“Beasts” Continues to Growl: Over 500,000 Copies Now in Print; Hadassah Magazine Names it Number One Jewish Bestseller

My good friend, and very competitive fellow tennis player, Rabbi Jim Mirel, passed on to me a copy of the August/September issue of Hadassah Magazine, the magazine for Jewish women, in which In the Garden of Beasts is ranked the Number 1 nonfiction book in a list of “Ten Jewish Best Sellers.” Which is lovely news. Thank you Hadassah!

Meanwhile, my publisher informs me that Beasts achieved a landmark: 500,000 copies in print.  So a big thank you to YOU, my loyal readers. And a thank you, also, to all of you who have tried to help me out of the “Dark Country of No Ideas,” with your suggestions for what to do for my next book. I do feel I’m getting closer, though I’ve killed off at least a dozen reasonable ideas. I even thought about writing about Magellan and the first circumnavigation of the globe–until I remembered how bored the explorers always made me feel when we studied them in grade school.