Search This Site
Recent Posts
Knopf Doubleday Info
- About Knopf Doubleday
- Contact Knopf Doubleday
- Knopf Doubleday Bookseller Center
- Knopf Doubleday Media Center
- Ordering Information
- Sitemap
Author Sites
- A L Kennedy
- A. S. Byatt
- Alexander McCall Smith
- Alexander Neubauer
- Amanda Smith
- Amy Greene
- Andre Agassi
- Andrea Wulf
- Ann Packer
- Anne C. Heller
- Anne Rice
- Anne Tyler
- Avi Steinberg
- Bret Easton Ellis
- Carl Hiaasen
- Carolina De Robertis
- Carolyn Burke
- Carolyn Cooke
- Christopher Reich
- Chuck Palahniuk
- Dan Brown
- David Allen Sibley
- David Shields
- Dianne Dixon
- Dominic Sandbrook
- Doulgas Starr
- Gish Jen
- Graeme Gibson
- Haruki Murakami
- Henning Mankell
- Howard Markel
- James Curtis
- James Ellroy
- Joan Nathan
- Joe R. Lansdale
- John Burdett
- John Casey
- John Darnton
- John Grisham
- Jon Krakauer
- Jonathan Coe
- Jonathan Lethem
- Julie Orringer
- Kate Buford
- Kevin Young
- Lee Sandlin
- Lorraine Adams
- Maeve Binchy
- Margaret Atwood
- Martin Clark
- Michael Feeney Callan
- Michael Harvey
- Michael Lindsay-Hogg
- Michael Rubens
- Pat Conroy
- Paul Shaffer
- Peter Mayle
- Richard Kluger
- Richard Schickel
- Rodney Crowell
- Simon Sebag Montefiore
- Stephen Budiansky
- Stephen L. Carter
- Stephen S. Hall
- Steve Yarbrough
- Stieg Larsson
- Sue Miller
- Susan Conley
- The India Site (Patrick French)
- Tom McCarthy
- Tom McGuane
- Tom Vanderbilt
- Vera Pavlova
- Vladimir Nabokov
Eight Days of Hanukkah Books from Pantheon and Schocken
It’s not too late to find some great Hanukkah gifts for your friends and family. From MetaMaus, an intimate look inside a modern classic, to a dramatic and revelatory biography of Israel’s founding father and first prime minister penned by Israel’s current president, we’ve got eight great books that we think you’re gonna love!
Kafka Gets His Own Metamorphosis With New Jackets
New Meir Shalev Now Onsale
Israeli author Meir Shalev’s charming tale of family ties, over-the-top housekeeping, and the sport of storytelling in Nahalal, Israel is now onsale. My Russian Grandmother and Her American Vacuum Cleaner: A Family Memoir (Schocken Books/October 6, 2011/$25).
“The Israeli author remembers his family matriarch’s love-hate affair with both dirt and her electric ’svieeperrrr.’” —O: The Oprah Magazine
“Shalev’s personal reflections of quirky uncles, family squabbles, the rich history of his Jewish heritage and the legacy of the omnipresent American vacuum touch the heart and tickle the funny bone. An unconventional and quite hilarious family scrapbook.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Tender, hilarious . . . quirky.” —Publishers Weekly
“Celebrates family, quirks and all.” —Booklist
More >
On Touring and Trash
Adina Hoffman and Peter Cole share a note from the road, on their book tour for Sacred Trash: The Lost and Found World of the Cairo Geniza.
More >
Sacred Trash, by Adina Hoffman and Peter Cole
The highly engaging story of the recovery of the Cairo Geniza, which is arguably the greatest discovery of Jewish manuscripts ever made. In Sacred Trash, Hoffman and Cole lead us into the richly textured Jewish world revealed by these manuscripts, as they also present the fascinating life stories of the modern scholars who devoted themselves to unearthing and studying the Geniza documents. The Geniza’s treasures—concealed for centuries behind a wall in one of Cairo’s oldest synagogues—reveal an entire civilization, and include personal letters and landmark poems, wills and marriage contracts, medical prescriptions, Bible fragments, money orders, children’s primers, and magical amulets. Presenting a panoramic view of nine hundred years of vibrant Mediterranean Judaism, Hoffman and Cole bring readers into the heart of this little known trove, whose contents have rightly been dubbed “the Living Sea Scrolls.”
“[Sacred Trash is] . . . a wonderfully passionate and lively account of a civilization we could not have imagined existed and of the men and women whose enthusiasm and dedication brought it to light.” —The Wall Street Journal
More >
The Eichmann Trial Now On Sale
Deborah Lipstadt’s The Eichmann Trial, “a thoughtfully researched and clearly written account of the courtroom proceedings and of the debates spurred by the trial” (Wall Street Journal), is now on sale from Schocken Books. The 50th anniversary of this first-ever-televised courtroom trial is coming up on April 11, and Lipstadt is making stops around the country to discuss this watershed anniversary of a trial that is still very much in minds today. Don’t miss her NYC events with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum on Tuesday, April 5 at the Puck Building (in conversation with Peter Alexander) and with the Center for Jewish History on Thursday, April 14 (in conversation with Gary Rosenblatt, co-sponsored by The Jewish Week and Nextbook). Watch Lipstadt discuss the Eichmann Trial, and don’t miss her on NPR Weekend All Things Considered with host Guy Raz (interview airing on 3/26 or 3/27).
More >
A Conversation With Altie Karper
Our very own Schocken celebrity Altie Karper speaks with David Green for a piece in Haaretz about the history of Schocken Books, what it’s like to work at Random House, and the Jerusalem International Book Fair, which she’s attending as an editorial fellow.
More >
Get the Most Out of Your eReader with The eBook Insider
Finding what to read next can be a difficult task. With that in mind, the editors here at KnopfDoubleday created the eBook Insider. Download it for free at your usual ebook retailer to find plenty of great suggestions or visit digital.knopfdoubleday.com for more information.
More >
Yehuda Halevi: National Jewish Book Award Winner!
This week, the National Jewish Book Award winners were announced and Hillel Halkin’s Yehuda Halevi snagged the Sephardic Culture: Mimi S. Frank Award in Memory of Becky Levy Award, and was a finalist for the Scholarship: Nahum M. Sarna Memorial Award.
Hillel Halkin’s work includes Letters to an American Jewish Friend; Across the Sabbath River: In Search of a Lost Tribe of Israel; A Strange Death; Grand Things to Write a Poem On: A Verse Autobiography of Shmuel Hanagid; and dozens of translations from Hebrew and Yiddish by major contemporary and classical authors. His political, cultural, and literary essays have appeared often in Commentary and The New Republic, and he has been a weekly columnist for The Jerusalem Post and The New York Sun. He lives in Israel.
More >
Hillel: If Not Now, When?
Buy: Amazon : Barnes and Noble : Borders : IndieBound : Random House
“What is hateful unto you, do not do unto your neighbor. That is the whole Torah, all the rest is commentary. Now, go and study.”
This is the most famous teaching of Hillel, one of the greatest rabbis of the Talmudic era. What makes it so extraordinary is that it was offered to a gentile seeking conversion. In Hillel: If Not Now, When?, Joseph Telushkin feels that this Talmudic story has great relevance for us today. At a time when religiosity is equated with ritual observance alone, when few Jews seem concerned with bringing Jewish teachings into the world, and when more than 40 percent of Jews intermarry, Judaism is in need of more of the openness that Hillel possessed two thousand years ago.
Hillel’s teachings, stories, and legal rulings can be found throughout the Talmud; many of them share his emphasis on ethical and moral living as an essential element in Jewish religious practice, including his citing the concept of tikkun olam (repairing the world) as a basis for modifying Jewish law. Perhaps the most prominent rabbi and teacher in the Land of Israel during the reign of Herod, Hillel may well have influenced Jesus, his junior by several decades. In a provocative analysis of both Judaism and Christianity, Telushkin reveals why Hillel’s teachings about ethics as God’s central demand and his willingness to encourage the process of conversion began to be ignored in favor of the stricter and less inclusive teachings of his rabbinic adversary, Shammai.
Here is a bold new look at an iconic religious leader.
About the author:
Joseph Telushkin is the author of sixteen books, including Jewish Literacy, The Book of Jewish Values, and A Code of Jewish Ethics, the first volume of which received a National Jewish Book Award in 2006. He is a Senior Associate of CAL, serves on the board of the Jewish Book Council, is the rabbi of the Synagogue for the Performing Art in Los Angeles, and lectures throughout the United States. He lives in New York City.
