Book #152 of 2021: The Lost Shtetl by Max Gross I expected to like this 2020 novel better from its premise, which is that an old Jewish town nestled in Poland’s forests somehow fell out of contact with the outside world, escaping the pogroms and the Nazi purge to remain undetected until the modern day. …
Continue reading “Book Review: The Lost Shtetl by Max Gross”
Book #298 of 2020: The Way Back by Gavriel Savit It’s probably not a good sign when a book that feels so tailor-made for me as a reader struggles to keep my attention throughout. I do love the first quarter or so of this story, which sees a pair of Jewish kids fleeing their nineteenth-century …
Continue reading “Book Review: The Way Back by Gavriel Savit”
Book #239 of 2019: Gentlemen of the Road by Michael Chabon Gentlemen of the Road (working title, per the author’s afterword: Jews with Swords) is an exciting, swashbuckling adventure through 10th-century eastern Europe, and definitely one of the rare novellas that doesn’t feel at all abbreviated. Michael Chabon excels at bringing this historical period to …
Continue reading “Book Review: Gentlemen of the Road by Michael Chabon”
Book #233 of 2019: The Red Tent by Anita Diamant I really enjoyed this biblical retelling, which takes the minor figure of Jacob’s daughter Dinah from Genesis and presents a possible version of her life’s story. In the process, author Anita Diamant goes far beyond what scripture has to say about either the heroine or …
Continue reading “Book Review: The Red Tent by Anita Diamant”
Book #222 of 2019: It’s a Whole Spiel: Love, Latkes, and Other Jewish Stories edited by Katherine Locke and Laura Silverman This 2019 YA volume presents over a dozen brand-new short stories from Jewish writers about contemporary Jewish teens. The characters vary in their specific denominations and levels of religiosity, with some of the plots …
Book #214 of 2019: The Blessing of a Skinned Knee: Using Jewish Teachings to Raise Self-Reliant Children by Wendy Mogel This volume is part crash-course on traditional wisdom from Judaism and part demonstration of how it can inform modern child-raising. As with most parenting books — or self-help guides more generally — the advice can …
Book #205 of 2019: Fleishman Is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner This story of a New York City Jewish family on the verge of divorce has well-drawn (albeit realistically frustrating) characters and some sharp observations on marriage, parenting, and gender roles. I like the late perspective shift that complicates our understanding of the Fleishman dynamics …
Continue reading “Book Review: Fleishman Is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner”
Book #199 of 2019: The World That We Knew by Alice Hoffman There are some lovely individual moments in this novel about characters in 1940s Europe evading and resisting the Nazis, but I’m ultimately dissatisfied by the overall shape of the narrative and by how little author Alice Hoffman has developed the various elements of …
Continue reading “Book Review: The World That We Knew by Alice Hoffman”
Book #188 of 2019: Anya and the Dragon by Sofiya Pasternack I’m really enjoying the recent trend of explicit Jewish representation in speculative fiction, and this new middle-grade fantasy novel is another fun example. The story is populated with all sorts of creatures from Slavic folklore, but the main conflict facing twelve-year-old Anya isn’t a …
Continue reading “Book Review: Anya and the Dragon by Sofiya Pasternack”
Book #170 of 2019: Resistance by Jennifer A. Nielsen On the surface, this novel about teenage Jewish resistance fighters in Nazi-occupied Poland is a welcome piece of YA historical fiction, educating all ages about a lesser-known aspect of World War II. The characters are invented, but they are inspired by Jennifer A. Nielsen’s extensive research …
Continue reading “Book Review: Resistance by Jennifer A. Nielsen”
The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more