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Arts & Entertainment

Mandell JCC Jewish Book Festival

Connecticut Bestsellers: Oppenheimer, Schine and Shapiro at Mandell JCC Jewish Book Festival, Thursday, January 20, 2011

 

The Mandell JCC’s 18th Annual Jewish Book Festival continues on Thursday, January 20, 2011 at 7:30 p.m. with a Connecticut Bestsellers Panel featuring state authors Mark Oppenheimer, Cathleen Schine and Dani Shapiro. The panel will be moderated by Hartford Courant Book Critic Carole Goldberg.

 Mark Oppenheimer, author of Wisenheimer: A Childhood Subject to Debate, writes a regular column on religion for The New York Times. He also writes for The New York Times Magazine, Slate, The Forward and Tablet, and is a frequent guest on NPR. The author of two previous books and a founding editor of The New Haven Review, Oppenheimer teaches English and political science at Yale University, where he is the director of the Yale Journalism Initiative.

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New York Times bestselling author Cathleen Schine is the author of The Three Weissmanns of Westport and seven other books. Her latest novel is a clever and warmhearted tale about love, life and the true meaning of family. The three Weissmann women -- Betty, with a 50-year marriage dissolving and her two daughters, Miranda and Annie -- move to a run down cottage in Westport and struggle with the dueling demands of romance and reason. Schine was dubbed "the modern Jewish Jane Austen" by People Magazine.

Dani Shapiro is the author of Devotion: A Memoir, a national bestseller that recounts how Shapiro combined Buddhism, yoga and the foundation of her Jewish forebears in a personally meaningful and spiritual practice. Devotion was one of O, The Oprah Magazine’s must-read picks in 2010 and a Today Show Best Book. Shapiro is the author of six other books and was the featured speaker at the Ninth Annual Connecticut Book Awards in September 2010.

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