Isaac Butler

It's outrageous.

It's offensive at times.

It illuminates a whole history of art.

It's just, it's incredible.

It's

It's so incredible.

It might be the most honest and dishonest at the same time book ever written.

It flies by.

Look, when you get to his affair with Marilyn Monroe, you're just like, the pages are just, you know, turning into flames as you flip them so quickly.

There's always so many to read, so I always feel guilty when I reread.

The great Elisa Gabbert, who writes the poetry column for your section, in her book, Any Person is the Only Self, she has this quote that says, some people say rereading is the only reading, but sometimes I think first readings are the only rereadings.

And I love that.

Because it's a great aphorism.

It's almost like a Zen koan.

And also, it gets me out of the pressure to reread because I have so many books I want to read.

There's no way I'll get to all of them before I die.

I'm going to say Richard Kreitner's Fear No Pharaoh, American Jews, the Civil War, and the Fight to End Slavery.

And it's really about the variety of Jewish experience in terms of the slavery question.

There's lots of Jews.

I think we like to have a somewhat flattering opinion of ourselves in the civil rights movement and slavery, but lots of Jews involved in the slave trade.