Book Club Selections

(Fiction, 216 pp. Portuguese, 1980; English translation, 1984) An outsider among outsiders, a Jewish centaur narrates his life’s journey from his birth on a farm homesteaded by his Russian immigrant family in southern Brazil through his efforts to rid himself of the equine portion of his body and take his…...

(Fiction, 287 pp. 1994) This surprisingly comic novel follows the adventures of Ilka Weissnix, a 21-year-old Austrian Jew who has survived the War and come to the United States.  As she explores her new world, she enters into an unlikely romance with an older African-American intellectual, who also turns out…...

(Fiction, 378 pp. Hebrew, 1988; English translation, 1991) This imaginative novel transcends time and place as it depicts three generations of the inhabits of a rural village in Israel—from the four immigrants pioneering a new life in a new land, to their grandson Baruch, who reflects on the past with…...

(Fiction, 315 pp. Hebrew, 1994, English translation 1999) Also published as Four Meals, this rich and remarkable novel recounts how, over the course of four meals that take place across several decades, a boy named Zayde learns about his mother Judith’s relationships in a rural village in British Mandate Palestine…...

(Memoir, 224 pp. Hebrew, 2009; English translation, 2011) This humorous and tender memoir about the acclaimed Israeli author’s grandmother and her obsession with cleanliness richly evokes the idealism and disappointments of the Eastern European Jews who came to Palestine in the 1920s. Review: Kirkus Review: Publishers Weekly Review by Emma…...

(Fiction, 365 pp. Hebrew, 2006, English translation, 2007) During Israel’s 1948 War of Independence a young homing pigeon handler, in his final moments, sends off one last pigeon, bearing an unusual gift to his girlfriend. Intertwined is the contemporary story of a middle-aged tour guide who falls in love again…...

(Fiction, 320 pp. Hebrew, 2013; English translation, 2016) This unconventional literary thriller about two murders — one committed as an act of vengeance and the second as an act of retribution — takes place in a small agrarian village in Israel. Spanning three generations in one family’s life, this is…...

(Fiction, 368 pp. 2015) Seventy years after an American painter working for the Works Progress Administration vanishes in New York City in 1940, her great-niece, working at Christie’s auction house, uncovers enigmatic paintings hidden behind works by famous Abstract Expressionist artists. Discussion Questions from LitLovers Kirkus Review Review by Miriam Bradman…...

(Memoir, 272 pp, 2019) Confronted with the stunning news that her father was not her biological father, the acclaimed novelist and memoirist explores the intersections of family secrets, memory, history, biology and identity. Discussion Guide from Penguin Random House Discussion Questions from the PBS NewsHour-New York Times Book Club Kirkus…...

(Fiction, 240 pp. 2022) Shapiro’s novel explores the fluidity, confusion, and endurance of memory, and the cost of secrets and repressed guilt on family relationships. Anguish erupts within the first pages after three drunken teens make the fateful decision to drive. The ensuing crash propels a doctor to the scene…...