The Beauty of Bulgarian Ceramics

During our two year stay in Bulgaria, my wife and I fell in love with Bulgarian ceramics and pottery. The colorful plates, pots, and serving dishes were sold in the markets at very reasonable prices. Restaurants offering traditional Bulgarian food set their tables with the ceramics as part of their standard décor. And many Bulgarians use the ceramic ware in their homes.

It was obvious to us that we would be taking Bulgarian ceramics back home as souvenirs of our stay in the country. On our first trip to the Rila Monastery we stopped in a village, attracted by the display of pottery outside a shop. There we made our first purchase - a blue cooking pot with brown edges and handles, and a lid where the colorful design was repeated. The pot cost 30 Lev (about $20). We used that pot on many occasions in Bulgaria and it has served us well back at home in Israel.

Israeli Secret Agent Saves World, Again

Gabriel Allon, the star of Daniel Silva's thrillers, is called out of retirement once again to embark on another Israeli counter-terrorist mission.

The Fallen Angel, just out in paperback, is the 12th Gabriel Allon spy novel and readers of the series won't be disappointed. As in the previous books, Allon is busy in Europe restoring a famous piece of art. This time he's at the Vatican, working on one of Caravaggio’s greatest masterpieces.  But he is called away by a friend when the body of a beautiful woman is found on the floor of St. Peter’s Basilica. While the police suspect suicide, Allon immediately sees that the woman has been murdered.

The investigation into the woman's death is just the first step on a mission that reunites Allon with his former team members in the Israeli intelligence agency referred to only as the Office. Back at headquarters on King Saul Boulevard in Tel Aviv, Allon begins planning an operation against a Swiss antiquities dealer who is secretly funding Hezbollah terrorists.

Water Envy

My wife and I just took a trip down memory lane. Well, actually they were her memories, not mine, but after being married for 35 years, I guess I have adopted them as well.

My wife grew up in Ithaca, New York, and for over three decades she has longed to take me to her old stomping grounds so that I could understand her roots. Somehow she was not very impressed when we visited Sioux City, Iowa, where I had lived until age fifteen before making aliyah.

"Ithaca is much more beautiful," she told me repeatedly. "And there are so many waterfalls."

The Parchment Maze, a Review

The first people to leave lasting traces of their mark on Bulgarian history were the Thracians, who settled in the Balkans in the 8th century BCE. But Bulgaria's ancient history goes back much further. The Copper Age culture that developed in the Varna region (4,400-4,100 BCE), left sophisticated examples of ritual burials, pottery, and the first use of gold on earth. What happened to these ancient people, and why did such a long interval take place between their time and the arrival of the Thracians?

In The Parchment Maze, written by bestselling Bulgarian author Ludmila Filipova and just recently translated into English, archaeologist Vera Kandilova is researching the connection between the origins of Christianity and Orphism, the religious beliefs of the ancient Greeks and Thracians, when she begins to encounter perplexing symbols tied to the prehistoric civilization that mysteriously disappeared from Bulgaria. Could these symbols be indications that proto-writing, the first attempts by mankind to convey information in a written form, actually developed in the Balkans?

How I Found My Editor

After I finished writing, revising, and polishing my manuscript - a suspense novel set in Bulgaria - and after receiving very few responses from the many literary agents I had queried, I decided to take my next step in a completely independent direction. The world of publishing had changed, making it easier than ever to self-publish. I had read the success stories of indie authors and I was convinced that I could follow in their footsteps. 

Before I clicked the submit button to make my novel available to the public, I had to be totally convinced that it was in the best possible shape, free of embarrassing punctuation and  grammar mistakes. I had reviewed the text repeatedly, but I no longer could see sections requiring further revision. I needed the assistance of a professional editor.

How would I find a suitable editor, one who would connect with my fiction and provide professional assistance and advice at a reasonable price?

Stories from the Heart of Israel

I previously posted an interview with Ayelet Tsabari but only now had the chance to read her debut collection of short stories, The Best Place on Earth. In that interview I questioned whether an author living in Toronto, writing in English, could be considered an Israeli author. Having read the eleven stories in this collection I have no doubt as to the answer. Not only is Ayelet Tsabari an Israeli author, but her stories are compelling and compassionate; they speak out from the heart of Israeli society and experiences.

In “Tikkun,” the opening story, two former lovers reunite in a Jerusalem café. Lior immediately notices that Natalie has changed. “‘Dossit,’” she says, completing his sentence and confirming the reason why she is “covering her hair, wearing a skirt down to her ankles and a long-sleeved shirt on a summer day.” Seven years since she became religious, he learns, since right after they broke up and went separate ways.

Lior and Natalie had fallen in love during the nineties. “The Gulf War was over, Rabin was elected prime minister and everyone thought peace was possible… Now, more than a decade later, Rabin is dead after being assassinated at a peace really; suicide bombers explode in buses and cafes.”

Valley of Thracians Selected as Thriller of the Month

Valley of Thracians, my suspense novel set in Bulgaria, was called a "psychologically astute thriller" and selected as a "Thriller of the Month" for June on e-thriller.com, a website devoted to reviewing and recommending the best thrillers for Kindles and/or other e-reader devices.

The novel "is a sober, psychologically astute thriller set in an exotic part of the world – ancient civilizations and artifacts, corrupt smugglers and personal flaws and secrets are a potent mix in this one," the website's review said.

The reviewer on the website concluded her review by writing, "We are absorbed in this culture and by the story. Very impressive."

The Aroma of Tel Aviv's Coffee House Culture

I am writing these lines on my laptop as I sip my morning cappuccino. Like many who work in Ramat Gan's Bursa district, my day begins with a cup of steaming hot coffee professionally prepared; there are many coffee shops and cafes in the neighborhood. Some people linger over their coffee, catching up on iPhone messages and answering emails; while others, like me, pull out their laptops and type away, undisturbed by the grinding of coffee beans; the hiss of steam escaping as milk is heated; and the swish of credit cards as orders are recorded.

Go back twenty five years. The fictitious Café Nevo of the Barbara Rogan novel of the same name is the "oldest and certainly the grungiest of the Dizengoff cafés". The coffee shop, originally established by two enterprising Polish brothers, attracts not only common workers, but "writers, actors, and artists who by virtue of their socialist ideology styled themselves members of the proletariat, but who in fact constituted the Tel Aviv elite of their day".

"If they were that good they’d be working,” one of the characters of the novel says of Café Nevo's clientele. “Nobody with any serious work to do hangs out in cafés".