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Tablet Studios

Summer Reading: Ep. 233

Tablet Studios

Tablet Magazine

Judaism, Society & Culture, Religion & Spirituality

4.6 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 25 June 2020

⏱️ 77 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week on Unorthodox, three books to add to your summer reading list. Our first guest is historian and U.C.L.A professor Sarah Abrevaya Stein, who is the author of Family Papers: A Sephardic Journey Through the Twentieth Century. She tells us how she pieced together the Levy family story across generations and continents through their correspondence, what this family's journey can teach us about the global Sephardic experience, and what the records we leave behind today might look like to future historians. Next we talk to David Sax, author of The Revenge of Analog: Real Things and Why They Matter and, most recently The Soul of an Entrepreneur: Work and Life Beyond the Startup Myth. He explains the value of analog products and ideas in today's tech-saturated climate, argues that true entrepreneurs aren't the Silicon Valley disrupters we read about in the news, and makes the case for entrepreneurship as an often necessary Jewish habit. Our final guest is Daniel Torday, who teaches creative writing at Bryn Mawr college and whose latest novel is BOOMER1, a tale of ageist angst taken to farcical and violent extremes. He tells us why our current cultural and economic moment is ripe for resentment towards Baby Boomers (Americans born roughly between 1946 and 1964), why intergenerational strife was such a compelling topic to take on, and what it's like to have his novel exist in the world alongside memes like 'OK Boomer.' Let us know what you think of the show! Email us at unorthodox@tabletmag.com or leave us a voicemail at (914) 570-4869. You can also record a voice memo on your smartphone and email it to us. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get new episodes, photos, and more. Join our Facebook group, and follow Unorthodox on Twitter and Instagram. Get your Unorthodox T-shirts, sweatshirts, and baby onesies here. Consider making a donation to Unorthodox. Sponsors: Masa Israel: Whether you’re interested in making a career change, volunteering, or just finding a new adventure, join young professionals from around the world and experience Israeli society first-hand through one of Masa Israel’s career development programs. If you or someone you know is looking to make next year meaningful and productive, visit masaisrael.org/unorthodox.

Transcript

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0:00.0

What better way to be proudly Jewish right now than with our book, the newest Jewish

0:06.2

Encyclopedia?

0:07.2

It's the perfect coffee table book for your proud Jewish home, and it covers everything

0:11.3

from Jewish history, pop culture, holidays, and of course food,

0:14.9

all with our trademark, irreverence, and love.

0:17.5

Our publisher is offering a special 20% discount on newest Jewish and their entire Hanukkah shop.

0:22.4

So head to Artisan Books.com

0:24.0

and use the code unorthodox at check out.

0:26.5

That's Artisan Books.

0:28.2

Discount code, unorthodox, all caps. by tablet deputy editor Stephanie Butnick. Hello.

0:43.4

And the editor at large, Leah Leibouitz.

0:46.2

Still large.

0:47.2

Still at and still large and still editing.

0:50.5

This week our version of a summer reading guide, we three author interviews all of them recorded long ago in a time and place far far away

0:57.8

But all still wonderful and all still about books that I highly recommend to you to take to the socially

1:04.9

distanced pool side or to read in your basement or wherever. Three options

1:10.2

okay I spoke on the phone with Daniel Torday, author of the novel Boomer One.

1:14.7

Boomer One is about the overthrow of the Boomer Generation.

1:17.3

It's kind of a dystopian novel that has to do with young people deciding that the old people

1:21.8

aren't retiring fast enough.

1:23.6

Also, Stephanie had a conversation with Sarah Abraviah Stein,

1:26.7

author of Family Papers, a Sephardic journey through the 20th century.

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