The Russian Dreambook of Colour and Flight
This beautifully titled book is not for everyone, but it speaks to me. My day to day life may not be exciting, but at night I travel to other continents. My one complaint is that about once a month, I find myself just finishing a lovely trip in my dreams to some new, exotic place only to remember that I have a ticket for China and I’m neither packed, prepared, nor pleased. Perhaps because after visiting China in summer of 1982 when skies were blue, shirts were blue and cars were few, I’ve had my fill of that experience. I must say that our watchers in China were far more gracious and useful frequently returning lost objects to me, like my camera, compared to the Soviet followers lurking in the shadows who may have awaited my droppings for personal re-sale.
“…as a girl, she’d...
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Sorry to those of you who are moved by Leslie's review to borrow the book from the HCL. I took out the
kindle version and I'll re... Read More
Tuesday, 30 December 2014 18:57
Our book, Jewish Luck, delves into memories. And memories have a concrete existence in the "stuff" we choose to carry with us. Alisa preserves those memories on one floor of her home while another floor reflects a more modern Swedish decor. In her London apartment to which she commutes from Sweden, I'm guessing there is little from the past. When Vera moved to the Cayman Islands, she started fresh and created a home that reflects her new life. Both women like decorating a lot more than I do. Yet, I have an existential dilemma that has become a decorating dilemma. I’m a little worried that if I continue holding on to my memories in the form of "stuff", I will feel like an insect preserved in amber.
Harry and I enjoy a certain entropy in our home. It is a cozy and colorful setting for our lives. However, lately, it strikes... 
I tipped my worn sneakers as I lifted them from my suitcase, checking for grains of sand from the Tel Aviv Beach visited the day before. Proof. My memories were real and not a dream. Digging further down, I sniffed the zaatar (hyssop), sumac, dried apricots and dates for tea. In my mind, I am hearing bits of Hebrew conversation and a haunting melody of Min haMa’amakim (“From the Depths”) by Idan Raichel. Closing my eyes, I can see the vistas of flowering cacti, cedar groves, and rocky hills – pictures moving in and out of consciousness.
What did it feel like to go to Israel after 17 years? It felt like replenishing a part of my soul that I hadn’t realized had been empty. It felt like I was absorbing a vitality that nourished my cells.
Meryll and I made this trip to Israel to attend the wedding of our... 
Featuring: A Replacement Life by Boris Fishman (NY: Harper, 2014)* and Lena Finkle’s Magic Barrel – A Graphic Novel by Anya Ulinich (NY: Penguin, 2014).
If you want to read an authoritative high-brow book review on either of these books, hop to the New York Times Book Review where both books are highly touted. If you want to read a Midwesterner's account of how I connect to these books and how it relates to our book, Jewish Luck, keep reading.
These novels have something in common besides being extremely funny, well written, and, no doubt, somewhat autobiographical. Both are written by Soviet émigrés who came to the US at a young age. Boris Fishman arrived in New York City at age 9 from Minsk; however, his neighborhood in Brooklyn might better be named New Minsk. Anya Ulinich immigrated from Moscow to Arizona at age 17.
What better topic for these Americanized emigrés... 
