J. C. HALPER
The Bibliomaniacs

"What a storyteller! Witty, warm, surprising, funny . . . it’s a perfect gift to English-speaking TLV lovers!" – Yirmi Pinkus, novelist and illustrator.

"Authors who can convey their voice so well in writing are rare." – Avigdor Feldman, human rights lawyer and publicist, Haaretz

״Luminous and lucid, Halper’s gemlike short stories flash with wry wit, with a bibliophile’s chagrin, and above all with a subtle feeling for their characters’ rarely stilled appetites and aspirations.״ – Benjamin Balint, author of Kafka’s Last Trial

״Deliciously intimate stories.״ – Hananya Goodman, editor of Between Jerusalem and Benares: Comparative Studies in Judaism and Hinduism

"Iconic Tel Aviv bookseller releases his 1st original story collection" - An interview with J. C. Halper on The Times of Israel.

THE BOOK

At the tail end of a long, inauspicious alleyway, off Tel Aviv’s bustling Allenby Street, is a door. Pass through it, and you’ve entered Halper’s world, a labyrinth of over 60,000 books spanning five rooms, packed from floor to ceiling, winding in and out. He’s been here, behind his cluttered counter, for over thirty years, in his faded T-shirt, incongruous North Jersey accent, and world-weary smile, collecting books and book people, and writing stories.

The Bibliomaniacs, Tales from a Tel Aviv Bookseller is a collection of odd, funny, and often outrageous stories, revealing the surprising and sometimes disturbing relationships between books and people.

June 2022 | 256 Pp. | ISBN 978.965.7764.37.4

THE AUTHOR

J. C. HALPER was born in Newark and raised in Springfield, New Jersey. He studied history at George Washington University in Washington, DC and at Yeshiva University in New York City. He moved to Israel in 1983 and was soon drafted into the Infantry. He opened his bookstore on Allenby Street in downtown Tel Aviv in 1991. When not buying and selling books, he tries to read them. His other obsessions included bicycle commuting and watching professional wrestling. He is married to Rivka and has four children and three grandchildren.