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Sign up todayGather the Olives
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Learn moreGather the Olives is a dangerous book. That’s because it is about peace in a time
when peace in the Holy Land is a faraway, even radical notion. It is about hope
and food and community and the way there can be solidarity in sharing a meal.
Hence the danger: this book might remind its brave readers of how peace is
nourished and how hope can’t be extinguished.
Over the years, Bret Lott—the bestselling author
of more than a dozen books, including the novel Jewel (an Oprah’s Book
Club selection)—has lived and taught in Jerusalem, affording him the
opportunity to travel throughout Israel and the surrounding area. Now, in Gather
the Olives, this gifted storyteller has brought together a collection of
intimate portraits of the people, the food, and the hope for peace to be found
in a region ravaged by war and conflict.
Through meditations on such varied matters as an
olive oil cooperative run by Israeli and Palestinian women, a non-kosher
butcher shop in the middle of upscale—and very kosher—German Colony, the
nighttime harvesting of olives by Bedouins in downtown Jerusalem, a traditional
Shabbat dinner at an ancient home within the walls of the Old City, a simple
yet beautiful plate of fruit in an office in Ramallah, Bret Lott considers how
food and the people with whom we share it can bring together hearts and souls
in a lasting, meaningful, and peaceful way.
Bret Lott is the author of fourteen books, including the novel Jewel, an Oprah Book Club pick, and Letters and Life: On Being a Writer, On Being a Christian. His work has been translated into eight languages and has appeared in many journals and in dozens of anthologies. He has taught at the College of Charleston for nearly forty years and lives outside Charleston with his wife Melanie.
Bret Lott is the author of fourteen books, including the novel Jewel, an Oprah Book Club pick, and Letters and Life: On Being a Writer, On Being a Christian. His work has been translated into eight languages and has appeared in many journals and in dozens of anthologies. He has taught at the College of Charleston for nearly forty years and lives outside Charleston with his wife Melanie.
Reviews
It’s never the wrong time to meet ordinary people living in an extraordinary place and to be reminded of all that is good, at times even holy, in that place. That’s exactly what Bret Lott does in Gather the Olives, a memoir of his experiences in Israel of people, places, and food, told in an engaging voice by turns wondrous, charming, tender, humorous and, as are the people we meet along the way, fully, deeply human.
—Richard Chess, author of Love Nailed to the Doorpost
How to respond to a book about Israel published in a time of war and division that is not about terrorists, hostages, bombs, and failed leadership? As a Jew consumed with the daily tragedies, I approached warily. This is what I found: Bret Lott has written a book of heart, and kindness, with gorgeous prose that reminds us of the beauty of the land, and the value of life. This is the travelogue that I would recommend to any of my friends heading to—or thinking about—that part of the world. Even now. Especially now.
—Richard Michelson, National Jewish Book Award Winner
Olives, yes, but za’atar and cherries, earthy cheeses, lemon-mint water and so many more gifts from friends and strangers are gathered here at this most capacious table. Bret Lott writes with the eye of a Dutch Master, the soul of a poet, and a heart that loves people in all their unconventional beauty and prickly complexity. Every daily walk, chance meeting, close call, and shared meal is sensually observed, wide open to wonder, and tuned to the ways hope might be found in the most fragile, yet soul-sustaining moments.
—Lia Purpura, author of All the Fierce Tethers
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