Baxter and Me


In his last post, Gregory Levey wrote about late-night Middle East radio commentary. His newest book,
How to Make Peace in the Middle East in Six Months or Less Without Leaving Your Apartment
, is now available. He will be blogging all week for the JBC/MJL Author Blog.


For some reason I don’t really understand, if you go to the Amazon.com page for the book I’ve just published,
How to Make Peace in the Middle East in Six Months or Less Without Leaving Your Apartment
, Amazon often makes a strange recommendation. If you are interested in my book, Amazon believes, you might also be interested in a children’s book called Baxter, the Pig Who Wanted to Be Kosher.

Now, I’ve never read Baxter, the Pig Who Wanted to Be Kosher, which is written by Laurel Snyder. I guess it could theoretically be

related to my own book, which is about my attempt to make Middle East peace from the comfort of my own apartment, mostly so that I wouldn’t have to hear about the fatiguing Arab-Israeli conflict anymore – but, judging by its title, it doesn’t sound likely.

In any case, I am honored to be in the company of Baxter and his strange, masochistic wish. Even so, it makes me wonder what rationale Amazon has for connecting these two books. Do a lot of people buy both of them? Do we have a similar demographic of readers? Or is there something fundamentally similar about Baxter’s quest and my own?

Gregory Levey’s second book, How to Make Peace in the Middle East in Six Months or Less Without Leaving Your Apartment, has just been released.

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