23rd Edition of the Book Festival of the MJCCA Announces Complete Author Line-Up
November 1 through November 19
40+ Authors; Two Epic Weeks… Mark your calendars for one of our community’s most anticipated cultural events, the 23rd Edition of the Book Festival of the MJCCA, November 1 – 19, 2014. The Festival will feature works from this year’s most sought-after and talked-about authors, celebrities, and influencers. More than 10,000 visitors will enjoy engaging speaker programs, author meet-and-greets, book signings, panel discussions, The Family Reading Festival, the Esther G. Levine Community Read, The Eva and George Stern Lecture, and more. Most events will be held at the Marcus Jewish Community Center of Atlanta (MJCCA), 5342 Tilly Mill Road, Dunwoody. Purchase tickets: call 678.812.4005 or visit online at www.atlantajcc.org/bookfestival.
Book Festival of the MJCCA Co-Chairs
Book Festival Co-Chair Marcy Bass says, “For 19 days, we invite the community to meet these authors, and celebrate their contributions to Jewish and cultural life. From Pulitzer Prize winners and journalists, to historians and comedians, this Book Festival truly has something for everyone.”
Book Festival Co-Chair Susan Tourial added, “Each year, book lovers come from across the Southeast to our exciting, unique book programs. We are thrilled to bring authors from around the world and make them accessible to their readers.”
23rd Edition of the Book Festival of the MJCCA Authors (In order of appearance, as of press release date):
Saturday, November 1, 8:15 pm – (Member: $18 / Community: $24 / Premier: $50)
Opening Night
BOB SAGET, Dirty Daddy: The Chronicles of a Family Man Turned Filthy Comedian
Millions of viewers know and love Bob Saget from his role as the sweetly neurotic father on the smash hit Full House, and as the charming wisecracking host of America's Funniest Home Videos. And then there are the legions of fans who can't get enough of his scatological, out-of-his-mind stand-up routines, comedy specials, and outrageously profane performances in such shows as HBO's Entourage and How I Met Your Mother. In his bold and wildly entertaining publishing debut, Saget continues to embrace his dark side and gives readers the book they have long been waiting for—hilarious and often dirty.
ADULT HUMOR: FOR MATURE AUDIENCES ONLY! PLEASE, NO CHILDREN UNDER 18!
Sunday, November 2, 1:00 pm – (Member: $9 / Community: $14)
Oliver Horovitz, An American Caddie in St. Andrews: Growing Up, Girls, and Looping on the Old Course
Son of famed New York playwright Israel Horovitz and brother to Beastie Boy front man, Adam Horovitz, Ollie’s debut memoir is a hilarious, irresistible, behind-the-scenes peek at the world’s most celebrated golf course—and a coming of age tale that will be familiar to all who remember stumbling into adulthood and finding one’s place in the world.
Sunday, November 2, 3:30 pm – (Member: $9 / Community: $14)
One Program; Two Authors
- Kostya Kennedy, Pete Rose: An American Dilemma
Twenty-five years ago, Pete Rose was banished from baseball for gambling, then ruled ineligible for Cooperstown; today, the question, "Does Pete Rose belong in the Hall of Fame?" has evolved into perhaps the most provocative in sports. Kostya Kennedy, bestselling author and assistant managing editor of Sports Illustrated, delivers an evocative answer in his fascinating re-examination of Pete Rose's life; and asks the questions: do we feel any differently about Pete Rose today? Should we?
- LEO MAZZONE, Tales from the Mound
The new edition of Tales from the Mound reveals former Braves’ pitching coach, Leo Mazzone’s coaching philosophies and provides insight into his relationships with Braves pitchers, including Smoltz, Hall of Famers Maddux and Glavine, the combustible (and controversial) John Rocker, and the underdog2005 division championship team that beat all the odds. An assortment of stories and memories from the coach’s time on the Braves bench makes Tales from the Mound a must-read for any Braves fan - as well as for baseball fans across the country.
Sunday, November 2, 7:30 pm – (Member: $13 / Community: $18)
Mark Bittman, How to Cook Everything® Fast! A Better Way to Cook Great Food
Beloved New York Times columnist and award-winning cookbook author Mark Bittman has started a recipe revolution with How to Cook Everything Fast, the follow-up to his New York Times bestseller, How to Cook Everything. Here, Bittman shows how anyone can make 2,000 simple, incredibly flavorful dishes incredibly fast—in under 45, 30, even 15 minutes. The result is a truly easy-to-follow game plan for discovering an all-new repertoire of fantastic recipes and, most importantly, for becoming a faster cook.
Monday, November 3, 12:00 pm – (Member: $9 / Community: $14)
Joseph Berger, The Pious Ones: The World of Hasidism and Their Battles With America
As the population of ultra-Orthodox Jews in the United States increases to astonishing proportions, veteran New York Times Metro Editor Joseph Berger takes us inside the notoriously insular world of the Hasidim to explore their origins, beliefs, and struggles—and the social and political implications of their expanding presence in America. He analyzes the Hasidim’s codified lifestyle, revealing its fascinating secrets, complexities, and paradoxes.
Monday, November 4, 7:45 pm – (Member: $28/Community: $33/prices include book)
ANNA QUINDLEN, Still Life With Bread Crumbs (BOOK CLUB PICK)
Anna Quindlen, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake, Rise and Shine, and A Short Guide to a Happy Life, returns with a deeply moving and often very funny story of unexpected love. Still Life with Bread Crumbs is a story of the changing dimensions of a woman’s life and signifies a shift in Quindlen’s prose—a wry and often humorous perspective; and the topic, a love story with a happy ending!
Wine and Cheese pre-event Reception with Anna Quindlen for Book Club Members only, 6:30 – 7:30 pm.
Reception only: Member $20 / Community $25 -- Book Event & Reception: Member $40 / Community $45
Tuesday, November 4, 12:00 pm (Member: $9/Community: $14)
One Program; Two Authors
- Hank PhiLliPpi Ryan, Truth Be Told (BOOK CLUB PICK)
Truth Be Told, part of the bestselling Jane Ryland and Jake Brogan series by award-winning author Hank Phillippi Ryan, begins with a middle-class family evicted from their suburban home. In digging up the facts on this heartbreaking story—and on other foreclosures— reporter Ryland soon learns the truth behind a big-bucks scheme and the surprising players who will stop at nothing, including murder, to keep their goal a secret. Turns out, there’s more than one way to rob a bank.
- JULIA DAHL, Invisible City (BOOK CLUB PICK)
In her riveting debut, journalist Julia Dahl introduces a compelling new character, crime reporter Rebekah Roberts who is called to cover the story of a murdered Hasidic woman. She is shocked to learn that not only will the woman be buried without an autopsy, but her killer may get away with murder. Rebekah can’t let the story end there. But getting to the truth won’t be easy—and everyone she meets has a secret to keep from an outsider.
Tuesday, November 4, 7:30 pm (Member: $13/Community: $18)
SCOTT Cowen, The Inevitable City: The Resurgence of New Orleans and the Future of Urban American
After seven years of service as the president of Tulane University, Scott Cowen watched the devastation of his beloved New Orleans at the hands of Hurricane Katrina. When federal, state, and city officials couldn’t find their way to decisive action, Cowen, known for his gutsy leadership, quickly partnered with a coalition of civic, business, and nonprofit leaders looking to work around the old institutions to revitalize and transform New Orleans. The Inevitable City is the story of the resurgence and reinvention of one of America’s greatest cities.
Wednesday, November 5, 12:30 pm (Member: $9/Community: $14)
JONATHAN EIG, The Birth of the Pill
We know it simply as “the pill,” yet its genesis was anything but simple. Jonathan Eig’s masterful narrative is a grand story of radical feminist politics, scientific ingenuity, establishment opposition, and, ultimately, one of the most important scientific discoveries of the 20th century.
Wednesday, November 5, 6:30 pm (Member: $13/Community: $18)
LISA bloom, Suspicion Nation: The Inside Story of the Trayvon Martin Injustice and Why We Continue to Repeat It
What went wrong behind the scenes in the Trayvon Martin case? Why does America endure so many tragic shootings like this one? These are the questions at the heart bestselling author, trial attorney, and NBC News analyst Lisa Bloom’s bestselling book. Bloom exposes the injustice, conducting new in-depth interviews with key trial participants and digging deeper into the evidence. Suspicion Nation outlines the six biggest mistakes made by the state of Florida that guaranteed it would lose this “winnable case,” and the laws and biases that created the conditions for this tragedy.
Wednesday, November 5, 8:15 pm (Member: $13/Community: $18)
BOB MANKOFF, How About Never, Is Never Good For You?
People tell Bob Mankoff that as the cartoon editor of The New Yorker, he has the best job in the world. With the help of his funniest, most beloved cartoons, he traces his love of the craft, allowing us into the hallowed halls of The New Yorker to show us the soup-to-nuts process of cartoon creation, giving us a detailed look not only at his own work, but that of the other talented cartoonists. Throughout the book, we see his commitment to the motto, “Anything worth saying is worth saying funny.”
Thursday, November 6, 10:30 am (Free to the Community)
TIM TOWNSEND, Mission at Nuremberg: An American Army Chaplain and the Trial of the Nazis
Mission at Nuremberg is the gripping story of American Army chaplain Henry Gerecke, a Lutheran minister sent to save the souls of the 21 Nazis incarcerated at Nuremberg. Based on scrupulous research and first-hand accounts, including interviews with still-living participants, Townsend takes us inside the cells of the accused and the courtroom where they faced their crimes. This thought-provoking tale raises questions of faith, guilt, morality, vengeance, forgiveness, salvation, and the essence of humanity, and forces us to confront the ultimate moral question: Are some men so evil they are beyond redemption?
Thursday, November 6, 12:30 pm (Member: $9/Community: $14)
AYELET waldman, Love & Treasure (BOOK CLUB PICK)
Ayelet Waldman, New York Times bestselling author of Bad Mother, returns with Love & Treasure, a spellbinding new novel of woven around the fascinating, true history of the Hungarian Gold Train in World War II. Love and Treasure is a sad, funny, richly detailed work that poses hard questions about the value of precious things in a time when life itself has no value, and about the slenderest of chains that can bind us to the grief and passions of the past.
Thursday, November 6, 7:30 pm (Member: $13/Community: $18)
DR. EBEN ALEXANDER, The Map of Heaven: How Science, Religion, and Ordinary People Are Proving the Afterlife
The author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Proof of Heaven teams up with the sages of times past, modern scientists, and with ordinary people who have had profound spiritual experiences to show the reality of heaven and our true identities as spiritual beings. When Proof of Heaven was first published, some readers contacted Dr. Eben Alexander, a Harvard trained neurosurgeon, to argue that his near death experience was impossible. But many more wrote to say his story resonated with them in profound ways. Dr. Alexander has come to realize that sharing his story has allowed people to believe what so many in ancient times knew: there is more to life, and to the universe, than this single earthly life.
Friday, November 7, 12:00 pm (Member: $9/Community: $14)
SUSAN JANE GILMAN, The Ice Cream Queen of Orchard Street (BOOK CLUB PICK)
Named one of the top ten books of the summer by Publishers Weekly, The Ice Cream Queen of Orchard Street spans 70 years in the life of Russian immigrant, Lillian Dunkle, whose rise to fame and fortune begins with her childhood on the Lower East Side and takes the reader through a timeline of American history: Prohibition, World War II, and the disco days of Studio 54.
Saturday, November 8, 8:00 pm (Member: $18/Community: $24/Premier: $50)
Eva & George Stern Lecture (Presented in Loving Memory by Their Children & Grandchildren)
WALTER ISAACSON, The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution
Following his blockbuster biography of Steve Jobs, The Innovators is Walter Isaacson’s revealing story of the people who created the computer and the Internet. It is destined to be the standard history of the digital revolution and an indispensable guide to how innovation really happens.
What were the talents that allowed certain inventors and entrepreneurs to turn their visionary ideas into disruptive realities? What led to their creative leaps? Why did some succeed and others fail? In his masterly saga, Isaacson begins with Ada Lovelace, Lord Byron’s daughter, who pioneered computer programming in the 1840s. He explores the fascinating personalities that created our current digital revolution, how their minds worked, and what made them so inventive. It’s also a narrative of how their ability to collaborate and master the art of teamwork made them even more creative.
Walter Isaacson has been the chairman and CEO of CNN, and the editor of Time magazine. Isaacson is currently the president and CEO of the Aspen Institute, a nonpartisan educational and policy studies institute.
Sunday, November 9, 10:00 am – 1:00 pm (Member Child: $10/Community Child: $13, Parents free/Children six months old and younger free / Additional $3 per child when purchased on day of event.)
MJCCA’s Family Reading Festival - Presented by PJ Library® and the Atlanta Hawks®
- 11:00 am PJ LIBRARY SPOKESPERSON RICK RECHT IN CONCERT!
- KID CRAFTING WITH AMANDA KINGLOFF, author of Project Kid: 100 Ingenious Crafts for Family Fun
Join former Atlantan Amanda Kingloff for two fun crafting opportunities with your children. As the former Lifestyle Editor of Parents magazine, Amanda was asked to create and publish this fantastic book for crafty parents who’d like to show their children unexpected and ingenious ways to use everyday objects to create unique craft projects.
- APPEARANCES BY: The Atlanta Hawks Cheerleaders; Rabbi Gand the Shabbat Dinosaur; Mike “Stinger” Glenn, Atlanta Hawks Television Announcer and former NBA All-Star
- Featuring fun craft activities with these great books: RICK RECHT, Thank You for Me; DEBORAH ARONSON, Where’s My Tushy?; ERIC KIMMEL, Hanukkah Bear; BARBARA KRASNER, Golda Meir’s First Crusade; TRACEY NEWMAN, Shabbat Is Coming!; MYLES SHULMAN, Make the World Happy; and FELICIA VOLOSCHIN, Bernie’s Big Idea and The Rockin’ Gift Givers.
- In Sophie Hirsh Srochi Discovery Center, SHALOM BABY Presents STORYTELLING and PUPPET THEATER
- Meet Myles Shulman, the seven-year-old author of Make the World Happy.
- Visit the MJCCA’S Children’s Bank in the Fine Family Gallery and meet Author/local CPA Felicia Voloschin.
Sunday, November 9, 3:00 pm (Member: $9/Community: $14)
JOSH FATTAL, A Sliver of Light: Three Americans Imprisoned in Iran
In summer 2009, friends Shane Bauer, Joshua Fattal, and Sarah Shourd were hiking in Iraqi Kurdistan when they unknowingly crossed into Iran and were captured by a border patrol. Accused of espionage, the three Americans ultimately found themselves in Tehran’s infamous Evin Prison, where they discovered that pooling their strength of will and relying on each other were the only ways they could survive.
Sunday, November 9, 7:00 pm (Free to the Community)
7:00 pm Kristallnacht Commemoration
Please join Marlene and Abe Besser and Rabbi Brian Glusman at the beautiful Besser Memorial Holocaust Garden as we pay tribute to one of the most horrific nights in Jewish history, Kristallnacht.
Sunday, November 9, 7:45 pm (Member: $13/Community: $18)
RON SUSKIND, Life Animated: A Story of Sidekicks, Heroes, and Autism
In Conversation with CNN Senior Medical Correspondent Elizabeth Cohen / Presented by Lisa & Ron Brill
Imagine being trapped inside a Disney movie and having to learn about life mostly from animated characters dancing across a screen of color. A fantasy? A nightmare? This is the real-life story of Owen Suskind, the son of the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ron Suskind and his wife, Cornelia. An autistic boy who couldn't speak for years, Owen memorized dozens of Disney movies, turned them into a language to express love and loss, kinship, brotherhood. The family was forced to become animated characters, communicating with him in Disney dialogue and song; until they all emerge, together, revealing how, in darkness, we all literally need stories to survive.
Monday, November 10, 12:00 pm (Member: $9/Community: $14)
One Program; Two Authors
- ALYSON RICHMAN, The Garden of Letters (BOOK CLUB PICK)
Alyson Richman, bestselling author of The Lost Wife, has returned with another beautifully written novel set against the rich backdrop of World War II Italy, Garden of Letters captures the hope, suspense, and romance of an uncertain era, in an epic intertwining story of first love, great tragedy, and spectacular bravery.
- PAM JENOFF, The Winter Guest (BOOK CLUB PICK)
International bestselling author Pam Jenoff transports us back to 1940’s Poland and the early years of the Nazi invasion. Combining a dangerous and desperate romance with intense family drama, The Winter Guest, paints a harrowing depiction of life during World War II, as two sisters explore love, sacrifice, and the unbearable choices that threaten to tear them apart. As in her bestselling novels The Kommandant’s Girl and The Diplomat’s Wife, Pam Jenoff writes with an authority that is not found easily in historical fiction
Monday, November 10, 7:30 pm (Member: $18/Community: $24)
Presented in Part by Chabad of North Fulton; Given in Loving Memory of Rashi Minkowicz
RABBI JOSEPH TELUSHKIN, Rebbe: The Life and Teachings of Menachem M. Schneerson, the Most Influential Rabbi in Modern History
In this enlightening biography, Joseph Telushkin offers a captivating portrait of the late Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, a towering figure who saw beyond conventional boundaries to turn his movement, Chabad-Lubavitch, into one of the most dynamic and widespread organizations ever seen in the Jewish world. At once an incisive work of history and a compendium of Rabbi Schneerson's teachings, Rebbe is the definitive guide to understanding one of the most vital, intriguing figures of the last centuries.
Tuesday, November 11, 12:00 pm (Member: $9/Community: $14)
Geralyn Lucas, Then Came Life
From the author of Why I Wore Lipstick to My Mastectomy comes this brave, funny, and uplifting follow-up memoir that delivers the message: there is life after breast cancer. Then Came Life is a totally original response to life’s challenges that reminds readers to always find a way to turn the mundane in life into a miracle. With an infectious sense of empowerment and hilarious voice, Lucas has crafted a playbook for women everywhere to fall back in love with life. All women will recognize themselves in Lucas and her story about re-discovering the resilience, courage, and humor needed to reinvent yourself at every age.
Tuesday, November 11, 7:30 pm (Member: $13/Community: $18)
One Program; Two Authors -- THE ESTHER G. LEVINE COMMUNITY READ
- STEVEN PRESSMAN, 50 Children: One Ordinary American Couple's Extraordinary Rescue Mission into the Heart of Nazi Germany
Based on the acclaimed HBO documentary, this is the astonishing true story of how one American couple, Gilbert and Eleanor Kraus, the author’s grandparents, transported 50 Jewish children from Nazi-occupied Austria to America in 1939—the single largest group of unaccompanied refugee children allowed into the United States. Drawing from Eleanor Kraus's unpublished memoir, rare historical documents, and interviews with surviving children, 50 Children is a remarkable tale of personal courage and triumphant heroism.
(The HBO documentary, 50 Children, will be shown free of charge at 5:30 pm in the Morris & Rae Frank Theatre.)
- MARTIN GOLDSMITH, Alex’s Wake: A Voyage of Betrayal and a Journey of Remembrance
On May 13, 1939, the luxury liner SS St. Louis sailed away from Hamburg, Germany, bound for Havana, Cuba with more than 900 Jewish on board. Two of those refugees were Alex Goldschmidt and his son, Klaus Helmut Goldschmidt. After their trans-Atlantic voyage, they landed in France where they would spend the next three years in one French camp after another before being shipped to Auschwitz in 1942. Sixty-nine years later, Martin Goldsmith, Alex's grandson and Helmut's nephew, retraced their sad journey in this riveting memoir -- a compelling history of the voyage of the St. Louis.
Wednesday, November 12, 12:30 pm (Member: $9/Community: $14)
One Program; Two Authors
- EDDIE SHAPIRO, Nothing Like A Dame
In Nothing Like a Dame, theater journalist Eddie Shapiro interviews 20 Tony Award-winning leading women of Broadway, including Carol Channing, Chita Rivera, and Audra McDonald, stars who have spent the majority of their careers on Broadway. Each of these conversations is guided by Shapiro's expert knowledge of these women's careers, Broadway lore, and the details of famous (and infamous) musicals—this is a must for anyone who loves the theater.
BARBARA ISENBERG, Tradition! The Highly Improbable, Ultimately Triumphant Broadway-to-Hollywood Story of Fiddler on the Roof, The World's Most Beloved Musical
Published in celebration of Fiddler’s 50th anniversary, Tradition! is the book for everyone who loves Fiddler and can sing along with the original cast album. Award-winning journalist Barbara Isenberg interviewed the men and women behind the original production, the film and significant revivals-- to produce this lively, popular chronicle of the making of Fiddler.
Wednesday, November 12, 7:30 pm (Member: $18/Community: $24)
PATRON & SPONSOR NIGHT - Presented by Greenberg Traurig / In partnership with the Consulate General of Israel to the Southeast
DANIEL GORDIS, Menachem Begin: The Battle for Israel’s Soul
Reviled as a fascist demagogue by his great rival Ben-Gurion, venerated by Israel’s underclass, internationally admired as a statesman who became the first Israeli to win the Nobel Peace Prize, a proud Jew but not a conventionally religious one, Menachem Begin was a complex and controversial figure. Daniel Gordis’ definitive biography of the sixth prime minister of Israel that explains how the pre-state “terrorist” became the first Israeli leader to sign a peace treaty with an Arab country. In 2014, The Jerusalem Post listed him as one of the world’s 50 most influential Jews.
Thursday, November 13, 10:30 am (Free to the Community)
ILANA DANNEMAN, A Tale of Two Souls
What would you do if you found you were married to a man on an extreme religious journey? Cry? Laugh? Write a blog? Danneman did all the above and gained a very meaningful spiritual journey herself. Her book, based on stories from her viral blog, Married To a Yid, will give you an honest peek into the lifestyle of Orthodox Judaism.
Thursday, November 13, 12:30 pm (Member: $9/Community: $14)
One Program; Two Authors
- RABBI CHARLES SHERMAN, The Broken and the Whole
A wise, uplifting memoir about a rabbi’s search for understanding and his discovery of hope and joy after his young son, Eyal, suffered a catastrophic brain-stem stroke that left him a quadriplegic and dependent on a ventilator. The experience pointed Rabbi Sherman toward the answers to some of life’s biggest questions: To what lengths should parents go to protect their children? How can we maintain faith in God when tragedy occurs? Is it possible to experience joy alongside continuing heartbreak? The Broken and the Whole is a moving, affecting, and inspiring meditation on what it means to embrace life after everything you’ve known has been shattered to pieces.
MJCCA’s Main Street Gallery: Today, Eyal Sherman is 35 years old and has a degree in Fine Arts from Syracuse University. Eyal is a prolific artist, painting what he sees from his wheelchair. View Eyal’s paintings on Main Street throughout the month of November.
- REBECCA ALEXANDER, Not Fade Away: A Memoir of Senses Lost and Found
Born with the genetic disease, Usher Syndrome type III, Rebecca Alexander, sister of NBC White House Correspondent Peter Alexander, was told that she would likely be completely blind and deaf by age 30. Rebecca refused to lose her zest for life and her sense of humor. Now, at 35, with only a sliver of sight and significantly deteriorated hearing, she is a psychotherapist with two masters’ degrees from Columbia University, and an extreme athlete. Not Fade Away is a unique look at the obstacles we all face—physical, psychological, and philosophical—and an exquisite reminder to live each day to its fullest.
Thursday, November 13, 7:30 pm (Member: $13/Community: $18)
DR. EZEKIEL EMANUEL, Reinventing American Health Care
In Conversation with Gail Evans, Former CNN Executive Vice President
Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, a professor of medical ethics and health policy at the University of Pennsylvania who also served as a special adviser to the White House on health care reform, has written a brilliant diagnostic explanation of why health care in America has become such a divisive social issue, how money and medicine have their own—quite distinct—American story, and why reform has bedeviled presidents of the left and right for more than one hundred years. This is the definitive story of American health care today—its causes, consequences, and confusions
Friday, November 14, 12:00 pm (Member: $9/Community: $14)
One Program; Two Authors
- JOSHUA MAX FELDMAN, The Book of Jonah (BOOK CLUB PICK)
This major literary debut is Joshua Max Feldman’s brilliant retelling of the book of Jonah, and is an epic tale of love, failure, and unexpected faith. Jonah Jacobstein is a lucky man with a great life and a successful career. He’s celebrating a deal that will surely make him partner when a bizarre, unexpected biblical vision at a party changes everything.
- BORIS FISHMAN, A Replacement Life (BOOK CLUB PICK)
A singularly talented writer makes his literary debut with this provocative, soulful, and sometimes hilarious story of a failed journalist asked to do the unthinkable: Forge Holocaust-restitution claims for old Russian Jews in Brooklyn, New York. A Replacement Life is a dark, moving, and beautifully written novel about family, honor, and justice.
Saturday, November 15, 8:00 pm (Member: $18/Community: $24/Premier: $50)
ANDY COHEN, The Andy Cohen Diaries: A Deep Look at a Shallow Year
In Conversation With Mara Davis, Atlanta Media Personality
As a TV producer and host of the smash late night show, Watch What Happens Live, Andy Cohen has a front row seat to an exciting world not many get to see. In this dishy, detailed diary of one year in his life, Andy goes out on the town, drops names, hosts a ton of shows, becomes codependent with Real Housewives, makes trouble, calls his mom, drops some more names, and, while searching for love, finds it with a rescue dog. Inspired by the diaries of another celebrity-obsessed Andy (Warhol), this honest, irreverent, and laugh-out-loud funny book is a one-of-a-kind account of the whos and whats of pop culture in the 21st century.
Sunday, November 16, 12:00 pm (Member: $9/Community: $14)
KAI BIRD, The Good Spy: The Life and Death of Robert Ames
The Good Spy is Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Kai Bird’s compelling portrait of the remarkable life and death of one of the most important operatives in CIA history –Robert Ames -- a man who, had he not been killed in the 1983 American Embassy bombing in Beirut, might have helped heal the rift between Arabs and the West. This is a masterpiece-level narrative of the making of a CIA officer, a uniquely insightful history of twentieth-century conflict in the Middle East, and an absorbing account of the Beirut Embassy bombing.
Sunday, November 16, 3:00 pm (Member: $13/Community: $18)
In Conversation with Bestselling Author Pat Conroy
BERNIE SCHEIN, Famous All Over Town
In his fiction debut, Bernie Schein, a retired educator and one of the founders of The Paideia School, is featured in conversation with his editor and best friend, Pat Conroy. Schein, a first-rate southern storyteller, delivers a comically candid multigenerational account of two Jews, a low country native and a northern transplant, at the epicenter of momentous events in the sleepy southern coastal hamlet of Somerset, a fictitious stand-in for Schein’s native Beaufort, South Carolina.
Sunday, November 16, 6:30 pm (Member: $13/Community: $18)
CARL HOFFMAN, Savage Harvest
The mysterious disappearance of Michael Rockefeller in 1961 has kept the world guessing for years. Now, award-winning journalist Carl Hoffman uncovers startling new evidence that finally tells the full, astonishing story. Retracing Hoffman’s steps, Hoffman traveled to the jungles of New Guinea, immersing himself in a world of headhunters, cannibals, secret spirits, and customs.
Sunday, November 16, 8:15 pm (Member: $13/Community: $18)
DAN HARRIS, 10% Happier
Dan Harris, co-anchor of ABC News’ Nightline and the weekend edition of Good Morning America, had always believed the restless, relentless, impossible-to-satisfy voice in his head was one of his greatest assets. For a while, his strategy worked. Harris anchored national broadcasts; he covered wars. Then he made a series of poor decisions in his personal life that culminated in a televised panic attack in front of an audience of millions.
What happened next was completely unforeseen. Through a bizarre series of events, Harris discovered something that helped him tame the voice in his head: meditation. Written with candor and a wicked sense of humor, 10% Happier is a spiritual book written for, and by, someone who would otherwise never read a spiritual book. It is both a serious and a seriously funny look at mindfulness and meditation as the next big public health revolution.
Monday, November 17, 8:00 pm (Member: $13/Community: $18)
(AT THE TEMPLE, 589 Peachtree St NE, Atlanta, GA 30309)
MITCHELL BARD, Death to the Infidels: Radical Islam's War Against the Jews
For more than a century, much of the attention in the Middle East has focused on the Arab-Israeli conflict. The rise of Hamas has transformed the nature of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Mitchell Bard, executive director of the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise (AICE) and one of the leading authorities on US-Middle East policy, documents the growth of radical Islam in the Middle East and how, from the author's interpretation, it has transformed what had primarily been a political conflict into a one-sided religious war limiting the prospect for peace, particularly in Israel.
Wednesday, November 19, 7:30 pm (Member: $13/Community: $18)
Closing Night
TRACEY DAVIS, Sammy Davis Jr: A Personal Journey With My Father
Tracey Davis, the only daughter of legendary performer Sammy Davis Jr. and Swedish actress May Britt, presents this intimate memoir of her father who sang, danced, and acted for more than six decades. The entertainment icon’s story comes to life through rare family photos and a compelling narrative based on conversations between Sammy and Tracey.
Contact Information for the 23rd Edition of the Book Festival of the MJCCA
Interview requests/media inquiries: Contact Lora Sommer, MJCCA PR Manager, 678.812.4078, lora.sommer@atlantajcc.org.
Purchase Tickets/More Info: Click here, call the MJCCA Box Office at 678.812.4005, or visit on-line at
www.atlantajcc.org/bookfestival.