Lives Lived: Deborah Baker on A Tale of Exile and Extremism, Rich Cohen on America’s Banana
Sunday, Nov. 18, 12:00 p.m., Room 8302 (Building 8, 3rd Floor)
Author(s) and Guest(s)
Deborah Baker
What drives a woman raised in a postwar New York City suburb to convert to Islam, abandon her country and Jewish faith, and embrace a life of permanent exile in Pakistan? Deborah Baker’s, The Convert: A Tale of Exile and Extremism (Graywolf Press, $15.00), a finalist for the National Book Award and a Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2011, tells the story of how Margaret Marcus of Larchmont became Maryam Jameelah of Lahore. “. . .conveys the instability, faith, politics, and improbable cultural migration that make [Maryam] Jameelah’s life story so difficult to sum up yet impossible to dismiss.” —The New York Times Book Review. Baker is the author of several highly regarded works of nonfiction, including In Extremis: The Life of Laura Riding and A Blue Hand: The Beats in India.
Rich Cohen
Rich Cohen’s historical profile, The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America’s Banana King (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $27.00) chronicles the ragsw-to-riches life of Samuel Zemurray, who started with nothing but a pile of rotten bananas and became one of the richest and most powerful men in the world. Known as El Amigo, the Gringo, or simply Z, the Banana Man lived one of the great untold stories of the last hundred years. “. . . a rollicking but brilliantly researched book about one of the most fascinating characters of the twentieth century.—Walter Isaacson. Cohen has written seven books, including Tough Jews, Israel Is Real, and the widely acclaimed memoir Sweet and Low.
John Glassie
A Man of Misconceptions: The Life of an Eccentric in an Age of Change (Riverhead, $26.95) by John Glassie, is the vivid, unconventional story of Athanasius Kircher, the legendary seventeenth-century priest-scientist who was either a great genius or a colossal crackpot –or a bit of both. From optics to music to magnetism to medicine, Kircher offered up inventions and theories for everything, and they made him famous across Europe. But a changing world and the rise of the scientific method would eventually lead to his downfall. “. . . leaves you contemplating the big questions, delightedly scratching your head, and laughing—all at the same time.”—Mark Kurlansky. Glassie, a former contributing editor to The New York Times Magazine, is the author of the photo book Bicycles Locked to Poles.
Karen Avrich
Paul Avrich was Professor of Russian History and Anarchism at Queens College. Before his death, Avrich asked his daughter, writer Karen Avrich, to complete his final work. Sasha and Emma: The Anarchist Odyssey of Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman (Harvard University Press, $35.00) is the result of their collaboration. In 1889 two Russian immigrants, Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, met in a coffee shop on the Lower East Side. Over the next fifty years Emma and Sasha would be fast friends, fleeting lovers, and loyal comrades. The dual biography offers an unprecedented glimpse into their intertwined lives and the lasting influence of the anarchist movement they shaped.
Schedule
Location
Miami Book Fair International * Miami Dade College
300 NE Second Ave., Miami, FL 33132
Room 8302 (Building 8, 3rd Floor)
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