (Scribner's,
November) has a section of
drawings of the Soviet Union
in the 1930s and Harlem in
the 1940s.

Love Affair with Miami Beach

(Simon and Schuster, Novem-
ber). The paean to the Florida
city features an introduction
by the late Isaac Bashevis
Singer, who resided there.
Comedian Henny Young-
man, 85, will be telling his
life story, sprinkled, of course,
with one-liners, in Take My
Life, Please!, written with
Neal Karlen (Morrow, Oc-
tober). Among Mr. Young-
man's recollections is the
night years ago that gangster
"Dutch" Schultz attended a
performance, and was shot to
death afterwards.
Another comedian, David
Steinberg, is working on A

Due out this fall:

of "\Lesteraa-y

Manual for Modern Jewish
Living, which he describes as

e

Rat factaian`

Rvirat

ENTERTAIN M ENT

BOOKS