BHL

Every once in a while I run to one of the Barnes & Noble "Meet The Writer" sessions. This time was definitely worth it. BHL himself was there to present and speak about his new book, American Vertigo. I'll save you the synopsis (which you can check out at Amazon.com if you feel like it) but let's just say it made the cover of the New York Times book review, and to say that Garrison Keillor, who reviewed the book, did not like it, would be an understatement.

Having said that, BHL in person is always a good show. The man knows how to entertain an audience. Since the book deals at length with the things that make America (and actually when BHL says America, he means the USA) unique, most of the discussion and Q and A dealt with that uniqueness. At a certain point BHL made a comment that raised quite some eyebrows, but one that I definitely appreciated. He said that there was one thing that was very unique to America, one thing that only one country in the world had done. He then stopped and said: no, sorry, two countries in the world share that uniqueness. He said there were two countries in the world that were formed not on the basis of a common birthplace or language, not on the bases of a common skin-colour or background, but based on a belief in a text, and he added, not necessarily religious. Those two countries are America...and Israel.