Book Club Selections

(Fiction, 224 p. 2019)  Despite the thread that weaves these stories together — our inability to communicate, to see so little of the world around us and to understand each other even less —  the author’s love for humanity and our hapless existence shines a bright light through sparking our…...

(Short Stories, 188 pp. Hebrew 2010; English translation, 2012) Keret is the most popular Israeli writer of his generation, with a style and focus that mark a new direction in the nation’s literature. The 35 brief stories in this new collection focus on everyday life, leavened with the author’s legendary…...

(Memoir, 292 pp. Hebrew, 2015; English translation 2015) The seven years between the birth of his son in the midst of a terrorist attack and the death of his father from cancer are the ostensible subject of Keret’s first nonfiction book published in America.  The short vignettes and ruminations are…...

(Fiction, 304 pp. 2017) This hybrid work of fiction, memoir and literary criticism alternates between two distinct stories about two Americans who travel to Tel Aviv searching for something they cannot articulate: a New York lawyer named Epstein in the final stages of giving away his fortune; a critically acclaimed…...

(Fiction, 252 pp. 2005) Covering over 60 years and taking the reader from Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe to present day Brighton Beach, this haunting novel deals with issues of loneliness and the need to fill a void left by lost love. Discussion questions Review: Kirkus Review by David Mogolov, JBooks.com Review…...

(Fiction, 240 pp. 2020) Set in locales around the globe, Krauss’s first short story collection focuses on tensions and challenges in a wide variety of relationships. Review from Kirkus Reviews Review by Timothy Aubrey, The New Republic, December 17, 2020 Review by Markie Robson-Scott, The Arts Desk, November 19, 2020…...

(Memoir, 320 p. 2017) At the age of 27, alone in Jerusalem in the wake of a painful divorce, Kurshan adopted the practice of daf yomi: reading a page a day of the Talmud. Undaunted by the idea that it would take more than seven years to complete the full…...

(Play, 289 pp. 1995) Sprawling in scope, this award-winning play combines historical figures Roy Cohn and the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg with contemporary characters, as they navigate an AIDS- and Reagan-infected 1980s America. The humorous and visionary drama graphically explores the themes of loss, betrayal, and redemption. Discussion questions “Angels…...

(Memoir, 352 pp. 2007) This award-winning memoir by a Wall Street Journal reporter chronicles her Jewish family’s traditions, tragedies and triumphs in their epic exodus in 1963 from the splendor of cosmopolitan Cairo, to Paris, and finally Brooklyn.   Discussion questions Kirkus Review Review by Michiko Kakutani, New York Times,…...

(Nonfiction, 328 pp. 2005) In 1980, a twenty-three-year-old student set out to rescue abandoned Yiddish books before it was too late. Filled with poignant and often humorous anecdotes from Lansky’s travels across the country as he collected books from older Jewish immigrants, Outwitting History also shows how an almost-lost culture…...