Thoughts From Home Isolation
Like most of the world at the moment, I’m also sitting at home biding my time until the threat to our health, liberty and economy ends. I don’t know about you, but I’ve been reading and I’m reminded that during the four years I spent travelling photographing the JEW project, I spent much of the down-time with a book. Some of it from a Jewish canon I collated ad hoc, on the hoof, so to speak. If you are interested, here’s the list.
Well wishes to all of you, at home
John
Letters To Auntie Fori by Martin Gilbert. A ninety year old acquaintance of Gilbert discovers she is not Indian, but Hungarian-Jewish. In these real letters he sent to her weekly, he sets out 5,000 years of Jewish history. It’s written in three parts, pre-history, modern history, and religion.
My Promised Land by Ari Shavit. Stories about the development of Israel, from Thomas Cook’s first steps on the beach with a group of 19th century tourists to the present day. Some of it makes harsh reading, some of it delightful.
Jerusalem by Simon Sebag Montefiori. A huge and detailed chronicle of a city fought over for millennia.
My Michael by Amos Oz. A sad and haunting trip through a troubled marriage in a troubled land.
Everything Is Illuminated, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, and Here I Am, by Jonathan Safran Foer. I loved each of these three books. They are whimsical and magical and thoughtful too. These novels make you laugh at the outset, tricking you into an easy comfort, then take you to a deeper darker place before they end.
The Hare With The Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal. Surely a staple by now. A short book about de Waal’s family told though beautiful things, history and how people’s lives are changed for ever by events.
The Plot Against America by Philip Roth. What might America look like with an anti-Semitic president? In this remarkable novel, Charles Lindbergh wins the 1940 election on a slogan of “America First”. Strange?
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