Books and Pastrami Sandwiches

Today I pulled down a copy of John Keegan’s “Six Armies in Normandy” from my bookshelf and opened it to the title page, all in tribute to the late George Whitman, ” title=”the Los Angeles Times paid tribute to Marvin Saul” target=”_blank”>the Los Angeles Times paid tribute to Marvin Saul, founder of Junior’s Deli at Pico and Westwood in West Los Angeles.  Each man figured importantly in the cultural life of the place where he lived, and each one sated the appetites of his customers in different but equally primal ways. I know for a fact that a great many working writers in Los Angeles sustained their efforts on Marvin’s chicken soup, pastrami sandwiches, and seven-layer cake over the years because I was one of them.

I salute them both.

Jonathan Kirsch, author and publishing attorney, is the book editor of The Jewish Journal. His next book is “The Exterminating Angel,” a biography of a Jewish resistance fighter set in Paris in the 1930s. He can be reached at books@jewishjournal.com.