How the summer is flying by! A definite highlight so far: attending the annual Association of Jewish Libraries conference, which took place this year in late June, in Silver Spring, Maryland. It was a pleasure and a privilege to meet so many librarians and other professionals from the world of Jewish books, many of whom are now subscribers to this newsletter. (If you're one of them, we extend a special welcome.)
Here at FTB, we're gearing up for the fall season. More about that—including giveaways of our fall titles—below.
Now—on to the issue!
—Erika Dreifus, Media Editor
P.S. As always, we are grateful for the opportunity to share our latest goings-on with you, and we hope that you will share this newsletter with your reading and writing family, friends, and colleagues. And, as always, we invite you to keep in touch with us between newsletters by clicking any of the buttons above to "like" us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, and/or discover fresh content on our website. (If you have received this newsletter because someone has forwarded it to you, please be sure to subscribe for updates yourself.)
Reminders for Agents and Authors
It's likely worth repeating that we at FTB welcome novel (including graphic-novel and young-adult novel) and memoir submissions from agents and authors year-round. That includes summertime! If you have a completed manuscript that falls within one of the genres listed above, and it meets our mission as explained in our guidelines, please consider sending it on to us.
Please also recall that at Fig Tree Books, we're dedicated to enriching awareness and discussion of Jewish books beyond the ones that we publish ourselves. To that end, we welcome queries from freelance writers who might wish to review any of the books that we have highlighted. (Our list of potential titles has been recently updated and expanded, by the way, so if you haven't perused it lately, now is a good time to do so.) We pay $50 for each brief review that we publish; recent reviews and a link to the detailed query guidelines are also available in the Book Review Center.
TWO Great Giveaways
As mentioned above, we're gearing up for the fall publication of our next two books: Ben Nadler's novel, The Sea Beach Line, which will be published October 13, and our re-issue of Edward Lewis Wallant's The Pawnbroker, now featuring a foreword by Dara Horn, which is slated for publication on November 10. And we're giving away early copies of both books to help readers get to know them a bit ahead of time.
Here are some excerpts from the praise that these books have already received:
"We don't need to imagine how shocking The Pawnbroker must have been to readers in the early 1960s because it is still that shocking to us. Without a trace of sentimentality, Edward Lewis Wallant wrote the Great American Novel of Redemption. Before anyone else, he showed us that only by recognizing in others the face of human suffering could the individual survivor—whether male or female, Jewish, black, or Puerto Rican—transcend his or her inheritance of trauma and pain." —Eileen Pollack, author of In the Mouth and Breaking and Entering
"The Sea Beach Line is a thriller, and a very good one. Beyond that, it's a thriller informed by the lore of Jewish mysticism, with its sacred texts and burning words and true and false messiahs, and by themes of paternity and patrimony: what it is our fathers leave us, even the fathers we never knew. It gripped me by the throat and wouldn't let go."—Peter Trachtenberg, author of Another Insane Devotion
Want to win copies of your own? All you need to do is enter the giveaways on Goodreads. Here's the link that will take you to The Sea Beach Line, and here's the one for The Pawnbroker. Good luck!
News & Reviews
Throughout the spring and summer, our authors have been out and about in bookstores, libraries, and plenty of other settings as they've been meeting readers and sharing their books. A brief respite is coming as they prepare for fall activities, but if you're in the San Francisco area, you can meet Alan Cheuse (Prayers for the Living) at the Jewish Community Library on Sunday, July 19. And the dynamic duo of Jessamyn Hope (Safekeeping) and Jonathan Papernick (The Book of Stone) will join the illustrious roster of "Scribblers on the Roof" participants at New York City's Ansche Chesed on Monday, July 20. Please visit our Events page for details.
Also on our website: a slew of recent raves and featured mentions for all four of our spring titles. Please go see what reviewers have had to say in the pages of The Boston Globe, Jewish Journal, and The Globe and Mail, as well as on sites such as JTA, Tablet, and BuzzFeed. (Spoiler alert: It's pretty great stuff!)
A Reminder Re: the FTB Blog
Miss us between newsletters? Check in with our blog! Recently noted there: our Media Editor's report from the Association of Jewish Libraries conference, scholar and writer Karen Skinazi's discussion of two novels by Naomi Ragen, and more. (We don't want to give too much away, but if you're a fan of Bernard Malamud's work, you will really want to see the post we'll be publishing on Tuesday.)
We also have a habit of sharing on our blog an assortment of online discoveries relating to American Jewish Experience (AJE), broadly defined. And you never know when you'll catch a fresh dispatch from FTB HQ.
Please come visit—FigTreeBooks.net/blog—and comment! We'll look forward to seeing you there.
Also on our website: a slew of recent raves and featured mentions for all four of our spring titles. 
