Frizz

Just had a lovely day.

Saw Agnes Varda’s Plages d’Agnes - a very eccentric, poetic and funny documentary about her life (if a little too long).  The only film I’ve seen at the festival this year.

Then this evening went to hear Toni Morrison talk about her new book A Mercy and American politics - how could she not.  She was warm, generous and funny.

I’m feeling privileged to have access to the thoughts and views of two wonderful, inspiring women.

This years Jewish Book Week sessions that I’m looking forward to and some, especially The Lost and In Search of Happiness I’ve been waiting for…

Spinoza and Secular Jewish Culture
The Lost: A Search for Six out of Six Million
The Clothes on Their Backs
Great Writers of the 20th Century: Isaiah Berlin
In Search of Happiness
In Praise of Diasporas
Mad, Bad and Sad: Women and the Mind Doctors

And I’m expecting friends to point out the ones I’ve missed.

No, not the end of the blog, but of Harry Potter. I read the last three books back to back and was all magic potions, jinxes and polyjuice.

That was a few weeks ago and since then I’ve ‘rediscovered’ books. I’ve read Marish Pessl’s Special Topics in Calamity Physics - fun, but not quite The Secret History promised on the back cover. Went back to Suite Francaise which was stunning and then reading all the info at the back sad and tragic. There seem to be lots of books I’ve started this year and not finished, so now I’ve started The Inheritance of Loss (I so love that title) again and whereas before I thought it was dense and hard to understand, now its beautiful and clever and witty and wise.

I just discovered The Book Depository, hadn’t heard of them before, but I found them through Amazon’s marketplace, so they must be OK, right? They are offering free delivery on any orders.

A website for Miranda July’s, forthcoming book of short stories No One Belongs Here More Than You - I like her sense of humour. July is an artist and filmmaker - she directed Me & You and Everyone We Know, which is a lovely indie film I’d recommend if you haven’t seen it yet. [via]

I’ve just discovered Dina Rabinovitch’s has written a post about chairing the Neuberger/Segal/Heschel discussion at Jewish Book Week, amusing behind the scenes take and she really did seem incredibly at ease, very Jonathan Freedlandish. Which led me to discover her blog Take Off Your Running Shoes, where she’s documenting life with breast cancer and the in’s and out’s of getting a book published and raising money for cancer research.

Sunday at Jewish Book Week.

A really wonderful session with Julia Neuberger, Lynne Segal and Susannah Heschel discussing the women’s movement and Judaism and so much more. I’d love to be in a classroom with Susannah Heschel even though it would be a challenge and she could (and did) go off into a language that I didn’t understand, a language of tradition that I have never learnt, but it would be expanding.

I was back for the evening sessions. The first was Judith Butler and Udi Aloni - Judith Butler, who D has been raving about since she saw the session was on, lived up to my subsequent high expectations. She’s a theorist and philosopher with a cult following - Bianca Jagger, Helena Kennedy and Lynne Segal were there amongst others.  Her new book Precarious Life deals with US policy since 9/11:

…And though for some, mourning can only be resolved through violence, it seems clear that violence only brings on more loss, and the failure to heed the claim of precarious life only leads, again and again, to the dry grief of an endless political rage…

I missed the beginning of Howard Jacobson and to be honest I found it hard to concentrate with my head still in the previous session, but Peter Florence did a great job and at any other time it would have been fascinating to hear about Jacobson’s childhood and the themes in his new book. And he has that ability to make an audience of 600 feel as if they are part of a small intimate group, a warm and cosy way to end the festival.

Thanks to D and M I have discovered Judith Butler and I’m reading Precarious Life: The Power of Mourning and Violence.

I have managed to get to Jewish Book Week a couple of times. Sunday there was Martin Amis and Christopher Hitchens; best friends thinking they were down the pub - it was funny and witty and intelligent. Even made me think I should read one of Amis’s books, which never seem to get beyond my ‘to read list’.

There was George Alagiah talking about English identity; he’d brought along some footage of himself as a kid with such a strong Sri Lankan accent and followed it with a clip of him reading the news, not a trace of that childhood accent left. Even a friend at university hadn’t realized he was Asian until Alagiah showed him some family photos.

I’m disappointed I didn’t get to Julia Kristeva in conversation with Eva Hoffman, maybe I’ll see if they filmed it.

And this evening it was Israeli culture - Avi Pitchon talked about being a European Jew who as an Israeli has been part of a Utopian experiment. Etgar Keret said as the child of Holocaust Survivors he has a running joke with his wife that he always managers to see swastikas wherever he travels. Then there was some Jewish Humour, which I mostly missed due to a rumbling stomach, but I came back in time to listen to Idit Eshel’s beautiful voice and laugh at Sophie Hannah’s very funny poems.

These days I actually know some people who go to Jewish Book Week which is still weird, but in between the people I do know, there are people who I can’t decide if I know, either they just remind me of people I know or they are people I don’t know in person at all I just believe I know them, because I’ve seen them on TV or read their blog or something and it’s all very confusing. I only narrowly avoided the embarrassment of saying hello to someone I definitely don’t know in ‘real’ life.

A reminder that Jewish Book Week starts this weekend.