Adam Kirsch

"Mainly intended for readers who have little sense of what the Talmud actually is, Kirsch explores the Talmud as a critic and journalist. Maybe the best way to describe this book is as a kind of travelogue--a report on what Kirsch saw during his seven-and-a-half-year journey through the Talmud"--

"An essential exploration of a rich literary tradition from the Bible to modern times, by a "rare literary authority" (New York Times Book Review). Jews have long embraced their identity as "the people of the book." But outside of the Bible, much of the Jewish literary tradition remains little known. The People and the Books shows how central questions and themes of our history and culture are reflected in the Jewish literary canon: the nature of...

"Lionel Trilling, regarded at the time of his death in 1975 as America's preeminent literary critic, is today often seen as a relic of a vanished era. His was an age when literary criticism and ideas seemed to matter profoundly in the intellectual life of the country. In this eloquent book, Adam Kirsch shows that Trilling, far from being obsolete, is essential to understanding our current crisis of literary confidence--and to overcoming it. By reading...