continued from page 12 jews d in the ANDREW YOUNG Local Authors Release New Books SUZANNE CHESSLER CONTRIBUTING WRITER Josh Malerman has gone beyond being a person of the book. Besides revealing himself as an avid reader and writer, he is also a singer-gui- tarist-composer who has arranged musical bookings to promote reading among young people. Malerman, author of the bestselling Bird Box: Don’ t Open Your Eyes that was adapted into a movie, has scheduled his band, The High Strung, in libraries. Band members talk about their favorite books and authors in breaks from the music. The fantasy/horror worlds of Stephen King, favor- ites of Malerman, have influenced his writing, most recently brought to the public with Inspection (Del Ray; $27), a tale about young people being trained as geniuses in two isolated northern Michigan schools — one for boys and one for girls. “The horror genre is so ripe for imagination,” Malerman, 43, has told the Jewish News. “A genre that enables writers to express whatever they want fits right in with my personality, which is free to imagine.” Malerman, who was bar mitzvahed at Temple Israel, is one of three authors with ties to Jewish Detroit introducing new books. Berl Falbaum, who often writes commentaries on current issues for the JN, has written a book based on his family’ s escape from the Nazis and on his journalism experience titled Recollections and Reflections: From a WWII Shanghai Ghetto to Journalism, Politics and Other Journeys Along the Way. Falbaum’ s recollections include his family’ s strug- gles in making a living in Shanghai before being able to enter the United States. They also span reporting years that included covering headline events for the Detroit News and move into teaching initiatives at Wayne State University. “I thought it was important to stay with stories that had historic importance,” says Falbaum, 80, who lives in West Bloomfield and is a member of Temple Israel. Half of sales proceeds from the memoir, his 10th book, will benefit EnPuzzlement, a Toledo organization providing help for those needing food, hygiene items and medical supplies. For a copy, visit sdbooksllc@ yahoo.com and Amazon.com. Aidan Wayne, a 2007 graduate of the Frankel Jewish Academy, spe- cializes in character-driven LGBTQ fiction and just released Play It Again through Carina Press. The story’ s main character, Dovid Rosenstein, a blind YouTuber, develops an emotional connection to an Irish YouTuber. Wayne, self-defined as nonbinary in the LGBTQ community, is intro- ducing this most recent published work, the eighth, in print, digital and audio formats through Amazon. “Using these different formats is very important to me because the main character is blind,” says Wayne, who lives in Oak Park and attended Wayne State University, majoring in media production. “It’ s a contemporary book that uses technology to showcase how relationships can evolve.” The author, 29, writes fulltime and works part- time in office management. During high school, Wayne volunteered for Friendship Circle as an older sibling to a child. “I wanted to showcase a character who was blind but not suffer- ing or overcoming something,” Wayne says. “It’ s about somebody who is blind, happy and successful. I write a lot about disabled and mentally-ill characters who have successful lives.” ■ Berl Falbaum Josh Malerman FACEBOOK Aidan Wayne CARINA PRESS featured three authors over three days. Attendance at the now eight-day festival is booming. Jaemi Loeb, senior director of cul- tural arts for the Jewish Community Center, said 2018 saw a 25 percent increase in atten- dance over the previous year. She acknowledges that sales at Book Fair have been declining as participants shop for the books they like online or buy e-books or audio versions. But Loeb is not concerned. “Our mission is to promote Jewish books and Jewish authors, which means that we feel that we have fulfilled that mission if people read the books we promote, even if they buy them somewhere else,” she said. And Book Fair offers what Amazon can’ t — an oppor- tunity to meet authors, hear what they have to say, ask questions and discuss the presen- tation with friends. This year’ s Book Fair is scheduled for Nov. 2-10. Bookstock grew out of the Brandeis Book Sale, a much-loved annual event that start- ed in 1961. By 2002, the local chapter of the Brandeis University National Women’ s Committee, which organized the sale, was struggling to attract members. Then Tel- Twelve Mall, where the sale was held, was redesigned with no enclosed space, and the Brandeis group called it quits. A year later, a group of women held a similar community book sale at Laurel Park Place in Livonia as a fundraiser for Hillel Day School. The project outgrew the ability of the Hillel volunteers to manage it, so the organizers invited other community groups, especially those with an interest in literacy, to have their own members volunteer. For every hour a volunteer works, he or she earns a share of the sales receipts for the partner organization. Bookstock’ s partners, which include Hadassah, ORT, NCJW, JVS and the Jewish Federation’ s Women’ s Philanthropy Department, provide hundreds of volun- teers who spend half the year collecting and sorting the books and a week selling them. Teen youth group members and day school students help shlep books out of donors’ cars and into the sorting center on Colossal Collection days, earning funds for their organizations. The sale alone involves more than 700 volunteers. Since 2003, Bookstock has raised more than $2 million for community literacy efforts, said Roz Blanck of Franklin, one of the founders. At this year’ s sale in April, Bookstock patrons snapped up more than 300,000 books and DVDs. Unsold inventory was donated to thrift stores. People love the Bookstock experience, said Blanck. There’ s the joy of finding a treasure you might not be looking for and the con- viviality of talking to book-loving volunteers and other patrons. The danger in shopping at places like Book Fair and Bookstock is adding yet more books to already full shelves. Those who do may be suffering from bibliomania — a love of books collected just to have — or a related condition the Japanese call tsundoku, acquir- ing many books with the intention of read- ing them later, even if you never do. ■ At last year’ s JCC Book Fair, author/entertainer Andy Cohen signs copies of his book. 14 May 30 • 2019 jn