Great New English Halacha Releases

In the past few months Israel Book Shop has come out with a very impressive selection of English Halacha seforim. A few of these new seforim include:

• Ginzei HaKodesh by Rabbi Yechezkel Feinhandler on the laws of treatment of religious articles 
• Inside Stam by Reuvain Mendlowitz, which contains questions for the consumer when purchasing a Torah, mezuzos, and tefillin
• The Laws of an Eruv by Rabbi Shlomo Francis and Rabbi Yonason Glenner which is a detailed sefer on Hilchos Eruvin, complete with diagrams (the release conicided well with Daf Yomi) 

Another new release that caught my attention in particular is Dvar Yom by Rabbi Dovid Braunfeld. This sefer is quite remarkable in it's depth and detail. It is an explanation of all the zmanim on the Luach with pages of colored charts and diagrams of astronomical phenomena. The author explains in the introduction "An innovation of this sefer is that before explaining when Tzais HaKochavim and Alos are, it explains what they are. Just as one who knows the anatomy of a cow has a completelty different understanding of Maseches Chullin than one who has never seen a cow, so too when one understands the astronomical facts of Tzais and Alos, he will have a completely different understanding of the intent of the Gemara and the Poskim." There are many chapters in this sefer that are incredibly complex and scientific and, as an aid to the reader, the author clarifies at the beginning of the sefer which chapters are good for a basic understanding of the Luach and which chapters are for more advanced learning. 

All of these new releases can be viewed at the Israel Book Shop website. 

The Next Page: Summer 2010

For those of you who bought this past weekends newspapers you probably saw the insert that was included courtesy of Israel Book Shop. Back at Winter time Israel Book Shop released a new magazine/catalog called The Next Page which had some interviews with the authors, segments from new releases, contests, and more. At the same time they also unveiled a new website, www.thenextpage-israelbookshop.com. Now, with the second publication of their magazine they have also announced a new contest. Every week there will be a new short story published on the website with each story having an inconclusive or mystery ending. Readers are then encouraged to submit how they think the story ended and the author of the best ending will receive a prize. This actually sounds like a lot of fun and I'm curious to see how it will take off.

Besides for this new contest there has also been a new original serial story that is only being published on their website called Divided Attention. All of this can be viewed at the link above. If you didn't have a chance to see the magazine that was distributed as an insert this past weekend you can view it by clicking here. I think that this new PR campaign from Israel Book Shop is very impressive and as far as I'm aware it's first for a frum publishing house. Hopefully we'll continue to see more exciting things in the future.

Israel Book Shop gets a blog

Israel Book Shop has a new blog called The Next Page. It's pretty new but I'm already impressed. The layout is really cool and the content so far (all 3 posts of it) is great. I hope that they can keep up the good work. They even have a post about Mordechai Schmutter's upcoming book, "A Clever Title Goes Here," which I am very much looking forward to. Here's what they had to say:

When I was little, aside from the fact that I had to walk two miles to school uphill both ways because only the rich people could afford horses, another depressing fact was that there was no such thing as American Jewish humor. Sure, there were some old Yiddish jokes, but only people who appreciated the “flavor” of Yiddish and also the flavor of Slivovitz thought that they were funny.

Mordechai Schmutter changed all that. Beginning sporadically, he worked his way up to a weekly Hamodia Magazine column. He’s still shocked that Hamodia even has a humor column, but the tens of thousands of readers who look forward to it each week are glad that it does.

His first book, Don’t Yell Challah in a Crowded Matzah Bakery was a gamble at first because it was the first of its kind, and the gamble paid off as it became a best seller. Meanwhile, his column, which began with such everyday topics as cooking, marriage, and writing humor columns, has expanded into areas such as GPS, Kosherfest, and the Syms Bash.

Now, Mordechai is publishing his second book, A Clever Title Goes Here. Aside from the clever title, it also has many of his funniest articles in it, one of which you can read here!

To see my review of Mordechai Schmutter's first book, "Don't Yell Challah in a Crowded Matzah Bakery," click here.

Update: Anybody who recieved the Jewish Press or Hamodia this week (perhaps even other papers as well) should have also seen the "The Next Page" magazine insert. As with the blog, I was also very impressed by this as it was a mix between spotlights on new upcoming books as well as a catalog of Israel Book Shop's publications. It appears to be a quarterly as it was dated Winter 2009. I'm always excited about anything new in books and I'm looking forward to seeing more things from "The Next Page."