Post­ed by Nao­mi Firestone-Teeter

The Jew­ish Book Coun­cil has spent the past few days at Jerusalem Inter­na­tion­al Book Fair and so, keep­ing with the Israel theme, we offer you two resources to fur­ther enhance your expe­ri­ence as a read­er of Israeli lit­er­a­ture both out­side of, and with­in, Israel. For any­one inter­est­ed in Israeli Fic­tion, check out the Jew­ish Agency for Israel’s Book Club Resources for Israeli Fic­tion at Fic­tion is Real (Fic​tion​Is​rael​.org). As the web­site explains, ​“you will find read­ing group guides to some of the most pop­u­lar, hip, and excit­ing works of Israeli lit­er­a­ture avail­able in Eng­lish today.” Fic­tion is Real cur­rent­ly fea­tures book club resources for the fol­low­ing titles:

City of Many Days by Shu­lamith Hareven
Tama­ra Walks on Water by Antho­ny Berris
Beau­fort by Ron Leshem
Feath­ers by Haim Be’er
The Lover by A.B. Yehoshua
The One Fac­ing Us by Ronit Mat­alon
Our Holo­caust by Amir Gut­fru­end
If you Awak­en Love by Emu­na Elon
Snap­shots by Michal Gov­rin
Bliss by Ronit Mat­alon
A Pigeon and a Boy by Meir Shalev
Woman in Jerusalem by A.B. Yehoshua
Acci­dents by Yael Hedaya
A Tale of Love and Dark­ness by Amos Oz
Some­one to Run With by David Gross­man
The Blue Moun­tain by Meir Shalev
Beth­le­hem Road Mur­der by Batya Gur
A Good Place for the Night: Sto­ries by Savy­on Liebrecht
The Place Will Com­fort You by Naa­ma Gold­stein
The Bus Dri­ver Who Want­ed to Be God by Etgar Keret
Adjust­ing Sights by Haim Saba­to
A Trum­pet in the Wadi by Sami Michael
The Dawn­ing of the Day by Haim Sabato

And, for those based in (or vis­it­ing) Israel, Evan Fal­l­en­berg, author of the crit­i­cal­ly acclaimed Light Fell (a Final­ist for the 2008 Nation­al Jew­ish Book Award for Fic­tion), has cre­at­ed The Stu­dio. The Stu­dio is a cen­ter for writ­ers and read­ers of Eng­lish. It is locat­ed in Bitan Aharon, just north of Netanya, Israel on the Coastal Road. Fal­l­en­berg offers a lit­er­ary series, as well as writ­ing work­shops. The 8‑evening series of lit­er­ary events will fea­ture the fol­low­ing writers:

* Thurs­day, Decem­ber 11: Matt Beynon Rees (the Omar Yussef Pales­tin­ian mys­tery series)
* Wednes­day, Jan­u­ary 7: Joan Lee­gant (An Hour in Par­adise)
* Sun­day, Jan­u­ary 25: Reva Mann (The Rabbi’s Daugh­ter)
* Wednes­day, Feb­ru­ary 18: Dorit Rabinyan (The Per­sian Bride,Strand of a Thou­sand Pearls, Our Wed­dings)
* Mon­day, March 16: Haim Watz­man (Com­pa­ny C: An American’s Life as a Cit­i­zen-Sol­dier in Israel, A Crack in the Earth: A Jour­ney Up Israel’s Rift Val­ley)
* Sun­day, April 5: Ron Leshem (Beau­fort)
* Thurs­day, May 7: Meir Shalev (A Pigeon and a Boy, The Blue Moun­tain, Esau, In the Begin­ning…)
* Tues­day, May 26: Tina Davis (book design; art books; children’s books)

The five work­shops offered through The Stu­dio include: Begin­ners, Cre­ative Non­fic­tion, Short Sto­ry, Screen­writ­ing, and Manuscripts.

For more infor­ma­tion on this excit­ing endeav­or, vis­it here.