My Year in Jewish Books
For the past three years, I’ve found it useful (and kind of fun) to look back on “my year in Jewish books.” So, borrowing some of the same introductory wording, I’m going to attempt to do something similar for 2014.
Reviewing my reading for 2014 (thank you, Goodreads!), I can see that I do not and would not ever limit my reading to “Jewish books” exclusively; it seems that this list comprises about half of the titles I read this year in toto. (By the way, in case you haven’t heard me say this before, I define “Jewish books” in the simplest terms as books with substantive Jewish content. In my view, non-Jewish authors can write “Jewish books.” And Jewish authors can write books that don’t strike me as overtly Jewish.)
But this year, as usual, I did read quite a few books that fall within the “Jewish book” category. And, as an advocate for Jewish literature, I’m proud of that.
Below, you will find these books presented in the order in which I read them (most recent first, this year). Please note that, where appropriate, I have included links to reviews, essays, and newsy items I have written; interviews I have conducted; “Sunday Sentence” citations; and the odd blog post. I have also disclosed how I obtained each book: P (purchase), R (complimentary review copy), L (library). This year, I’m adding a category: FTB, for books I’ve read in manuscript prior to their release from Fig Tree Books in my job as FTB media editor.
- The Melting Pot by Israel Zangwill (P/L–public domain)
- Reuben Sachs by Amy Levy (P)
- Dear Darwish by Morani Kornberg-Weiss (P)
- All I Love and Know: A Novel by Judith Frank (L)
- Memoirs of a Jewish Extremist: The Story of a Transformation by Yossi Klein Halevi (P)
- The Hilltop: A Novel by Assaf Gavron; trans. Steven Cohen (L)
- The Pawnbroker by Edward Lewis Wallant (FTB)
- Diary of the Fall by Michel Laub; trans. Margaret Jull Costa (L)
- J by Howard Jacobson (P)
- The Assistant by Bernard Malamud (P)
- The Mathematician’s Shiva by Stuart Rojstaczer (L)
- In The Courtyard of the Kabbalist by Ruchama King Feuerman (P)
- Monastery by Eduardo Halfon; trans. Lisa Dillman and Daniel Hahn (R)
- The Betrayers: A Novel by David Bezmozgis (R)
- Safekeeping: A Novel by Jessamyn Hope (FTB)
- The Book of Stone: A Novel by Jonathan Papernick (FTB)
- Compulsion: A Novel by Meyer Levin (FTB)
- Prayers for the Living: A Novel by Alan Cheuse (FTB)
- The Essential Ellen Willis by Ellen Willis (P)
- The Hope: American Jewish Voices in Support of Israel edited by Rabbi Menachem Creditor (P)
- Tel Aviv Noir by Etgar Keret and Assaf Gavron; trans (R)
- The New Diaspora: The Changing Landscape of American Jewish Fiction edited by Victoria Aarons, Avinoam J. Patt, and Mark Shechner (R)
- The Luminous Heart of Jonah S. by Gina B. Nahai (R)
- The War on Women in Israel: How Religious Radicalism is Smothering the Voice of a Nation by Elana Maryles Sztokman (R)
- American Jewish History: A Primary Source Reader edited by Gary Phillip Zola and Marc Dollinger (R)
- Gabriel by Edward Hirsch (P)
- Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? by Roz Chast (L)
- The Glad Hand of God Points Backwards: Poems by Rachel Mennies (P)
- Israel: A History by Anita Shapira (P)
- Goldie Takes a Stand: Golda Meir’s First Crusade by Barbara Krasner (R)
- One Nation Taken Out of Another by Zachary Sholem Berger (R)
- Heaven and Other Poems by Israel Horowitz (R)
- On Bittersweet Place by Ronna Wineberg (R)
- A Replacement Life by Boris Fishman (L)
- Suddenly, Love by Aharon Appelfeld; trans. Jeffrey M. Green (R)
- Fields of Exile by Nora Gold (R)
- Message from a Blue Jay: Love, Loss, and One Writer’s Journey Home, by Faye Rapport DesPres (R)
- The UnAmericans by Molly Antopol (P)
- The Amos Oz Reader by Amos Oz; ed. Prof. Nitza Ben Dov; trans. Nicholas de Lange (P)
- The Muse of Ocean Parkway and Other Stories by Jacob Lampart (R)
- Little Failure by Gary Shteyngart (P)
- Roth Unbound by Claudia Roth Pierpont (L)
- Who Was Anne Frank? by Ann Abramson (P)
- The Hare with Amber Eyes: A Family’s Century of Art and Loss by Edmund de Waal (L)
- The Exiles Return by Elisabeth de Waal (R)
- Love and Math: The Heart of Hidden Reality by Edward Frenkel (L)
Thanks for reminding me of the Jewish books I somehow never got around to reading this year, especially “Hare with the Amber Eyes.” Maybe you’ll get some of my books on your list in 2015.
Hope so, Maggie!
What a list! Impressive!
Well, interesting, certainly! Some of these books I wholeheartedly loved, while others troubled me…well, you know how it is!