Book Talk and Signing with Author Andi Rosenthal

$19.95 per person - includes  various appetizers along with cheese and chocolate fondues.

Andi Rosenthal was bought up as a Catholic. But at a friend's Bar Mitzvah at the age of 13, Andi discovered that Judaism was a path she felt compelled to follow.  Many years later, as an adult, her feelings were strengthened through her work at the Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, in New York City. As a result of working at the Museum, Andi ultimately uncovered – and subsequently embraced - her own family's secret Jewish past.  She converted to Judaism in 2002, but not before finding out that she was not the only Jew-by-Choice in her family.

"My father's family is filled with stories of people who changed and turned and changed again, in terms of religion," Rosenthal said in a recent lecture at Sutton Place Synagogue in New York City. "Because of my own journey, I wanted to write a novel that reflected my family's history, while posing the question of how one chooses to affirm or deny one's religious identity, especially in the context of our current climate of increasing religious extremism."
 
Andi's debut novel, The Bookseller's Sonnets, intertwines three stories set in Tudor England, Poland and Germany during World War II, and current day New York City. Beginning with a jarring scene from the Holocaust, the novel follows the journey of a secret diary dating back to Henry VIII's London, as it unexpectedly comes to light in the present day.  It follows the protagonist, Jill Levin, a curator in a Holocaust museum, on her quest to authenticate this rare find – and to discover the threads of connection between the Catholic England of the sixteenth century and the Nazi horrors of the twentieth century. 
The narrative details of this process of authentication, as it hovers between find and fraud, and as a suspenseful battle for provenance plays out between Jewish and Catholic religious institutions. Jill also struggles with her own family history as a grandchild of Holocaust survivors, and her involvement in a relationship she fears will disrupt and disappoint her family. The stories told in the historic text soon entwine to reveal the secrets that unlock the mysteries of the Tudor court, and the untold history of Jill's own heritage.
 
"I drew upon both of my religious traditions to craft this story – both my Catholic upbringing and parochial school education, and my Jewish learning as an adult," Rosenthal remarked. "Ultimately, to shine a light upon unheard voices from Tudor England, to retell and remember the atrocities of Hitler's Europe, and to demonstrate how the same religious conflicts are alive and well in our own time, was all part of my desire to bear witness to human history, as well as that of my own family. The goal of The Bookseller's Sonnets is to take the reader on a journey that raises more questions than it answers – and that both entertains and enlightens them along the way."

About the author:  Andi Rosenthal received an M.A. in Creative Writing from Temple University and has written for Reform Judaism magazine, InterfaithFamily.com and RJ.org. She lives in Larchmont, New York.

Visit Andi Rosenthal's website at:
www.booksellerssonnets.net