Hold Alert: Michael Oren’s ALLY
Israel’s former ambassador to the United States and current Knesset member, Michael B. Oren’s memoir, Ally: My Journey Across the American-Israeli Divide (Random House; Random House Audio; OverDrive Sample) is on the cover of this week’s NYT Sunday Book Review and is moving up Amazon’s sales rankings.
Holds are increasing as well. Several libraries that bought it lightly adding copies.
The book, a behind-the-scenes account of serving as ambassador and the fraught relationship between President Obama and Israel’s Prime Minister, is getting widely divergent responses.
Writing for the New York Post, John Podhoretz, editor of the conservative magazine Commentary, says “I’m not sure that in the annals of diplomatic history there’s ever been anything quite like this astonishing account of Oren’s four years (2009-2013) as Israel’s ambassador in Washington.”
While calling it “remarkably frank,” Jacob Heilbrunn, reviewing for this week’s NYT Sunday Book Review says “it’s difficult to avoid the impression that Oren continues to carry a large chip on his shoulder … [he is] stuck in a time warp.”