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03/15/2018 12:01 AMRachel Kadish will discuss and read selections from her third novel, The Weight of Ink, at Congregation Beth Shalom Rodfe Zedek (CBSRZ) in Chester at 9:30 a.m. on Sunday, March 18.
The Weight of Ink won Kadish the Jewish Book Council’s Book Club Award. This award “recognizes an outstanding work of fiction or nonfiction authors that inspires meaningful conversation about Jewish life, identity, practice, or history and is dedicated to promoting Jewish continuity for the next generation.”
“In many ways a book about books, The Weight of Ink surprises with delights that are gradually revealed. At first it might seem almost necessary to take notes to follow the complex plot, but soon the reader will become absorbed in this rich opus of impressive breadth,” says Kristin Gibbons in a review published on the Jewish Book Council’s website www.jewishbookcouncil.org. “The beauty of this story is in the variety of its milieus and sensibilities. As we follow female protagonists of both the 17th and 21st centuries—Ester Velasquez and Helen Watt, respectively—we also are witness to the goings-on of a venerable and drafty house of a rabbi in 1660s London, and glimpse the modern life of a cheeky young American man with heartrending troubles.”
Kadish also was just named the inaugural winner of the Association of Jewish Libraries (AJL) Jewish Fiction Award for The Weight of Ink.
The Weight of Ink defies strict genre classification, combining as it does a gripping tale of contemporary scholars engaged in academic detective work, and historical fiction that brings to light the small Jewish world of Restoration England and the practical daily issues along with more complicated religious and philosophical issues. The novel moves back and forth from the competitive world of modern scholarship to the very different world revealed in a trove of newly discovered 17th century manuscripts; from the personal involvement of one of the book’s two heroines, Helen Watt, who sets out to uncover the secrets behind the mysterious scribe at first identified solely as “Alelph,” to its other heroine, Ester Velasquez, the exceptional scribe for a blind rabbi, a woman who would be remarkable in any time and place.
Books & Bagels is free of charge and open to the public. CBSRZ is at 55 East Kings Highway, Chester. For more information, visit www.cbsrz.org/events or call the CBSRZ office at 860-526-8920.