Book Reviews

A selected list of my published reviews and book coverage:

  • Tova Reich, The House of Love and Prayer and Other Stories (Seven Stories Press, 2023), Moment magazine, Spring 2023.
  • “8 Inspiring Children’s Books for Hanukkah,” Hadassah, November 2022.
  • “New Jewish Kidlit: Beyond the Holocaust and Holidays,” Moment, July 2022.
  • “New Children’s Books Chronicle the Lives of Prominent American Jews,” Moment, May 2022.
  • “Five Israel-Inspired Books for Year-Round Reading,” Jewish Journal, December 2021.
  • An essay inspired by Dear Mr. Dickens by Nancy Churnin, illustrated by Bethany Stancliffe (Albert Whitman & Co., 2021), JTA, October 2021.
  • Dara Horn, People Love Dead Jews (W.W. Norton, 2021), Moment magazine, September 2021.
  • “Dusting Off a Classic” (Review-essay on [Kathrine] Kressmann Taylor’s Address Unknown), The American Scholar, December 2020.
  • Vanessa L. Ochs, The Passover Haggadah: A Biography (Princeton University Press, 2020), Hadassah, March 2020.
  • My contribution to Moment magazine’s “Five Books Project,” January 2020.
  • Julie Orringer, The Flight Portfolio (Knopf, 2019), Reading Jewish Fiction, September 2019.
  • Dorit Rabinyan, All the Rivers (trans. Jessica Cohen; Random House, 2017), The Jewish Week, June 2017.
  • Pierre Birnbaum, Léon Blum: Prime Minister, Socialist, Zionist (trans. Arthur Goldhammer; Yale University Press, 2015), The Barnes & Noble Review, June 2015.
  • “Unmothers: Women Writing About Life Without Children” (review-essay), The Missouri Review, Fall 2014.
  • “Noteworthy Books for the New Year,” Jewish Journal, September 2014.
  • Anthony Doerr, All the Light We Cannot See (Scribner, 2014), The Barnes & Noble Review, May 2014.
  • “Chimp Lit: In Search of Story in Four New Books” (review-essay), The Missouri Review, Spring 2014.
  • Aharon Appelfeld, Suddenly, Love (trans. Jeffrey M. Green; Schocken Books, 2014), Jewish Journal, April 2014.
  • Elisabeth de Waal, The Exiles Return (Picador, 2014), The Washington Post, February 2014.
  • Rhidian Brook, The Aftermath (Knopf, 2013), The Washington Post, November 2013.
  • Eduardo Halfon, The Polish Boxer (trans. Daniel Hahn, Ollie Brock, Lisa Dillman, Thomas Bunstead and Anne McLean; Bellevue Literary Press, 2012), The Jewish Journal, November 2012.
  • Hans Keilson, Life Goes On (trans. Damion Searls; Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012), The Forward, October 2012.
  • David Clay Large, Munich 1972: Tragedy, Terror, and Triumph at the Olympic Games (Rowman & Littlefield, 2012), Jewish Review of Books, Fall 2012.
  • Janet Groth, The Receptionist (Algonquin, 2012), The Writer, September 2012.
  • Jeffrey Lewis, Berlin Cantata (Haus, 2012), Jewish Journal, August 2012.
  • Laurent Binet, HHhH (trans. Sam Taylor; Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012), Jewish Book World, April 2012.
  • Anne Korkeakivi, An Unexpected Guest (Little, Brown, 2012), Fiction Writers Review, April 2012.
  • Nathan Englander, What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank (Knopf, 2012), Jewish Journal, March 2012.
  • James L.W. West, III, ed., A Short Autobiography by F. Scott Fitzgerald (Scribner, 2011), The Writer, March 2012.
  • Johanna Adorján, An Exclusive Love (trans. Anthea Bell; W.W. Norton, 2011 [paperback, 2012]), Jewish Journal, February 2012.
  • Natasha Solomons, The House at Tyneford (Plume, 2011), Jewish Journal, February 2012.
  • Mark Yakich, A Meaning for Wife (Ig Publishing, 2011), Fiction Writers Review, January 2012.
  • Martin Fletcher, The List (Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press, 2011), Jewish Journal, November 2011.
  • Nathacha Appanah, The Last Brother (trans. Geoffrey Strachan; Graywolf Press, 2011), Jewish Book World, Fall 5771/2011.
  • Christopher Johnson, Microstyle: The Art of Writing Little (W.W. Norton, 2011), The Writer, September 2011.
  • Sam Savage, Glass (Coffee House Press, 2011), Writermag.com, August 2011.
  • Suzanne Marrs, ed., What There Is to Say We Have Said: The Correspondence of Eudora Welty and William Maxwell (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011), The Writer, July 2011.
  • Villa Gillet/Le Monde (multiple translators), The Novelist’s Lexicon: Writers on the Words That Define Their Work (Columbia University Press, 2010), and Molly McQuade, ed., One Word: Contemporary Writers on the Words They Love or Loathe (Sarabande Books, 2010), The Writer, May 2011.
  • “Looking Backward: Third-Generation Fiction Writers and the Holocaust” (essay-review with emphasis on Natasha Solomons, Mr. Rosenblum Dreams in English [Reagan Arthur Books, 2010]; Alison Pick, Far to Go [Harper Perennial, 2011]; and Julie Orringer, The Invisible Bridge [Knopf, 2010]), Fiction Writers Review, April 2011.
  • Mark Doty, The Art of Description: World Into Word (Graywolf Press, 2010), The Writer, March 2011.
  • Derek Rubin, ed., Promised Lands: New Jewish American Fiction on Longing and Belonging (Brandeis University Press/University Press of New England, 2010), Jewish Journal, December 2010.
  • Natasha Solomons, Mr. Rosenblum Dreams in English (Reagan Arthur Books, 2010), Jewish Book World, Winter 5771/2010.
  • Alexander Neubauer, ed., Poetry in Person: Twenty-Five Years of Conversation with America’s Poets (Knopf, 2010), The Writer, October 2010.
  • Jacob Paul, Sarah/Sara (Ig Publishing, 2010), Fiction Writers Review, July 2010.
  • Rina Frank, Every House Needs a Balcony (trans. Ora Cummings; HarperCollins, 2010), Jewish Journal, June 2010.
  • Carol Sklenicka, Raymond Carver: A Writer’s Life (Scribner, 2009), The Writer, June 2010.
  • Scott Warnock, Teaching Writing Online: How & Why (NCTE, 2009), The Writer, March 2010.
  • Norah Labiner, German for Travelers: A Novel in 95 Lessons (Coffee House Press, 2009), Jewish Book World, Fall 5769/2009.
  • Chloe Aridjis, Book of Clouds (Black Cat, 2009), Fiction Writers Review, September 2009.
  • Matthew Leone, ed., Crafting Fiction, Poetry, and Memoir: Talks from the Colgate Writers’ Conference (Colgate University Press, 2008), The Writer, June 2009.
  • Midge Raymond, Forgetting English (Eastern Washington University Press, 2009), Fiction Writers Review, June 2009.
  • Robert Hartwell Fiske and Laura Cherry, eds., Poem, Revised (Marion Street Press, 2008), The Writer, April 2009.
  • Lena Lencek and Piero Brunello, eds. How to Write Like Chekhov: Advice and Inspiration, Straight From His Own Letters and Work (trans. Lena Lencek; Da Capo Press, 2008), The Writer, February 2009.
  • Roberto Bolaño, Nazi Literature in the Americas (trans. Chris Andrews; New Directions, 2008), The Chattahoochee Review 28.4 (Fall 2008).
  • Margot Singer, The Pale of Settlement (University of Georgia Press, 2007), Kenyon Review Online, October 2008.
  • James Wood, How Fiction Works (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2008), The Writer, October 2008.
  • Yuko Taniguchi, The Ocean in the Closet (Coffee House Press, 2007), The Chattahoochee Review 28.1 (Winter 2008).
  • Susannah Patton, A Journey Into Flaubert’s Normandy (Roaring Forties Press, 2006), The Writer, August 2007.
  • Jeffrey Goldberg, Prisoners: A Muslim and a Jew Across the Middle East Divide (Alfred A. Knopf, 2006), The Chattahoochee Review 27.2 (Winter 2007).
  • Francine Prose, Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them (HarperCollins, 2006), The Writer, February 2007.
  • Irène Némirovsky, Suite Française (trans. Sandra Smith; Alfred A. Knopf, 2006), The Missouri Review 29.3 (Fall 2006).
  • Faïza Guène, Kiffe Kiffe Tomorrow (trans. Sarah Adams; Harvest/Harcourt, 2006), The Chattahoochee Review 27.1 (Fall 2006).
  • Carmen Callil, Bad Faith: A Forgotten History of Family, Fatherland, and Vichy France (Alfred A. Knopf, 2006), The Christian Science Monitor, 10 October 2006.
  • Mary Pipher, Writing to Change the World (Riverhead, 2006), The Writer, September 2006.
  • Walter Laqueur, The Changing Face of Anti-Semitism: From Ancient Times to the Present Day (Oxford University Press, 2006), JBooks.com, August 2006.
  • Ted Kooser and Steve Cox, Writing Brave & Free: Encouraging Words for People Who Want to Start Writing (University of Nebraska Press, 2006), The Writer, April 2006.
  • Michael D’Antonio, Hershey: Milton S. Hershey’s Extraordinary Life of Wealth, Empire, and Utopian Dreams (Simon and Schuster, 2006), The Missouri Review 29.1 (Spring 2006).
  • Albert Camus, Camus at Combat (ed. Jacqueline Lévi-Valensi; trans. Arthur Goldhammer; Princeton University Press, 2006), The Chattahoochee Review 26.2-3 (Winter-Spring 2006).
  • Tamar Yellin, Kafka in Brontëland and Other Stories (Toby Press, 2006), JBooks.com, March 2006.
  • Jane Smiley, Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel (Alfred A. Knopf, 2005), The Writer, February 2006.
  • Marcie Cohen Ferris, Matzoh Ball Gumbo: Culinary Tales of the Jewish South (University of North Carolina Press, 2005), The Forward, 14 October 2005.
  • Camille Cusumano, ed. France, A Love Story: Women Write About the French Experience (Seal Press, 2004), Boston Sunday Globe, November 4, 2004.
  • Deborah Dash Moore, GI Jews: How World War II Changed a Generation (Harvard University Press, 2004), JBooks.com, October 2004.
  • Emile Zola, The Belly of Paris (trans. Ernest Alfred Vizetelly, rev. Tracy Biga and Guy Bennett; Sun & Moon, 1996), The Boston Book Review, April 1996.
  • Dan Bar-On, Fear and Hope: Three Generations of the Holocaust (Harvard University Press, 1995), Hadassah, February 1996.
  • Albert Camus, The First Man (trans. David Hapgood; Alfred A. Knopf, 1995), The Boston Book Review, November 1995.