|
|
Jewish Stories and Voices May 2025 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Kantika : a novel
by Elizabeth Graver
Forced to flee early 20th-century Istanbul with her family, a young Sephardic woman is sent to Cuba for an arranged second marriage where a feisty, disabled stepdaughter pits her new family against her old one. 50,000 first printing. Illustrations.
|
|
|
|
Into the forest : a Holocaust story of survival, triumph, and love
by Rebecca Frankel
The inspiring story of a Polish family who narrowly escaped the Holocaust by fleeing to the Bialowieza Forest, surviving two years of brutal winters, disease and Nazi raids until their 1944 rescue by the Red Army, 60,000 first printing. Illustrations.
|
|
|
|
When Franny stands up
by Eden Robins
In post-WWII Chicago, aspiring Jewish comedienne Franny Steinberg discovers that her comedy heals men's pain and must summon the courage to find humor in her darkest trauma to break boundaries, discover her voice and heal her family through the power of laughter. Original.
|
|
|
|
The orchard : a novel
by David Hopen
Reinventing himself upon moving to a glitzy Miami suburb, a student at an Orthodox Jewish academy is welcomed into a circle of popular students whose faith is unconventionally tested by their charismatic rabbi. A first novel. 50,000 first printing.
|
|
|
|
The best strangers in the world : stories from a life spent listening
by Ari Shapiro
The award-winning cohost of NPR's All Things Considered presents this stirring memoir-in-essays in which he seeks ways to help people listen to one another; to find connection and commonality with those who seem different; and to remind us that we are all human. 150,000 first printing.
|
|
|
|
Golem girl : a memoir
by Riva Lehrer
The vividly told, full-color memoir of an artist born with disabilities who searches for freedom and connection in a society afraid of strange bodies. Illustrations.
|
|
|
|
The Boston girl : a novel
by Anita Diamant
Recounting the story of her life to her granddaughter, octogenarian Addie describes how she was raised in early 20th-century America by suspicious Jewish immigrant parents in a teeming multicultural neighborhood. Online reading group guide. By the author of The Red Tent and Day After Night.
|
|
|
|
The forbidden daughter : the true story of the Holocaust survivor
by Zipora Klein Jakob
Born in the Kovno Ghetto in Lithuania where Nazi law forbade Jewish women from giving birth, Elida, after her parents are killed, is dependent on the kindness of strangers as she grows up, and surviving the Holocaust, never gives up hope as she searches for love and belonging. Original.
|
|
|
|
Next stop : a novel
by Benjamin Resnick
After a black hole consumes the State of Israel and similar strange events occur in major cities around the world, Jewish Americans find themselves rethinking their vulnerability and connection to world.
|
|
|
|
Israel : a concise history of a nation reborn
by Daniel Gordis
Presenting a brief but thorough account of the cultural, economic and political history of the state of Israel, a public intellectual sheds light on the past of this complex nation, one rife with conflict, so that readers can understand its future. 30,000 first printing.
|
|
|
|
The story of the forest
by Linda Grant
In 1913, Mina, a Jewish merchant's daughter, meets Bolsheviks in a Baltic Sea forest, prompting her and her brother Jossel to emigrate to England, where the Great War and subsequent events intertwine their lives with a wounded soldier's, leading to marriage, trade dynasties, and struggles with discrimination in Liverpool chronicled through family lore.
|
|
|
|
The postcard
by Anne Berest
Fifteen years after the arrival of an anonymous postcard with the names of her maternal great-grandparents and their children—all killed at Auschwitz—Anne Berest is moved to discover who sent it and why and embarks on a journey to learn the fate of the Rabinovitch family.
|
|
|
|
Signal fires
by Dani Shapiro
When the Shenkmans arrive on Division Street, their brilliant, lonely son Waldo, who has a native ability to find connections in everything, befriends Dr. Wilf, who is harboring a dark secret, setting in motion a chain of events that cause the past to come back with a vengeance.
|
|
|
|
The chosen
by Chaim Potok
A baseball game between Jewish schools is the catalyst that starts a bitter rivalry between two boys and their fathers
|
|
|
|
The living and the lost
by Ellen Feldman
Living and working in a bombed-out Berlin, Millie Mosbach must come to terms with a past decision made in a moment of crisis with the help of a mysterious man who is surprisingly understanding of her demons.
|
|
|
|
The sound of a thousand stars : novel
by Rachel Robbins
Jewish physicist Alice Katz, defying her family's expectations, joins the secretive government project in Los Alamos during World War II, where she meets Caleb Blum, an Orthodox Jew in the explosives division, and amidst the race to develop a weapon before the Nazis, they navigate fear, uncertainty, and an unexpected romance.
|
|
|
|
The secret chord
by Geraldine Brooks
A tale based on the story of King David is set against a backdrop of Second Iron Age Israel and traces his journey from an obscure shepherd to a hero and king before his fall as a murderous despot. By the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of People of the Book. (religious fiction). Simultaneous.
|
|
|
|
The matzah ball
by Jean Meltzer
A best-selling Christmas romance novelist who has kept her career a secret from her family,“nice Jewish girl” Rachel Rubenstein-Goldblatt is forced to write her first Hanukkah romance and, in desperate need of inspiration, finds her summer camp arch enemy standing in her way. Simultaneous. 75,000 first printing.
|
|
|
|
Kaddish.com
by Nathan Englander
The award-winning author of What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank presents a streamlined comic novel about an atheist son's creative refusal to say the requisite Jewish prayer for the dead for his late orthodox father.
|
|
|
|
Lost & found : a memoir
by Kathryn Schulz
A staff writer at The New Yorker and winner of the Pulitzer Prize brilliantly explores of the role that loss and discovering play in all of our lives, in this part memoir, part guidebook to living in a world that always demands both our gratitude and our grief.
|
|
|
|
The modern table : kosher recipes for everyday gatherings
by Kim Kushner
"The Modern Table is an elegant collection of delicious, fresh, seasonal, beautiful recipes that also happen to be kosher. It is the culmination of ideas inspired by years of gathering to form connections around the table"
|
|
|
|
The light of the midnight stars
by Rena Rossner
"Deep in the Hungarian woods, the sacred magic of King Solomon lives on in his descendants. Gathering under the midnight stars, they perform small miracles and none are more gifted than the great Rabbi Isaac and his three daughters. But darkness is creeping across Europe, threatening the lives of every Jewish person in every village. Each sister will have to make an impossible choice in an effort to survive - and change the fate of their family forever"
|
|
|
|
Koshersoul : the faith and food journey of an African American Jew
by Michael Twitty
In this thought-provoking and profound book, the James Beard award-winning author of The Cooking Gene explores the creation of African-Jewish cooking through memory, identity and food, offering a rich background for inventive recipes and the people who create them. 75,000 first printing.
|
|
|
|
Night
by Elie Wiesel
A memorial edition of the seminal memoir of surviving the Nazi death camps includes the unpublished text of a speech that the author delivered before the United Nations General Assembly on the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, as well as a memorial tribute by President Barack Obama.
|
|
|
|
The golem of Brooklyn : a novel
by Adam Mansbach
Brooklyn art teacher, Len Bronstein, after unwittingly bringing a nine-foot-six, 400-pound, Yiddish-speaking Golem to life, enlists a bodega clerk to translate while The Golem, learning English by binging on Curb Your Enthusiasm, recalls every previous iteration of himself, demanding to know why he was recreated and whom he must destroy.
|
|
|
|
The little liar : a novel
by Mitch Albom
A trustworthy boy who has never told a lie, 11-year-old Nico Krispis, duped by a German officer into leading his family and fellow Jewish residents to their doom, becomes a pathological liar, in a story that explores honesty, devotion and revenge—and the power of love to ultimately redeem us.
|
|
|
|
The hilltop : a novel
by Assaf Gavron
Follows a group of settlers on a hilltop community in the West Bank, including Gabi Kupper, a former kibbutz-dweller who has a spiritual reawakening, and Roni, who sells“artisanal” olive oil to Tel Aviv yuppies. 25,000 first printing.
|
|
|
|
Sam : a novel
by Allegra Goodman
Grappling with self-doubt and insecurity as she grows into her teens, Sam, yearning for her climbing coach's attention, dealing with her father's absence and raging against her mother's constant pressure, must decide who she wants to be in the face of what she's expected to do. 75,000 first printing.
|
|
|
|
Nobody will tell you this but me : a true (as told to me) story
by Bess Kalb
The award-winning Jimmy Kimmel Live writer reflects on her relationship with her loving grandmother, the daughter of immigrants from 19th-century Belarus whose hardships, sacrifices and headstrong nature shaped the author's perspectives on family and career. Illustrations.
|
|
|
|
The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store
by James McBride
When a skeleton is unearthed in the small, close-knit community of Chicken Hill, Pennsylvania, in 1972, an unforgettable cast of characters—living on the margins of white, Christian America—closely guard a secret, especially when the truth is revealed about what happened and the part the town's white establishment played in it.
|
|
|
|
Last summer at the Golden Hotel
by Elyssa Friedland
"A family reunion in the Catskills brings hilarity and nostalgia when two clans convene for the summer at their beloved getaway. In its heyday, the Golden Hotel was the crown jewel of the hotter-than-hot Catskills vacation scene. For more than sixty years, the Goldman and Weingold families-best friends and business partners-have presided over this glamorous resort, which served as a second home for well-heeled guests and celebrities. But the Catskills are not what they used to be-and neither is the relationship between the Goldmans and the Weingolds. As the facilities and management begin to fall apart, a tempting offer to sell forces the two families together again to make a heart-wrenching decision. Can they save their beloved Golden, or is it too late? Long-buried secrets emerge, new dramas and financial scandal erupt, and everyone from the traditional grandparents to the millennial grandchildren wants a say in the hotel's future. But business and pleasure clash when the hotel owners rediscover the magic of a bygone era of nonstop fun, even as they grapple with what may be their last resort"
|
|
|
|
Cold crematorium : reporting from the land of Auschwitz
by Jâozsef Debreczeni
This lost memoir from a Holocaust survivor, translated into English for the first time, provides an eyewitness account of his twelve horrifying months of incarceration and slave labor in World War II Nazi concentration camps. 60,000 first printing. Illustrations.
|
|
|
|
People love dead Jews : reports from a haunted present
by Dara Horn
"A startling exploration of how Jewish history is exploited to comfort the living. Reflecting on subjects as far-flung as the international veneration of Anne Frank, the blockbuster travelling exhibition called "Auschwitz," the Jewish history of the Chinese city of Harbin, and the little known "righteous-gentile" Varian Fry, Dara Horn challenges us to confront the reasons why there might be so much fascination with Jewish deaths, as emblematic of the worst of evils the world has to offer, and so little respect for Jewish lives, as they continue to unfold in the present. Horn draws upon her own family life -- trying to explain Shakespeare's Shylock to a curious 10-year-old, her anger when swastikas are drawn on desks in her children's school in New Jersey, the profound and essential perspective offered by traditional religious practice, prayer, and study -- to assert the vitality, complexity and depth of this life against an anti-Semitism that, far from being disarmed by the mantra of "Never forget," is on the rise"
|
|
|
|
Shuk : from market to table the heart of Israeli home cooking
by Einat Admony
Taking readers on a culinary journey through Israel where they are introduced to the fragrances and flavors of the mishmash of foods represented in its shuks or markets, this book presents 140 home-cook-friendly recipes for creating a multicultural table. 25,000 first printing. Illustrations.
|
|
|
|
Isola : a novel
by Allegra Goodman
Inspired by a real 16th-century heroine, an orphaned and betrayed young woman, Marguerite, is marooned on a desolate island with her lover, where she must confront nature's harshness and her own strength in a desperate fight for survival.
|
|
|
|
The end of love / : Sex and Desire in the Twenty-First Century
by Tamara Tenenbaum
"Born and raised in an Orthodox Jewish community in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Tamara Tenenbaum approached the sexual and affective habits of the secular world like an anthropologist discovering the ways of life of an unknown civilization. Drawing from philosophy and feminist militancy, from conversations with friends and colleagues, and from an attempt to turn her own body and experience into a laboratory for both individual and collective reflection, Tenenbaum explores the challenges that young people today face at the start of their adult lives. Tenenbaum examines the multiple dimensions of affection, from the value of friendship to the culture of consent, passing through motherhood as a choice or an imperative, desired and abhorred singlehood, polyamory, open relationships, and the workings of dating apps"
|
|
|
|
The immortalists
by Chloe Benjamin
Sneaking out to get readings from a traveling psychic reputed to be able to tell customers when they will die, four adolescent siblings from New York City's 1969 Lower East Side hide what they learn from each other before embarking on five decades of respective experiences shaped by their determination to control fate. By an award-winning author.
|
|
|
|
Kissing girls on Shabbat : a memoir
by Sara Glass
No longer able to conform to her controlling Hasidic community, the author walked away from the world she knew and onto a path of self-acceptance as she, after a divorce, custody battle, remarriage and a shocking sexual assault, decided to finally be true to herself and embrace her queer identity.
|
|
|
|
The man who sold air in the holy land : stories
by Omer Friedlander
Set in Israel and the Middle East, this debut collection of moving, richly textured stories introduces characters, often outsiders or even outcasts, haunted by the past, or by a future they can see but often not reach.
|
|
|
|
A sweet year : Jewish celebrations and festive recipes for kids and their families
by Joan Nathan
"In Jewish tradition, holidays are a time for family and feasting, and for Joan Nathan, nothing embodies the holiday spirit more than cooking delicious festive favorites with friends and loved ones. When her own children were young, Nathan published the first version of this book, which covers nine Jewish holidays and includes step-by-step instructions for kids and their families to prepare accessible feasts. Now she updates a beloved go-to resource for her grandchildren's generation (Out with the Pot Roast! In with the Tahini Shakes!) and adds a heaping helping of new recipes. Included are dishes old and new, traditional and novel, and mouthwatering recipes that everyone will enjoy, from Moroccan Apricot Chicken and Chicken Schnitzel Tenders to MushroomKreplach Dumplings and Veggie Quiche. Included are essays on the history of Jewish holidays, instructions for how to celebrate them, and craft activities such as making challah covers and candlesticks. Here are also personal essays on how Nathan's familycelebrates the holidays and various menus that can be mixed and matched. For young chefs, recipes also specify the ingredients, equipment, and steps suitable for children to do both by themselves or with adults. This charming book is the comprehensive guide to Jewish holidays and celebrations, and it will help make memories that will last a lifetime. Included are recipes such as: *Rainbow-Colored Challah *Bagels with Apple and Cream Cheese Spread* Shakshouka *Banana strawberry pancakes *Fruit Noodle Kugel *Pasta with Pesto and Vegetables *Potato Latkes *Apple honey cupcakes *Date Tahini Banana Milkshake"
|
|
|
|
Here I am
by Jonathan Safran Foer
A tale told over four tumultuous weeks in present-day Washington, D.C traces the fracturing of a family in crisis when the three sons of Jacob and Julia confront the paradoxes between the lives they think they want and the lives they are actually living. By the award-winning author of Everything Is Illuminated.
|
|
|
Pierce County Library System
3005 112th St. E, Tacoma, Washington 98446
253-548-3300mypcls.org |
|
|
|