AND SO IS THE BUS

Name: AND SO IS THE BUS
Author: Yossel Birstein
ISBN: 978-1-928755-23-4

by Yossel Birstein ; translated by Margaret Birstein & Hana Inbar & Robert Manaster ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 16, 2016

You might strain to see the world in Blake's grain of sand, but you see Birstein's world with clarity in a short hop aboard...

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An anthology of evocative stories—fortified with beguiling asides, full of unforgettable absurdities—collected on bus rides through Jerusalem.

The spate of Jerusalem violence that began last fall prompted grave warnings to stay away from the city's buses, but it is those very conveyances, plying streets with formidable names like Kings of Israel and Prophet Isaiah, that provide the movement in this brisk little volume. Some men walk the streets of Paris' Left Bank but Birstein rides the buses of Jerusalem, harvesting stories and then serving them up in bite-sized morsels, sometimes comprising as few as three pages. The result is a bus-level view of one of the most vibrant and violent cities in the world: crossroads of faith, trade, passion, and politics, all played out amid the most pungent smells on Earth. But in this winsome collection—populated by his seatmates, the mad, the maddening, the misanthropic, and the just plain miserable—the pungency comes from the people, not the spice bins of the souk. One of them yells an insult from Genesis, another speaks fondly of his prosthetic leg from Russia, a third keeps a postcard close to her bosom. And when Birstein tells us that ''the outside between neighborhoods wasn't standing still,'' he's not only speaking of the illusions prompted by motion—for illusions are at the very heart of this book—but he's also presenting us with a Jerusalem metaphor with muscle. Birstein once met a man who, in the time it took for the traffic light to turn from red to green, told him his whole life story—so it is no surprise that so much emerges from simple one-way bus rides.

You might strain to see the world in Blake's grain of sand, but you see Birstein's world with clarity in a short hop aboard a Jerusalem bus.

Pub Date: Feb. 16, 2016

ISBN: 978-1-928755-23-4

Page Count: 148

Publisher: Dryad Press

Review Posted Online: Dec. 9, 2015

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2015

Categories:

RELIGIOUS FICTION

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THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS

by C.S. Lewis ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 1942

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These letters from some important executive Down Below, to one of the junior devils here on earth, whose job is to corrupt mortals, are witty and written in a breezy style seldom found in religious literature. The author quotes Luther, who said: "The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn." This the author does most successfully, for by presenting some of our modern and not-so-modern beliefs as emanating from the devil's headquarters, he succeeds in making his reader feel like an ass for ever having believed in such ideas. This kind of presentation gives the author a tremendous advantage over the reader, however, for the more timid reader may feel a sense of guilt after putting down this book. It is a clever book, and for the clever reader, rather than the too-earnest soul.

Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1942

ISBN: 0060652934

Page Count: 53

Publisher: Macmillan

Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1943

Categories:

RELIGIOUS FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
ALL MY ROAD BEFORE ME
by C.S. Lewis

- BOOK REVIEW
PRESENT CONCERNS
by C.S. Lewis

- BOOK REVIEW
BOXEN
by C.S. Lewis

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THE DOVEKEEPERS

by Alice Hoffman ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 4, 2011

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Hoffman (The Red Garden, 2011, etc.) births literature from tragedy: the destruction of Jerusalem's Temple, the siege of Masada and the loss of Zion.

This is a feminist tale, a story of strong, intelligent women wedded to destiny by love and sacrifice. Told in four parts, the first comes from Yael, daughter of Yosef bar Elhanan, a Sicarii Zealot assassin, rejected by her father because of her mother's death in childbirth. It is 70 CE, and the Temple is destroyed. Yael, her father, and another Sicarii assassin, Jachim ben Simon, and his family flee Jerusalem. Hoffman's research renders the ancient world real as the group treks into Judea's desert, where they encounter Essenes, search for sustenance and burn under the sun. There too Jachim and Yael begin a tragic love affair. At Masada, Yael is sent to work in the dovecote, gathering eggs and fertilizer. She meets Shirah, her daughters, and Revka, who narrates part two. Revka's husband was killed when Romans sacked their village. Later, her daughter was murdered. At Masada, caring for grandsons turned mute by tragedy, Revka worries over her scholarly son-in-law, Yoav, now consumed by vengeance. Aziza, daughter of Shirah, carries the story onward. Born out of wedlock, Aziza grew up in Moab, among the people of the blue tunic. Her passion and curse is that she was raised as a warrior by her foster father. In part four, Shirah tells of her Alexandrian youth, the cherished daughter of a consort of the high priests. Shirah is a keshaphim, a woman of amulets, spells and medicine, and a woman connected to Shechinah, the feminine aspect of God. The women are irretrievably bound to Eleazar ben Ya'ir, Masada's charismatic leader; Amram, Yael's brother; and Yoav, Aziza's companion and protector in battle. The plot is intriguingly complex, with only a single element unresolved. An enthralling tale rendered with consummate literary skill.