Book Of Cohen

Local Description

This is a story of two Cohens, the famous singer and his not-so-famous lifelong New Zealand fan. It spans several generations and locations, from the refugee waves of Europe of the 19th century to suburban New Zealand in the 1970s, late-night Montréal and New York and the menacing frontiers of the Middle East.

Part memoir, part travelogue, part biography, part philosophical reflection, Book of Cohen is as stimulating, eclectic and surprising as its subject, full of sharp-eyed observation and hard-won wisdom. You will enjoy this book, even its gaps and silences. After all, as the man himself might say, that’s how the light gets in. — Jonathan Freedland

From the Hutt to Tel Aviv, music writing to memoir, David Cohen takes an intimate, erudite voyage around that other Cohen, the immortal Leonard. Questions of identity — Jewishness, lost fathers — are at the heart, the gravelly undertow of well-earned weltschmerz always backlit by both Cohens’ dry-as-desert-dust humour. — Diana Wichtel

David Cohen lives and works in Wellington. His articles have been published widely in New Zealand and abroad. He is the author of five books, and has co-authored or contributed essays to several others, including Jewish Lives in New Zealand, Ima: An Israeli Mother’s Kitchen and A Perfect World. An influential earlier work, Little Criminals, which was also made into a television documentary, was named one of the best books of 2011 by the New Zealand Listener.

Description

This is a story of two Cohens, the famous singer and his not-so-famous lifelong New Zealand fan. It spans several generations and locations, from the refugee waves of Europe of the 19th century to suburban New Zealand in the 1970s, late-night Montreal and New York and the menacing frontiers of the Middle East.