arts & entertainment
People of the Books from page 57
Paula Shoyer: The Holiday Kosher
Baker (Sterling Publishing)
Shoyer offers a modern approach to
Jewish holiday baking that includes both
contemporary and traditional recipes,
more than 45 of which have been skillfully
tailored for Passover. Each holiday chapter
contains easy, one-bowl recipes, as well as
those that are fancier and involve multiple
steps. Recipes for low-sugar, gluten free,
vegan and nut-free treats are also included.
Leah Schapira and Victoria Dwek:
Kids Cooking Made Easy (Mesorah
Publications)
Sixty kosher fun recipes — from Pancake
Sandwiches to Everything Fish Sticks —with
easy-to follow instructions and pictures
aimed at getting kids cooking; the Cooking
School tip on each page teaches many tech-
niques, like how to simmer or saute.
FOR THE HISTORY BUFF
Arnie Bernstein: Swastika Nation: Fritz
Kuhn and the Rise and Fall of the German-
American Bund (St. Martin's Press)
The true story of a small but powerful
national movement determined to con-
quer the U.S. government with a fascist
dictatorship, and how an amalgamation
of politicians, a rising legal star, an ego-
charged newspaper columnist and deni-
zens of the criminal underworld utilized
their respective means and muscle to
bring down the movement and its dreams
of a United Reich States.
FOR THE ATTORNEY
Scott Turow: Identical (Grand Central
Publishing)
For his latest legal thriller, Turow draws
on the myth of Castor and Pollux, the twin
sons (one mortal and one immortal) of
Zeus. Identical tells the story of identical
twins Paul and Cass Giannis, whose future
is bright until Cass' girlfriend is murdered
and he goes to jail; 25 years later, with Paul
running for office, the case is re-examined.
FOR THE PSYCHIATRIST
Jack El-Hai: The Nazi and the
Psychiatrist: Herman Goring, Dr.
Douglas M. Kelley and a Fatal Meeting of
the Minds During World War II (Public
Affairs)
The author exposes the unusual rela-
tionship that took shape in a small cell in
1945 as a young American psychiatrist
is sent to assess the mental fitness of the
most prominent Nazi leader and his col-
leagues to stand trial at Nuremberg.
FOR THE BIG APPLE
AFICIONADO
Roger Rosenblatt: The Boy Detective
(Ecco)
Memories rise up during a wintry walk
through the Manhattan of his youth as the
former Time magazine columnist offers
up a valentine to the New York City of the
1950s and today.
FOR THE CELEBRITY
MEMOIR FAN
Billy Crystal: Still Foolin"Em: Where
I've Been, Where I'm Going, and Where
the Hell Are My Keys? (Henry Holt)
Thanks to Billy Crystal, turning 65 has
never been so funny; here, he looks back
What Might Have Been
I
Suzanne Chessler
Contributing Writer
eff Greenfield readily remembers
his first assignment as a TV politi-
cal analyst — covering the 1980
Republican convention in Detroit.
Over the decades since then, Greenfield
extended his topical analysis through books,
on occasion reverting to explorations of
what might have been.
His most recent text, If Kennedy Lived
(G.P. Putnam Sons), takes an imaginary
look into members of the Democratic Party
speculating on the actions and results of an
extended administration of John Fitzgerald
Kennedy.
The timing of publication coincides with
attention to the 50th anniversary of the
Kennedy assassination.
Greenfield's premises hinge on the possi-
bility of a change in the Dallas weather pre-
ceding the fatal shooting. If there were rain,
Greenfield suggests, a lifesaving bubbletop
might have been required on the car that
transported the president through the city.
60 November 21 • 2013
fig
on a storied life and career and explores
the absurdities of aging — with chapters
on insomnia, memory loss, senior sex and
more.
Henry Bushkin: Johnny Carson
(Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
Henry Bushkin, Carson's onetime lawyer
and best friend, was there at the apex of
the late-night host's reign and has writ-
ten a fascinating memoir of their 18 years
together — including the time Carson
sent flowers and a deli tray for the author's
father's shivah.
FOR THE BUSINESSPERSON
Judith Martin and Nicholas Ivor
Martin: Miss Manners' Mind Your
Business (W.W. Norton)
The Jewish etiquette maven and her son
come to the rescue of those dodging the
fraught etiquette pitfalls of the modern
workplace.
FOR THE POLITICO
Marc Leibovich: This Town: Two
Parties and a Funeral — Plus Plenty
of Valet Parking — in America's Gilded
Capital (Blue Rider Press)
The chief national correspondent for the
New York Times has written a frank, witty
and perceptive account of Washington's
permanent establishment — politicians,
(like Harry Reid and his Jewish-born
wife), journalists, lobbyists and hobby-
ists — and how it has become more self-
serving than ever.
Mark Halperin and John Heilemann:
Double Down: Game Change 2012
(Penguin Press)
The authors apply their storytelling to
the 2012 election, with a compelling nar-
rative about the Republican nomination,
the rise and fall of Mitt Romney, and the
trials, tribulations and electoral triumph of
Barack Obama.
FOR THE BIOGRAPHY BUFF
A. Scott Berg: Wilson (G.P. Putnam's
Sons)
The result of a decade of research and
writing by the Pulitzer Prize winning Berg,
Wilson reveals a portrait of the living,
breathing human being behind the myth
and legend of our 28th president, includ-
ing his complicated relationship with the
Jews.
Rachel Cohen: Bernard Berenson: A
Life in the Picture Trade (Yale University
Press)
Part of the Jewish Lives Series from Yale
University Press, this volume tackles the
story of the American art historian/con-
noisseur (1965-1959) who specialized in
Renaissance paintings and transformed
himself, financed by the Gilded Age art
market, while hiding his true identity as
the son of a poor Lithuanian Jewish immi-
grant family.
Berel Lang: Primo Levi (Yale
University Press)
The newest release from Yale's Jewish
Lives Series shines a light on the Italian
Holocaust survivor's role as a major intel-
lectual and literary figure.
FOR THE LETTER WRITER
Nigel Simeone, editor: The Leonard
Bernstein Letters (Yale University Press)
Author reimagines history if JFK had lived.
"Alternate
history is an
exercise I've also
done in the book
Then Everything
Changed,' says
Greenfield, 70, in
a phone conver-
sation from his
New York home.
"I've always been
fascinated by
how small twists
Jeff Greenfield
of fate can lead
to radically dif-
ferent results"
Greenfield suggests Kennedy would have
finessed the country out of escalated fight-
ing in Vietnam. That, the author says, would
have done away with the violence in youth
movements of the time.
"Plausible speculations require a lot of
research' says Greenfield, whose book
includes a section that documents founda-
tions for his conclusions.
As Greenfield developed his what-if ideas,
he considered other outcomes than the ones
put forth.
"I might
IF KENNEDY have
figured
LIVED
out a way
The First and
for George
Second Terms of
Romney, Mitt's
President
John F. Kennedy:
father and
AN ALTERNATE
the former
HISTORY
governor of
Michigan,
to win the
JEFF GREENFIELD
Republican
nomination
in 1964, says
Greenfield, currently out of routine televi-
sion work but writing a weekly column for
Yahoo! News as well as a novel.
"That would have made Kennedy's elec-
tion that much tougher and could have
made for a much shorter book by depriv-
ing me of the next four years of a Kennedy
presidency"
Another question Greenfield weighed
exploring was the impact of allegations
regarding Kennedy's infidelity. Greenfield
says he spoke to historians convinced that
any such scandals would have been cata-
MAIM EA loss rot
pir.sillensy. his
10017nal APOSPIlin,111A0/
his lile.
FIEAWHIN4
strophic because of the culture of the 1960s.
In another alternative history direction,
Greenfield says he would have wanted to ask
Kennedy how he was planning to deal with
Washington gridlock bottling up the late
president's domestic agenda.
Returning to reality Greenfield believes
that one important Kennedy achievement
involves making public service an exciting
option.
"In the book, when Kennedy doesn't go to
war in Vietnam, there are many more young
people deciding to join the Peace Corps, go
into domestic [service] and teach in poor
neighborhoods' Greenfield explains.
"Here was this attractive, wealthy, glam-
orous guy who was summoning people to
work somewhere for the public [good], and
I think that could have become even more
pronounced"
❑
FOR THE KENNEDY-PHILE
Thurston Clarke: JFK's Last
Hundred Days: The Transformation
of a Man and the Emergence of a
Great President (Penguin Group)
The author of the best-selling