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Kerouac Book Tied To Exhibit At N.Y. Library

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By KAREN HAYMON LONG, The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 18, 2007

Even Jack Kerouac's most ardent devotees will find something new in "Beatific Soul: Jack Kerouac on the Road," a new book published by The New York Public Library and Scala Publishers, London.

It's filled with the beat author's writings, drawings, letters and even a photo of phrases he wrote in his own blood for an early novel.

Materials in this finely produced book by Isaac Gewirtz were gathered from the Kerouac collection of The New York Public Library, now presenting a Kerouac exhibition in honor of the 50th anniversary of the publication of his "On the Road."

The exhibition includes many items in the book, as well as the original scroll manuscript of "On the Road," drafts, journals, diaries, drawings, paintings, photographs and other treasures.

It runs through March 16 at the Humanities and Social Sciences Library, Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street in New York. Admission is free. The book costs $45.

Another new book just out by Random House is sure to please Truman Capote fans.

The writing in "Portraits and Observations: The Essays of Truman Capote" ($28.95) is so excellent, readers will be compelled to pull out their old copies of "In Cold Blood" and "A Christmas Memory."

It includes his classic "The Muses Are Heard," which he wrote in 1956 after a trip with the cast of "Porgy and Bess" to the Soviet Union, as well as hauntingly poetic essays about New Orleans, Haiti, Tangier and other places.

Capote had a genius for seeing the odd: a man after he hung himself from a tree in his New Orleans courtyard, a Haitian primitive artist named Hyppolite who could easily afford electricity but prefers to live without it, a beautiful woman who lives in a Tangiers bordello who walks "like a rope unwinding."

This is a must for anyone who admires Capote's writing.

Another fascinating book of inter- est to the Tampa Bay area was recently published by Temple B'nai Israel in Clearwater and written by Herman Koren, an environmental health expert and professor emeritus at Indiana State University.

"Histories of the Jewish People of Pinellas County, Florida: 1883-2005" is a well-written encyclopedia of sorts, with interesting stories about individuals, families, synagogues and organizations.

Koren, a member of Temple B'nai Israel, definitely did his homework - beginning with a short history of early Jewish immigration to the United States, then to Florida and the Bay area.

Thanks to his hard work and easy-to-read writing style, Koren's book will be valuable to anyone wanting to know more about this area's history. It's available for $50 at Temple B'nai Israel. For details, call (727) 531-5829.

Karen Haymon Long is the Tribune's book editor.

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