Arts & Entertainment Ma•io's Restaurant Cover Story: Summer Reading Troy • Detroit NONFICTION 14a from page 73 e/i67/4./ During the month of July Mario's . will not be punching Entertainment Cards th:, 14.451.e WpMEN :SHARI": HEIR ,TOP it, 0: Att. FM 04. AND TRAOITION • on eS wry Tuesday J1 Pounid Lobster , Only Every Thumday Filet on Ala Carte • 3,95 includes: Potato Vegetables & . Bread Basket. Dine-In Only, Reservations Required.. Hot valid with any other special or on holidays. Around Sarah's Table llsvoq =vs a ft,,K A S 1 /J1111 07" includes: Potato, Vegetables & Bread Basket. Dine-in Only. Reservations Required. Not valid with any other spedal or on holidays. RESTAURANT OF TROY RESTAURANT OF DETROIT NORTHERN ITALIAN CUISINE NORTHERN ITALIAN CUISINE 248.588.6000 313.832.1616 4222 Second St. • Detroit BUY ONE GET ONE FREE With this ad 6646 TELEGRAPH • AT MAPLE • BLOOMFIELD PLAZ • GRAND OPENING Thai Cuisine EXCLUDES TAKEOUT • 25226 Greenfield Rd.Oak Park, MI 48237 • SALA THAI (248) 968-9495 fax ( 248) 968-9405 Open Daily 11:00 am - 9:30 pm Fri & Sat 11:00 am - 1 1:00 pm Dinner Served: Mon-Fri after 3 pm Saturday all day 10''' OFF WHOLE BILL! 625640 N Os 0 %TN 6/28 2002 78 s'ifo We need your gently used books! 1,r, The Friends of the Detroit Public Library needs books for its Used Book Sale which will be held on September 13 & 14. All donations are tax deductible and benefit the Summer Reading Program. Please brhig your items to Main Library, 5201 Woodward, one block North of Warren. Phone 313-833-4048 for more information. • J. F. :5 AROUND SARAH'S TABLE By Rivka Zakutinsky and Yaffa Leba Gottlieb (Free Press; 239 pp.; $24) S OPEN 4T" OF JULY o sU itFA LOA :3 <, /1 W1,1 ,f , \ Mario's...Since 1948 1477 John R at Maple • Troy ' 41 Innovatively organized, Around Sarah's Table portrays the diverse lives of 10 Chasidic women who gather weekly at Sarah's home for a gourmet lunch and a discussion of Torah, and how it relates to their lives. "To accomplish despite challenges" is Sarah's motivation as she and her guests study the Torah teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson. Aspects of their conversations will be familiar to readers; these are the stories of women challenged by balancing motherhood and career. They struggle for patience in dealing with cranky toddlers and seriously ill husbands. The conversations also will be new territory to some in that Jewish obser- vance and faith in God and Torah play such a pivotal all-encompassing role in their every thought and deed. The women who gather around Sarah's table each week come from all walks of life. One is a lawyer, another an author and publisher. There are emigrees and born Americans. Their way to observance is just as varied. Some, like Glicka, were raised in Torah homes. Others, like Susan, now known as Shaina, were drawn to Chasidism as adults. The introductory text to Shaina's story is God's well- known edict to Abram: "Go out, from your land, from your birthplace, and from your father's house to the land that I will show you." Shaina found the initial changes of observance — dress, diet, new name — less stressful than those revolving around family and friends. Readers eavesdropping on these women's conversations can glean won- derful nuggets of learning. This reviewer always assumed the blessing for handwashing dealt with a commandment to wash or perhaps purify hands. At Sarah's table, one learns that although the action is washing, the blessing says, "uplifting," which is a reminder that "hands can be used for lofty purposes, which could include eating, drinking ... and diaper changing, depending on the intent with which it is done." Some of the insights seemed stretched, too simplistic even for a forum that takes learning so seriously. In Klara's story we learn that 'America" can be interpreted to mean. "Nation (Am) Empty (rek) of God (Koh)." Russia becomes "rasha" or "evil," and Africa is parsed as "Anger (af) Empty (rek) of God (Koh)." Such interpretations struck this read- er as linguistic sleight of hand, espe- cially when read against the women's more weighty insights into the text. These quibbles aside, Around Sarah's Table offers lasting food for thought and spirit. — Debra B. Darvick ART LOVER By Anton Gill (HarperCollins; 528 pp.; $29.95) Peggy Guggenheim, one of the stan- dard-bearers for a privileged German- Jewish American family with name- brand status in the art world (her father, Benjamin, abandoned the fami- ly and perished on the Titanic), spent more time pursuing lovers than works of art. She kept a little book in which she listed her sexual conquests. Relentlessly, she went after writers and artists she admired, and the list includ- ed Samuel Beckett and Max Ernst (with whom she had a short marriage). There is the suggestion in Art Lover, Anton Gill's entertaining biography, that there are more affairs that he can't be bothered to mention or discover in the life of this female Casanova. At some point, it suffices to repeat I art i /over A Biography of Cawlkh ' pia". .