Brief Book Reviews (2023)

For the most part, this page will reflect what I post about my reading on Goodreads. Frankly, what I’m posting are really brief notes, not book reviews.

The most recent reading is listed first.

  • From the Jewish Provinces: Selected Stories by Fradl Shtok, trans. Jordan D. Franklin and Allison Schachter (Northwestern University Press, 2022). Good introduction to Shtok and her work, and I mean that quite literally: The book’s Introduction is outstanding; I found myself more riveted by the background and biographical details about Shtok than I did in a number of the stories.
  • Collateral Damange: 48 Stories by Nancy Ludmerer (Snake Nation Press, 2022). Stellar, memorable work of mostly flash/micro fiction.
  • To Be a Man: Stories by Nicole Krauss (Harper, 2020). This one waited on my Kindle for too long.
  • Loss of Memory Is Only Temporary: Stories by Johanna Kaplan (Ecco, 2022). This one didn’t land with me quite as powerfully as Kaplan’s novel O My America! did.
  • How This Night Is Different: Stories by Elisa Albert (Free Press, 2006). I have been meaning to read this book for years; finally, during what is both #ShortStoryMonth and #JewishAmericanHeritageMonth, I did. Bold, edgy–all those adjectives apply. My favorite piece has to be the one that closes the collection, which you can find over on Longreads.
  • I Have Some Questions for You by Rebecca Makkai (Viking, 2023). A true page-turner of a novel.
  • Natalie and the Nazi Soldiers: The Story of a Hidden Child in France During the Holocaust by Annette Gendler with illustrations by Ste Johnson (Nana’s Books, 2023). A poignant account that is also a tribute to Gendler’s late mother-in-law, whose experiences inspired the story.
  • A Persian Passover by Etan Basseri with illustrations by Rashin Kheiriyeh (Kalaniot Books, 2022). A sweet, charming picture book set in the middle of the 20th century featuring customs of Iranian Jews.
  • The House of Love and Prayer and Other Stories by Tova Reich (Seven Stories Press, 2023). You can find my full review over on the Moment magazine website.
  • Enduring Questions: Using Jewish Children’s Literature in Classrooms by David Bloome et al. (Rowman & Littlefield, 2022). Particularly relevant for primary-school-level educators, including teachers and librarians.
  • The Critic’s Daughter: A Memoir by Priscilla Gilman (W.W. Norton and Co., 2023). A sensitive and poignant account of the author’s relationship with her father, theater critic and author Richard Gilman (1923-2006), and the ways in which this relationship has infused her personal and professional lives. As with memoirs by other writers who are more or less my age (Priscilla Gilman is just about one year younger than I am), I was also touched by the nostalgia of certain cultural references from my own Gen X childhood and adolescence
  • My Last Innocent Year by Daisy Alpert Florin (Henry Holt and Co., 2023). Set mainly on a New Hampshire college campus in the spring of 1998, this novel focuses on budding writer Isabel Rosen; the dominant plotline involves her affair with her married creative-writing professor. It seems to me a good book-club choice (which may be why it was recently the focus of a New York Times Book Review “Group Text” feature).
  • Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself by Judy Blume (Yearling, 1977). Another re-read, many decades later. What a delight.
  • The Lives of Jessie Sampter: Queer, Disabled, Zionist by Sarah Imhoff (Duke University Press, 2022). A scholarly biography of the fascinating Sampter (1883-1938).
  • The Promise of a Normal Life by Rebecca Kaiser Gibson (Arcade, 2023). A novel that reads in many ways like a journal or memoir.
  • The Jewish Quarterly Number 251 (February 2023). Standout work in this issue includes the cover feature (by Vladislav Davidzon) on “The Jews of Ukraine” and David Herman’s “The Jewish Quarterly at Seventy.”
  • In Other Lifetimes All I’ve Lost Comes Back to Me by Courtney Sender (West Virginia University Press, 2023). An impressive debut collection about love, loss, and legacies that linger, with a mix of styles (realist, speculative, midrashic). Grateful for my complimentary advance review copy.
  • I Share My Name by Esther Levy Chehebar with illustrations by Luisa Galstyan (Xist Publishing, 2022). A short, sweet, simply illustrated tale that spotlights Sephardic Jewish baby-naming customs. (I was directed its way by a piece in Tablet magazine.)
  • Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. by Judy Blume (Dell, 1970). This one is a re-read for me. I was prompted to pick up my (very tattered) copy ahead of next month’s premiere of the film version. (Also, a friend and I have chatted briefly about possibly writing something together.) Regardless–what a trip down Memory Lane to read this again after 40-something years. I may have to check out one of the newest editions because I’m curious to see what may have been revised in the interim.
  • Lioness: Golda Meir and the Nation of Israel by Francine Klagsbrun (Schocken Books, 2017). It took me about a month to read this book all the way through (I did have to shelve it for brief periods on occasion, but still—an undertaking). Utterly worth the time/effort. Detailed, readable history of both the topics referenced in the subtitle: Golda Meir (1898-1978) and the nation of Israel, at least from the time of the Yishuv to the Egypt-Israel peace agreement. Highly recommend.
  • All Rise: The Story of Ketanji Brown Jackson by Carole Boston Weatherford with illustrations by Ashley Evans (Crown Books for Young Readers, 2023). Another winner from Carole Boston Weatherford, providing an overview of the life and career of Justice Jackson. Weatherford’s own “Letter for My Granddaughter and All of Our Daughters” in the back matter is a beautiful addition to the book.
  • A Vote for Susanna: The First Woman Mayor by Karen M. Greenwald with illustrations by Sian James (Albert Whitman & Company, 2021). A charming story that may well also serve as a kind of “mentor text” for me as I try to convert history/biography into picture-book form.
  • Old New Land by Theodor Herzl, trans. Lotta Levensohn (Markus Wiener Publishers, 1997). As with Glikl, I read this one to fill a gap in my historical Jewish reading. A fascinating text.
  • Glikl Memoirs 1691-1719 presented by Chava Turniansky, trans. Sara Friedman (Brandeis University Press, 2019). This one had been on my mental tbr list since I was introduced to it in Adam Kirsch’s The People and the Books.
  • Spare by Prince Harry (Random House, 2023). Took me longer that I would have expected to finish reading this one.
  • The Discarded Life: Poems by Adam Kirsch (Red Hen Press, 2022). Check out my atypically lengthy comments about this book, which I highly recommend, on Goodreads.
  • Second Person Singular by Sayed Kashua, trans. Mitch Ginsburg (Grove Press, 2012). Have been meaning to read this novel for literally a decade—every time I checked it out from the library I had to return it before I’d read it. (Again, better late than never.) I’m giving this one five stars, even if my Jewish-Zionist self winced and cringed at times when reading. (My writer self wondered how Kashua managed the intricate plotting—an outline?)
  • The Truffle Eye by Vaan Nguyen, trans. Adriana X. Jacobs (Zephyr Press, 2020). Yes, it took me two years to actually read this book, but better late than never, right? Don’t miss the very helpful foreword by translator Adriana X. Jacobs.