The 2019 St. Louis Jewish Book Festival Runs November 3rd – 15th and Features Several Film, TV, and Pop-Culture Authors

By Tom Stockman | October 31, 2019

The JCCA (Jewish Community Center – 2 Millstone Campus Dr. in St. Louis) has a rich tradition of bringing both Jewish cultural opportunities to its members and fine art productions and events to the St. Louis community. In maintaining that long standing tradition, the focus of the J’s Cultural Arts Department has been on theatre, film and literature. Events, festivals, performances and programs are open to all members of our community. The St. Louis Jewish Book Festival invites prominent authors to showcase their latest works and provides opportunities for the readers get up close and personal at panels, discussions and presentations.

This year’s St. Louis Jewish Book Festival runs November 3rd – 15th. A complete schedule of events can be found HERE. We Are Movie Geeks wanted to highlight a few of the Film, TV, and Pop-Culture Authors who will be attending

November 7, 1pm: Margalit Fox

Conan Doyle for Defense: The True Story of a Sensational British Murder, a Quest for Justice, and the World’s Most Famous Detective Writer
Thursday, November 7, 1pm
Staenberg Family Complex/Creve Coeur
Tickets: $20 or included with a Premier Pass

PURCHASE TICKETS

For all the scores of biographies of Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes the most famous detective in the world, there is no American book that tells this story – in which Conan Doyle serves as detective on an actual murder case. In this book, former New York Times obit writer Margalit Fox takes us step by step inside Conan Doyle’s investigative process and illuminates a murder mystery that is also a morality play for our time – a story of ethnic, religious and anti-immigrant bias.

November 7, 7pm: Women’s Night featuring Elizabeth Weitzman

Renegade Women in Film and TV
Thursday, November 7, 7pm
Staenberg Family Complex/Creve Coeur – Edison Gymnasium
Tickets: $25 or included with a Premier Pass

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Rene­gade Women in Film and TV blends stun­ning illus­tra­tions, fas­ci­nat­ing bio­graph­i­cal pro­files, and exclu­sive inter­views with icons like Bar­bra Streisand, Rita Moreno, and Sigour­ney Weaver to cel­e­brate the accom­plish­ments of 50 extra­or­di­nary women through­out the his­to­ry of enter­tain­ment. This book hon­ors the women who suc­ceed­ed against all odds, chang­ing their indus­try in front of the cam­era and behind the scenes. Eliz­a­beth Weitz­man is a jour­nal­ist, film crit­ic, and the author of more than two dozen books for chil­dren and young adults.

November 9, 7pm: Dave Itzkoff
Robin
Saturday, November 9, 7pm
Staenberg Family Complex/Creve Coeur – Edison Gymnasium
Tickets: $25 or included with a Premier Pass
CART captioned

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From New York Times culture reporter Dave Itzkoff comes the definitive biography of Robin Williams – a compelling portrait of one of America’s most beloved and misunderstood entertainers. From his rapid-fire stand-up comedy riffs to his breakout role in Mork & Mindy and his Academy Award-winning performance in Good Will Hunting, Robin Williams was a singularly innovative and beloved entertainer. But as Dave Itzkoff shows in Robin, Williams’s comic brilliance masked a deep well of conflicting emotions and self-doubt, which he drew upon in his comedy and in celebrated films where he showcased his limitless gift for improvisation to bring to life a wide range of characters. Drawing on more than a hundred original interviews with family, friends, and colleagues, as well as extensive archival research, Robin is a fresh and original look at a man whose work touched so many lives.

November 11, 1pm: Josh Samuel Frank
Giraffes on Horse­back Sal­ad: Dali, The Marx Broth­ers and the Great­est Movie Nev­er Made (look for an interview of Josh Samuel Frank next week here at We Are Movie Geeks)
Monday, November 11, 1pm
Staenberg Family Complex/Creve Coeur
Tickets: $20 or included with a Premier Pass
CART captioned

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Giraffes on Horse­back Sal­ad was a Marx Broth­ers film, writ­ten by mod­ern art icon Sal­vador Dali who’d befriend­ed Har­po. Reject­ed by MGM, the script was thought lost for­ev­er. But author Josh Frank found it, and, with come­di­an Tim Hei­deck­er and Span­ish comics cre­ator Manuela Perte­ga, he’s re-cre­at­ed the film as a graph­ic nov­el in all its gor­geous, full-col­or, cin­e­mat­ic, sur­re­al glo­ry. It is the sto­ry of two unlike­ly friends, a Jew­ish super star film icon, and Span­ish painter, and the movie that could have been.

November 13, 10:30am: Robert Matzen
Dutch Girl: Audrey Hepburn and World War II
Wednesday, November 13, 10:30am
Staenberg Family Complex/Creve Coeur
Tickets: $20 or included with a Premier Pass

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Twenty-five years after her passing, Audrey Hepburn remains the most beloved of all Hollywood stars, known as much for her role as UNICEF ambassador as for films like Roman Holiday and Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Several biographies have chronicled her stardom, but none has covered her intense experiences through five years of Nazi occupation in the Netherlands. Audrey had to contend with the fact that her father was a Nazi agent and her mother was pro-Nazi for the first two years of the occupation. Dutch Girl includes Audrey’s own reminiscences, new interviews with people who knew her in the war, wartime diaries, and more. Robert Matzen, an American author who specializes in Hollywood history and World War II, spent weeks in the Netherlands talking to the people who lived through the war with Audrey Hepburn to prepare for this book.

November 13, 1pm: Julie Satow
The Plaza: The Secret Life of America’s Most Famous Hotel
Wednesday, November 13, 1pm
Staenberg Family Complex/Creve Coeur
Tickets: $20 or included with a Premier Pass
CART captioned

PURCHASE TICKETS

From the moment in 1907, when Alfred Van­der­bilt strode through the Plaza’s doors to become its first guest to the day in 2007, when a mys­te­ri­ous Russ­ian oli­garch bought the hotel’s largest pent­house, the white tow­er at the cor­ner of Cen­tral Park has radi­at­ed wealth and lux­u­ry. For some, the Plaza evokes images of F. Scott Fitzger­ald frol­ick­ing in the Pulitzer Foun­tain or Eloise pour­ing water down the mail chute. But there are also dark hid­den secrets: the mur­der per­pe­trat­ed by con­struc­tion work­ers build­ing the hotel, how Don­ald You-Know-Who bank­rupt­ed the Plaza, and how a dis­graced Indi­an tycoon once ruled the hotel from a jail cell in Del­hi. With glam­our on the sur­face and strife behind the scenes, this is the sto­ry of how one hotel became a mir­ror, reflect­ing New York’s place at the cen­ter of the country’s cul­tur­al nar­ra­tive for over a century. Julie Satow is an award-win­ning jour­nal­ist who has cov­ered real estate in New York City for more than a decade.