Monday, April 25, 2011

Review of Hoffman & Cole, Sacred Trash

SACRED TRASH, by Adina Hoffman and Peter Cole, is reviewed by Neal Gendler in the Jewish Chronicle: ‘Sacred Trash’ an engaging read despite ‘design quirks’.

Excerpts:
The combination is a readable, engaging and very edifying 241-page text of varying intensity. The parts about the quest, even something of a race, to find the geniza and bring its contents to England, and about the generations of scholars who discovered and pursued different areas of emphasis, read almost like a novel. But explanations of some of the most significant literary findings are thicker, more like an academic paper. And the authors are casual with precise but unusual words such as agon, vatic and sacredotal.

The result is a lively overview that downshifts for deeper details.

[...]

“Geniza” is the 18th book in the “Jewish Encounters” series, and it has annoying design quirks. One is numbering only right-hand pages. Another, diminishing the useful placement of illustrations on the relevant pages of text, puts the captions in the back of the book. And like its series predecessor, Deborah Lipstadt’s “The Eichmann Trial,” it is not indexed — cheapskate treatment for work of such value.
More reviews here.