The Rady JCC has teamed up with the JCC Literary Consortium to bring dozens of the most popular and talented authors working today right into your living room through the Book Festival of the MJCCA.
We invite you to join us for numerous events running now through mid-November and to be inspired and educated by the stories and ideas of several great authors, all while supporting the Rady JCC. Half of the profits from each ticket purchase will be shared with the Rady JCC and support Jewish life in our community.
Pre-Registration is required for all events. Please see the list of events below and register today.
All presentations are live via ZOOM. Click HERE to access the Zoom Questions and Answers page
Wednesday, September 30 | 7:00 pm (Wpg Time)
Book Fest In Your Living Room Presents
DEEPAK CHOPRA, Total Meditation: Practices In Living the Awakened Life
With guest host Nadia Bilchik, CNN Editorial Producer
ZOOM Webinar Author Talk + Q & A
Tickets: $39 (CAD) includes one signed copy of book (includes shipping)
REGISTER & MORE INFORMATION HERE
“Meditation is not a way of making your mind quiet. It is a way of entering into the quiet that is already there.”
For the last thirty years, Deepak Chopra has been at the forefront of the meditation revolution in the West. His new book Total Meditation offers a complete exploration and reinterpretation of the physical, mental, emotional, relational, and spiritual benefits that this practice can bring. Join New York Times bestselling author Deepak Chopra as he guides you on how to wake up to new levels of awareness that will ultimately cultivate a clear vision, heal suffering in your mind and body, and help recover who you really are.
Dr. Chopra will be leading a short meditation.
DEEPAK CHOPRA MD, FACP, founder of The Chopra Foundation, a non-profit entity for research on well-being and humanitarianism, and Chopra Global, a modern-day health company at the intersection of science and spirituality, is a world-renowned pioneer in integrative medicine and personal transformation. He is the author of 90 books translated into over forty-three languages, including numerous New York Times bestsellers. Chopra is a Clinical Professor of Family Medicine and Public Health at the University of California, San Diego. TIME magazine has described Dr. Chopra as “one of the top 100 heroes and icons of the century.” https://www.deepakchopra.com/
Thursday, October 15 | 7:00 pm (Wpg Time)
Book Fest In Your Living Room Presents
Steve Madden, The Cobbler: How I Disrupted an Industry, Fell from Grace, and Came Back Stronger Than Ever
In conversation with Holly Firfer, CNN Journalist
ZOOM Webinar Author Talk + Q & A
Tickets: $14 (CAD) for one virtual ticket or $42 (CAD) for one virtual ticket and copy of book (includes shipping)
REGISTER & MORE INFORMATION HERE
Everyone knows Steve Madden’s name and his shoes, but few are familiar with his story. Over the past thirty years Steve Madden has taken his eponymous shoe company from the fledgling start-up he founded with a mere $1,100 to a global, multi-billion-dollar brand. But Madden’s mistakes, from his battle with addiction to the financial shortcuts that landed him in prison, are as important to his story as his most iconic shoes. In this raw, intimate, and ultimately inspiring book, Madden holds nothing back as he shares what it took to get here and the lessons he’s learned along the way.
Steven Madden is an entrepreneur, an award-winning designer, and a business titan whose eponymous company is currently worth 3 billion dollars. On the flip side, he is an ex-con, a recovering addict, and a devoted family man. Considered the fashion footwear mogul of the 21st century, Madden has an innate sense of what’s hot, what’s next, what’s exciting, and more importantly, how this will translate to the customer. He is also an active philanthropist and mentor who supports a number of organizations that help those in need of a second chance.
Thursday, October 22 | 7:00 pm (Wpg Time)
Book Fest In Your Living Room Presents
Judy Gold, Yes, I Can Say That: When They Come for the Comedians, We Are All In Trouble
In Conversation with Mara Davis, Local Media Personality
ZOOM Webinar Author Talk + Q & A
Tickets: $14 (CAD) for one virtual ticket or $35 (CAD) for one virtual ticket and copy of book (includes shipping)
REGISTER & MORE INFORMATION HERE
In Yes I Can Say That, comedy veteran Judy Gold argues that “no one has the right to tell comics what they can or cannot joke about…. Laughter is a unifier. It’s the best medicine…” For Gold, nothing is more insidious than enforcing silence and repressing jokes—the job of a comedian is to expose society’s demons, and confront them head-on, no prisoners allowed. In ten impassioned polemics, she frames comedy as a tool of empowerment, a way to reclaim hateful rhetoric and battle the democracy-crushing plight of censorship.
Judy Gold is an American standup comedian, actress, television writer, and producer. She won two Daytime Emmy Awards for her work as a writer and producer on The Rosie O’Donnell Show, and has starred in comedy specials on HBO, Comedy Central, and Logo. She has also written and starred in two critically acclaimed, Off-Broadway hit shows: The Judy Show―My Life as a Sitcom and 25 Questions for a Jewish Mother (which she performed in the MJCCA’s Morris And Rae Frank Theater. She is currently the host of the hit podcast Kill Me Now.
Sunday, November 8 | 12:00 pm (Wpg Time)
Book Fest In Your Living Room Presents
Natan Sharansky and Gil Troy, Never Alone
ZOOM Webinar Author Talk + Q & A
Tickets: $8 (CAD) for one virtual ticket or $45 (CAD) for one virtual ticket and copy of book (includes shipping)
REGISTER & MORE INFORMATION HERE
Never Alone is a classic account of courage, integrity and belonging. In 1977, Natan Sharansky, a leading activist for the democratic dissident movement in the Soviet Union and the movement for free Jewish emigration, was arrested. He spent nine years as a political prisoner, convicted of treason against the state. In Never Alone, Natan Sharansky and historian Gil Troy show how Sharansky’s years in prison, many spent in harsh solitary confinement, prepared him for his public life, bringing extraordinary moral clarity and uncompromising honesty to his work as an Israeli politician and the head of the Jewish Agency.
Natan Sharansky is an Israeli politician, human rights activist and author. He served as Chairman of the Executive of the Jewish Agency from June 2009 to August 2018.
Gil Troy is the award-winning author of “The Age of Clinton: America in the 1990s” which will be published this October by Thomas Dunne Books of St. Martin׳s Press. A Professor of History at McGill University since 1990, he is a leading presidential historian, writing about the history of American presidential elections, the importance of moderation in American democracy, and Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s fight as US Ambassador to the UN against the infamous Zionism is Racism resolution.
Sunday, November 8 | 12:00 pm (Wpg Time)
Book Fest In Your Living Room Presents
Joan Lunden, Why Did I Come Into This Room? A Candid Conversation About Aging
In Conversation with Holly Firfer, CNN Journalist
ZOOM Webinar Author Talk + Q & A
Tickets: $14 (CAD) for one event ticket or $44 (CAD) for one event ticket and copy of book (includes shipping)
REGISTER & MORE INFORMATION HERE
A funny “What to Expect When You’re Expecting” for the aging woman, acclaimed journalist and Baby Boomer Joan Lunden delves into various phases of aging in her most candid and revealing book yet. Lunden takes the dull and depressing out of aging, replacing it with wit and humor. Whether you’re in your 40s, 50s, 60s, or more, this book is full of helpful information. Lunden goes where others fear to tread, openly sharing her anxieties and breakthroughs and how she’s coping with the realities of aging.
An award-winning journalist, bestselling author, motivational speaker, and women’s health & wellness advocate, Joan Lunden has been a trusted voice in American homes for more than 30 years. For nearly two decades, Lunden greeted viewers each morning on Good Morning America bringing insight to the day’s top stories. As the longest-running female host ever on early morning television, Lunden reported from 26 countries, covered 5 presidents, 5 Olympics, and kept Americans up to date on how to care for their homes, their families, and their health.
Monday, November 9 | 7:00 pm (Wpg Time)
Book Fest In Your Living Room Presents
Esther Safran Foer, I Want You to Know We’re Still Here: A Post Holocaust Memoir
In conversation with one of her sons — TBD
Opens with Kristallnacht Commemoration — Rabbi Brian Glusman
Tickets: Free virtual ticket or one virtual ticket and one copy of book for $43 (CAN) (includes shipping)
REGISTER & MORE INFORMATION HERE
Esther Safran Foer grew up in a home where the past was too terrible to speak of. The child of parents who were each the sole survivors of their respective families, for Esther the Holocaust loomed in the backdrop of daily life, felt but never discussed. The result was a childhood marked by painful silences and continued tragedy. Even as she built a successful career, married, and raised three children, Esther felt herself searching. When Esther’s mother casually mentions an astonishing revelation—that her father had a previous wife and daughter, both killed in the Holocaust—Esther resolves to find out who they were, and how her father survived.
Esther Safran Foer was the CEO of Sixth & I, a center for arts, ideas, and religion. She lives in Washington, D.C., with her husband, Bert. They are the parents of Franklin, Jonathan, and Joshua, and the grandparents of six. According to Jeffrey Goldberg, editor in chief of The Atlantic, “Esther Safran Foer is a force of nature: a leader of the Jewish people, the matriarch of America’s leading literary family, an eloquent defender of the proposition that memory matters. And now, a riveting memoirist.”
Tuesday, November 10 | 12:00 pm (Wpg Time)
Book Fest In Your Living Room Presents
In Conversation with Andrea Peskind Katz
ZOOM Webinar Author Talk + Q & A
Tickets: $8 or $31 (CAD) for one virtual ticket and copy of book (includes shipping)
REGISTER & MORE INFORMATION HERE
Rachel Beanland, Florence Adler Swims Forever: A Novel
Atlantic City, 1934. Renting their house to summer vacationers, Esther and Joseph Adler move into the cramped apartment above their bakery. Now one daughter, Florence has returned from college to spend the summer training to swim the English Channel, her pregnant sister, Fannie, is on bed rest and a young woman emigre from Nazi Germany has joined the crowded the apartment. Esther’s only thought is to keep her daughters close and safe but Fannie’s pregnancy is risky, her husband, Isaac, is a schemer, and Florence’s suitor is the handsome heir of a hotel notorious for its anti-Semitic policies. Based on a true story, Beanland’s family saga is an uplifting portrayal of how the human spirit can endure and even thrive after a tragedy.
Rachel Beanland is an MFA candidate in creative writing at Virginia Commonwealth University. She holds bachelor’s degrees in art history and journalism from the University of South and Carolina and lives in Richmond, Virginia with her husband and three children.
Tuesday, November 10 | 7:00 pm (Wpg Time)
Book Fest In Your Living Room Presents
Dale Berra, My Dad, Yogi
ZOOM Webinar Author Talk + Q & A
Tickets: $14 (CAD) for one virtual ticket or $28 (CAD) for one virtual ticket and paperback copy of book (shipping included)
REGISTER & MORE INFORMATION HERE
Everyone knows Yogi Berra. The American icon was the backbone of the New York Yankees through ten World Series Championships, managed the National League Champion New York Mets in 1973, and had an ingenious way with words that remains an indelible part of our lexicon. But no one knew him like his family did. My Dad, Yogi is Dale Berra’s chronicle of the unshakeable bond with his father and an intimate portrait providing a unique perspective on one of the great sports figures of the 20th Century. Throughout Dale’s youth, he had a firsthand look at the Major Leagues alongside his dad and Berra’s lifelong family friends Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, and Whitey Ford. My Dad, Yogi is Dale’s tribute to his dad — a treat for baseball fans and a poignant story for all fathers and sons.
Dale Berra, the son of Yogi Berra, is a former Major League Baseball infielder who played from 1977 to 1987 for the Pittsburgh Pirates, the New York Yankees, and the Houston Astros. He is one of the principles of LTD Enterprises, which maintains the brand and legacy of his Hall of Fame dad. Dale lives in New Jersey with his wife and their two daughters.
Sunday, November 15 |2:00 pm (Wpg Time)
Book Fest In Your Living Room Presents
Raffi Berg, Red Sea Spies: The True Story of Mossad’s Fake Diving Resort
ZOOM Webinar Author Talk + Q & A
Tickets: $14 (CAD)for one virtual ticket or $49 (CAD) for one virtual ticket and copy of book (shipping included)
REGISTER & MORE INFORMATION HERE
Inspired the Netflix drama, The Red Sea Diving Resort!
In the early 1980s, on a remote part of the Sudanese coast, a new luxury resort opened for business. Catering to divers, it attracted guests from around the world. Little did the guests know that the staff members were undercover spies, working for the Mossad, Israel’s secret service. Written by longtime BBC Middle East correspondent Raffi Berg, this page-turner tells the true story that inspired the recent Netflix drama The Red Sea Diving Resort. What began with one cryptic message pleading for help turned into the secret evacuation of thousands of Ethiopian Jews and the spiriting of them to Israel.
Raffi Berg is the Middle East editor of the BBC News website, and has extensive experience reporting on Israel and the wider region. His article scratching the surface of this story was the most-read original feature in the history of the site, with more than 5 and a half million readers to date.
FOR KIDS!
Sunday, November 22 |12:00 pm (Wpg Time)
Book Fest In Your Living Room Presents
Melissa Clark, Kid in the Kitchen: 100 Recipes and Tips for Young Home Cooks
ZOOM Webinar Author Talk + Q & A
Tickets: Free for one virtual ticket or $37 (CAD) for one virtual ticket and copy of book (shipping included)
REGISTER & MORE INFORMATION HERE
Melissa Clark, the New York Times food columnist and beloved home cooking authority, spins 100 all-new recipes for a robust new audience of home chefs: kids ages 8-14!
Clark, who has more range than any food writer today (and a young daughter to boot), marries the flavors beloved by adult fans of her bestselling cookbooks and her work in the New York Times with recipes that any kid, whether cooking-curious or already kitchen-puttering, can make and build on, including Brown Butter French Toast, Sweet or Savory Dutch Babies, Burgers with Kimchi Mayo, Gingerbread Snacking Cake, and No-Machine Ice Cream. These one hundred recipes (each with allergy and special diet info) are unmistakably Melissa, just simplified.
Melissa Clark is the author of the New York Times bestseller Dinner in French, as well as Dinner, Dinner in an Instant, and Comfort in an Instant, and is a staff writer for the New York Times Food section, where she writes the wildly popular column “A Good Appetite.” The winner of multiple James Beard and IACP awards, Melissa is the host of the “Weeknight Kitchen” podcast from The Splendid Table. Her work has been selected for the Best American Food Writing.