Author Emil Draitser will be at the Nyack Library Thursday to discuss his memoir, “Shush! Growing Up Jewish Under Stalin” (University of California Press, 2008).

“Many years after making his way to America from Odessa in Soviet Ukraine, Draitser made a startling discovery: Every time he uttered the word “Jewish”   — even in casual conversation — he lowered his voice,” writes the Nyack Library’s reference librarian Belinda Cash, coordinator of programs. 

Her release continues: “This behavior was a natural product, he realized, of growing up in the anti-Semitic, post-Holocaust Soviet Union, when ‘Shush!’ was the most frequent word he heard: ‘Don’t use your Jewish name in public. Don’t speak a word of Yiddish. And don’t cry over your murdered relatives.’ Draitser’s compelling memoir conveys the reader back to his childhood, and provides a unique account of mid-twentieth century life in Russia. Lively, evocative, and rich with humor, his unforgettable story ends with the death of Stalin and, through life stories of the author’s ancestors, presents a sweeping panorama of two centuries of Jewish history in Russia.”

Draitser is Professor of Russian at Hunter College of the City University of New York. He has been publishing fiction and nonfiction since 1965. In 1974, blacklisted by the Soviet literary establishment for a satirical attack on one of its members, he immigrated to the U.S. to continue his writing career. After settling in America, he earned an M.A. and a PhD. in Russian literature from the University of California at Los Angeles. A two-time recipient of the New Jersey Council of the Arts Fellowship in Fiction and several CUNY grants for both fiction and non-fiction writing, he also won a special prize for his short stories at the All-Union Literary Competition in Odessa.

The program begins at  7 pm and books will be available for purchase and signing by the author.  The Nyack Library is at 59 South Broadway. The event is free and open to the public.

The Book by Book blog has expanded its writers to include some of the other bibliophiles who work here at The Journal News. I’ve been lucky enough to be included in the expansion.

I posted an offering a few weeks ago just to see if the software worked, but never actually formally introduced myself to those whose interests coincide with my own: books. So I thought I’d give it a shot now.

For me, reading has always been a process of addition. Although the books on my shelves may seem fairly eclectic, there is a method in their acquisition.

Fiction has always attracted me, and I’ve been a reader of science fiction and fantasy since I picked up “A Wrinkle In Time” when I was in elementary school. Back then, having a female protagonist was a rarity in an adventure story, or so it seemed. Time travel especially interested me (and still does), but the work of Andre Norton introduced me to all sorts of other themes, many of them about the connections between people and animals, and she remains one of my favorite authors.

When I was high school age, I added mysteries to my bag of interests. I learned to appreciate Agatha Christie after I read one of her books where the guy who appeared to be the obvious choice actually was the killer. I’ve loved her work ever since.

In college, one of my professors (she taught medieval lit and was a noted Chaucer scholar) introduced me to Georgette Heyer. Her husband, who taught modern lit, was a big fan. He used to say if you were going to read romance, you might as well read the good stuff. Although I own most of Heyer’s works, I’ve pretty much restricted my—er—modern romance reading to her creations.

After I graduated college, I began to read the classics. I never bothered much with them when they were assigned, but I figured I had the time then, I might as well see why certain books are so revered. Dickens, Austen, Sabatini, Dumas, Baroness Orczy, Chesterton and (of course) Conan Doyle remain among my favorite writers with honored places on my shelves.

My love affair with old books is traceable to the mid-1970s, when I was hired as a reporter for a small community newspaper in southern Ohio. One of my jobs (at small newspapers, you are a jack-of-all-trades) was to do the 10-, 25- and 50-years-ago offerings we ran daily. The work included sitting in a small closet off the newsroom with the microfiche reader, scanning back copies of the paper for such gems as who was visiting whom back in 1927, what the cost of an Easter basket was in 1952 and which politician was promising to fix the roads back in 1967.

The 1920s newspapers were my favorites. I loved the illustrations, the photoplays, and especially the serialized novels. I met Philo Vance there, and an amazing wealth of heroines who tried to keep their dignity despite bobbed hair, boyish figures and the new-found sexual freedom encouraged by Sigmund Freud.

What I liked best about them, though, was the social and physical background that everybody who lived in that time knew. I entered a world of tea dresses, evening frocks and roadsters, or high society and wannabes, of cads and bounders and manly athletes. I rode the ‘cars in the big cities, worried about the proper gloves and hat on $1.50 a week and learned about the problems of being a shopgirl. It was wonderful.

For the purposes of this blog, I’m mostly talking about the old books I’ve been reading since then: books by Valentine Williams, Jeffery Farnol, Harold Bell Wright, Margaret Penrose, Kate Wiggins and E. Phillips Oppenheim. If it’s old and musty and has a great illustration on the frontispiece, I’ll probably have spent some time looking it over for possible collection.

I’ll also try to give a heads-up to other readers of the old and odd for library sales and other relatively accessible venues. What better sport is there for time-travelers?

With at least 200 exhibitors at last week’s New York Antiquarian Book Fair at the Park Avenue Armory, I was thrilled to meet up with the bookdealers from our Lower Hudson Valley region. It was a good chance to browse through old and artistic books. And to find out more about this unique business, which booksellers say is actually holding its own in today’s struggling economy.

Robert Dorfman at Seth Kaller, Inc. of White Plains was proudly showing historical American documents and photographs — some signed by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, Paul Revere and John Quincy Adams. (In the photo to the left, Dorfman is the guy to near the back sitting at a laptop.)

He said he used to to work as an operations  manager for Countrywide Mortgage, well before the demise of the mortgage industry, and left because he said it wasn’t what he wanted to do.  Three years ago he helped out a friend at Seth Kaller, Inc. by managing the rare manuscripts and creating catalogs. He has never left.

“I am just passionate about this stuff. You can’t beat this connection with history,” he said showing maps of Gettysburg and pointing to a book of poems by Phyllis Wheatley.

The second annual Festival of Writers and Readers at the Ossining Public Library next week will feature a panel discussion on the future of libraries in the digital age.

This is a National Library Week event and is geared for all readers and researchers — professionals and novices alike.

Marilyn Johnson of Briarcliff Manor, author of the forthcoming “This Book is Overdue: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All” (December, HarperCollins), is slated to speak about her research and offer her perspective. She says that was inspired by great obituaries of librarians and others in the information science field — and that librarians saved her from “technostress.”

The event is at 7:30 p.m. Monday, April 13 and will be held in the library’s theater. It is  co-sponsored by the Westchester Library System, and in addition to Johnson will feature  three library directors: Terry Kirchner (WLS), Sandra Miranda (White Plains Public Library) and Elizabeth Bermel (Ossining Public Library). Bob Minzesheimer, an Ossining Library trustee, who writes about books for USA Today, will be the moderator.

Johnson is a former writer for Life magazine and author of Johnson is the author of “The Dead Beat: Lost Souls, Lucky Stiffs, and the Perverse Pleasures of Obituaries.”

The Ossining Public Library is at 53 Croton Avenue. And, if you have never seen this state-of-the art dramatic library with breathtaking views of the Hudson River Valley it is well worth the trip. The event is free.

The New York Antiquarian Book Fair might be selling old books, maps and autographs, but it is clearly a vibrant market with dealers and customers enjoying present-day conversations about treasured items.

The 49th annual fair, considered a major international event for those in the antiquarian book world, opened Friday and extends through tomorrow at the Park Avenue Armory at 67 th Street in Manhattan. Hint: If you are the least bit interested in signed books, old or rare books, genuine maps and manuscripts this is where you should spend your Sunday.  It is open noon to 5 p.m. and one-day admission is $20.

I  wrote about this fair earlier in the week and am glad I had a chance to walk through myself.

I saw lots of copies of “Grapes of Wrath” , illustrations by Kay Nielsen, “When We Were Young” by Milne, maps of the Hudson Valley and signed photos of past presidents such as Franklin Delano Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy. There were books by Phillip Roth, John Cheever and poetry collections from Robert Frost representing contemporary first editions. I got to touch medieval manuscripts, copies of “Peter and Wendy” by J.M. Barrie and “The Descent of Man” by Charles Darwin.

Most prices exceeded my wallet, though. A two-volume set of “The Wealth of Nations” by Adam Smith, London 1776, was $135,000,for example.

Oh well.  I picked up a copy of “The Haunted Bookshop” by Christopher Morley, Grosset & Dunlap,1919, which is a story about a bookstore owner in Brooklyn, for a mere $40.  It felt like a bargain.

Right now my feet and body are tired from the walking the aisles of the fair.There was a nice cafe on the show floor, but I am tired just the same.  I will post later in the week about the handful of wonderful booksellers from the Lower Hudson Valley who exhibited and talked about the rare book industry in these economic times.

In celebration of National Poetry Month, the Mahopc Public Library is hosting an event with a local poet and author,  Lou Orfanella.

Orfanella is the author of four poetry collections including “Composite Sketches,” and a work of nonfiction entitled “Scenes from an Ordinary Life: Getting Naked to Explore a Writer’s Process and Possibilities.”

He is also a teacher and writing mentor in the Master’s of Fine Arts program at Western Connecticut State University

Registration for this free program is requested.  Register online, or call 845-628-2009, ext 100.

The reading and discussion is at 7 p.m. April 20. All are welcome.

This program was funded, in part, by Poets & Writers, Inc., through a grant from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency.

If you love old rare books, first editions or specially illustrated books, I have the perfect — and best book fair — to recommend.

This weekend is the 49th Annual New York Antiquarian Book Fair at the Park Avenue Armory. It features at least  200 participants from around the world and at least eight dealers from the Lower Hudson Valley region. (The photo to the right is from Aleph-Bet Books of Pound Ridge.)

“You see a piece of history. It’s like going to a museum,” said Elizabeth Phillips, a dealer and show exhibitor based in Nyack until this fall who now sees clients in her New York City office. She specializes in selling modern illustrated books by internationally-known artists like Matisse as well as Russian avant-garde artists who chose bookmaking along with art.

What’s so special and different about antiquarian books?, I asked her.

“Oh well,” she said. “You are handling books that would be in museums or rare book rooms behind glass, but here you can get very close and see them.”

Books range from illustrated manuscripts to children’s first editions and special interest topics like golf books. Prices can range from $75 to $300,000, Phillips explained. Fair goers are professional book dealers, private collectors and the general public who just like to look.

Byran Bilby will be there, too, showing his selection from Appledore Books in Waccabuc.