PERSONAL INTERESTS
JEWISH STUFF
I am living proof that one can be English and a Jew simultaneously. (Yo azoy!)
I am fairly active in the Jewish community -- I'm a member of CONGREGATION SHOMREI TORAH in Santa Rosa, California and have served on the board of trustees of HILLEL OF SONOMA COUNTY -- the Jewish student organization -- since 1999.
The East London Synagogue, Stepney. My maternal
grandparents were married there on 25 December 1900. A couple of years ago, my sister and I visited to find that the building had been turned into flats. (Photo courtesy of Phil Walker and the Jewish East End Photo Gallery).
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AUDIO RECORDINGS
I make audio recordings of classic (i.e., mostly 19th-century) novels and release them on the Internet in mp3.
What a concept! And you can do it, too, through a volunteer organization called LIBRIVOX.
Using public domain recording software and a simple headset mic, we LIbriVoxers record books published in the USA before 1923 (and therefore out of copyright). Initially, I record and edit the texts as .wav files, and then export them as .mp3 files. A proof listener (mine is in Holland) checks for mistakes, and the resulting works are posted at the LibriVox and archive.org websites for all to download to their iPod or listen on line using Quicktime. LibriVox is a volunteer effort. No one gets paid. No one makes any money out of it.
A list of my recordings lives at this link or click on any of the links below and go straight to the recording.
THE BIG BOW MYSTERY by Israel Zangwill
It’s a cold and foggy night in London. A man is horribly murdered in his bedroom, the door locked and bolted on the inside. Scotland Yard is stumped. Yet the seemingly unsolvable case has, as Inspector Grodman says, 'one sublimely simple solution' that is revealed in a final chapter full of revelations and a shocking denouement.
THE KING OF SCHNORRERS by Israel Zangwill
Manasseh da Costa is a schnorrer (beggar) who lives on the charitable contributions of the Jews of late 18th-century London. But Manasseh is far from being a humble panhandler for, as every schnorrer knows, supporting the poor is a commandment from God (a mitzvah) not just a favour. As this hilarious satire concludes the ever-audacious Manasseh strikes a blow for tolerance—while helping himself along the way.
KIM by Rudyard Kipling
Kim is a fabulous adventure story set in India during the former British Empire. It tells the story of a street-wise but (in typical Kipling fashion) highly moral Anglo-Indian boy who becomes enmeshed in 'the Great Game' -– the competition between Britain and Russia for control over Asia. Taking time off from his role as the traveling companion of an aged Tibetan lama, the boy is trained as a spy, matches wits with various evildoers, and wins out in the end.
TREASURE ISLAND by Robert Louis Stevenson
A mysterious map, pirates, and pieces of eight! When young Jim Hawkins finds a map to pirates’ gold he starts on an adventure that takes him from his English village to a desert island with the murderous Black Dog, half-mad Ben Gunn, and (of course) Long John Silver. Arr Jim lad!
THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS by Lewis Carroll
The sequel to “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” finds Alice back in Wonderland and a pawn in a surreal chess game. This weird and wonderful book includes the poem 'Jabberwocky,' a talking pudding, and that immortal line 'Jam yesterday, jam tomorrow, but never jam today.'
THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS by Kenneth Grahame
The classic story of how Rat, Mole, and the other river-bankers saved Toad from his excesses. This book has it all: excitement, sentiment, destruction of private property (plenty of that), paganism, and a happy ending. Written as a children’s story, "The Wind in the Willows" is enjoyed by many grown-ups who relish Grahame’s ability to evoke the long summer days of childhood.
REUBEN SACHS: A SKETCH by Amy Levy
Repelled by contemporary literature's anti-Semitic stereotypes as well as the occasional idealized Jewish paragon (e.g., Daniel Deronda), Amy Levy wrote what she felt to be an honest, warts-and-all account of middle class Jewish life in late-19th century London.
JEWISH CHILDREN (Yudishe Kinder) by Sholem Aleichem
Although written from a child's perspective, this is not a kids book but a series of funny, poignant, and sometimes disturbing stories concerning life in a Russian-Jewish village in the 1890s -- the world of my grandparents. Some portions of this book may be too intense for younger children.
SIDDHARTHA by Herman Hesse
Siddhartha is one of the great philosophical novels. Profoundly insightful, it is also a beautifully written story that begins as Siddhartha, son of an Indian Brahman, leaves his family and begins a lifelong journey towards Enlightenment.
THE THIRTY-NINE STEPS by John Buchan
Great adventure story. Richard Hannay is caught up in a web of secret codes, spies, and murder on the eve of WWI. This exciting tale was the inspiration for Alfred Hitchcock’s classic film of the same name.
TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES by Thomas Hardy
One of the greatest English tragic novels, TESS (1891) is the story of a “pure woman” who is victimized both by conventional morality and its antithesis.
JIMBO by Algernon Blackwood (I'm in the process of recording this one)
Unsettling story of a boy's strange experiences in an unoccupied house where he meets Fear itself...
