Entries Tagged 'Thoughts on writing' ↓

  I need a corned beef sandwich, on rye, with cole slaw and Russian dressing — now!

I just finished reading an advanced copy of David Sax’s marvelous book, “Save the Deli: In Search of Perfect Pastrami, Crusty Rye, and the Heart of Jewish Delicatessen,” and now I can’t shake my hankering for my favorite food on earth. And just in time for Rosh Hashanah!

Sax makes for a marvelous tour guide through the highs and lows of Jewish deli, in North America and Europe. He’s got me desperate to make pilgrimmages to Los Angeles and Montreal, and happy that I live nowhere near Florida. I know my next trip to New York will feature a run to Katz’s - always mandatory anyway, but now even more so after the hilarious scene where Sax gets to work a shift at the counter, slicing meat with the pros.

Sax inspires hope with all the examples of successful delis, as well as despair at the difficulty of keeping them open. The section on Warsaw is heartbreaking — the birthplace of Jewish cuisine is now devoid of Jews, and people keep the tradition alive like white Westerners trying to keep Indian culture alive. And it is here that Sax unearths the real culprit in the decline of deli: the extermination of Jews in the Holocaust, which wiped out the creators and consumers of this cuisine.

The book can be pre-ordered in the U.S. here — can I put in a plug for Powell’s or another independent book-seller?

Sax will be in San Francisco, reading from the book at Book Passage in the Ferry Building at 6 p.m. on Oct. 26.

I had a great experience this week hearing two inspirational friends of mine read from their new books. They both dug into an area of personal interest and wound up illuminating a fascinating history that can teach us all something important.

Frances Dinkelspiel started looking into her family history, and found 50 boxes of papers at the California Historical Society. It turns out her great-great-grandfather — a Jewish immigrant — was a pivotal figure in building California’s economy, yet was so behind-the-scenes that he had been lost to history. She now has a great book out about him: “Towers of Gold: How One Jewish Immigrant Named Isaias Hellman Created California.” 
 
Her web site is www.francesdinkelspiel.com. (She also writes a great blog on the Bay Area book scene.)
 
She’s speaking Saturday in San Marino and Long Beach, and Dec. 2 in NY at Congregation Shearith Israel. then at numerous Bay Area events Dec. 2 and onward (including Temple Emanu-el Friday Dec. 5) and Dec. 11 and 12 at Metropolis Books and Congregation Kol Tikvah in LA. 
 
And Jonathan Curiel, a Chronicle reporter and former colleague, told the fascinating tale of how the Islamic world has influenced so many things in modern culture that so few people realize, from the Alamo to blues music to, ironically, the World Trade Center.

 Jonathan’s book, “Al’ America: Travels Through America’s Arab and Islamic Roots,” is a great read about an important but little-known topic. His Web site is www.jonathancuriel.com and he has readings coming up Dec. 7 and 8 in the Washington, DC area.

Way to go, Frances and Jonathan!

As a writer, length has always been important. As a newspaper reporter, I tended to write long stories, trying to cram in every detail I had gathered. As a freelance writer, I’m frequently paid by the word. I love long-form journalism, and am enjoying writing for magazines and dreaming up book projects.

 Yet I struggle with the notion that longer is not always better. Mark Twain summed this up in an epistle: “I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.” Editing takes extra effort.

 Now comes proof, in several delicious forms.

First was a story by Motoko Rich in the New York Times last month, about how Raymond Carver’s widow Tess Gallagher wants to publish the original versions of some of his marvelously minimalist short stories. These versions reveal that Carver wasn’t always so economical with language, and his editor stripped out entire sections, imbuing them with the ambiguity that made them so intriguing.

Almost immediately thereafter, Adam Gopnik in the New Yorker wrote a fascinating piece on how the British publisher Orion is releasing new, heavily edited versions of old classics.

The subtraction does not turn a good work into hackwork; it turns a hysterical, half-mad masterpiece into a sound, sane book. It is all Dick and no Moby.

 And  today, in the Times, David Carr extolls the virtues of The Week, Felix Dennis’s weekly magazine that summarizes the long stories published elsewhere in favor so that busy readers can know what’s in the news.

Yet shortening a lengthy work is not always an improvement. And I was reminded of that as I put together this post, and looked up Gopnik’s piece online. The piece is not there, but an abstract is.