Jewish Life, History, and Culture

2 total works

Various Positions

by Ira B. Nadel

Published 7 November 1996

Written with the co-operation and support of Leonard Cohen, including interviews, access to documents and meetings with close personal friends, this is a comprehensive biography of the singer/songwriter. Since the publication of "Let Us Compare Mythologies" in 1956, Leonard Cohen has held a prominent and at times controversial place in contemporary culture as both a serious writer and popular singer. In the 38 years of his career so far, Cohen has achieved global recognition in poetry, fiction and song. With the release of Jennifer Warne's 1986 album, "Famous Blue Raincoat", came the revival of his fame, and the introduction of his music to a new generation of listeners. Since then he has had success with the albums "I'm Your Man" and "The Future", and the recent release of his first book since 1984, "Stranger Music: Selected Poems and Songs", has enhanced his popularity with an ever increasing audience. Cohen's constant adjustment of his self image has led him across the world and back again in search of artistic and spiritual fulfilment. He has become a unique and mysterious figure who has found a new energy in his late fifties and sixties. Ira B.
Nadel examines the influence that Cohen's changing positions have had on his emerging sensibility and literary expression.

Leon Uris

by Ira B. Nadel

Published 1 October 2010

As the best-selling author of Exodus, Mila 18, QB VII, and Trinity, Leon Uris blazed a path to celebrity with books that readers could not put down. Uris's thirteen novels sold millions of copies, spent months on the best-seller lists, appeared in fifty languages, and have been adapted into equally popular movies and TV miniseries. Few other writers equaled Uris's fame in the mid-twentieth century. His success fueled the rise of mass-market paperbacks, movie tie-ins, and celebrity author tours. Beloved by the public, Uris was, not surprisingly, dismissed by literary critics. Until now, his own life—as full of drama as his fiction—has never been the subject of a book.

In Leon Uris: Life of a Best Seller, Ira Nadel traces Uris from his disruptive youth to his life-changing experiences as a marine in World War II. These experiences, coupled with Uris's embrace of his Judaism and desire to write, led to his unprecedented success and the lavish excesses of a career as a best-selling author. Nadel reveals that Uris lived the adventures he described, including his war experiences in the Pacific (Battle Cry), life-threatening travels in Israel (Exodus), visit to Communist Poland (Mila 18), libel trial in Britain (QB VII), and dangerous sojourn in fractious Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic (Trinity). Nadel also demonstrates that Uris's talent for writing action-packed, yet thoroughly researched, novels meshed perfectly with the public's desire to revisit and understand the tumultuous events of recent history. This made him far more popular (and wealthy) than more literary authors, while paving the way for writers such as Irving Wallace and Tom Clancy.