Books


Mark Helprin's Politics Doesn't Get in Way of Prose

By Ranen Omer-Sherman

His strident politics notwithstanding, Mark Helprin’s magically descriptive powers have rendered up some of the most genuinely adventurous writing of our time.Read More

Hans Keilson’s First Novel Depicts Life Before Nazis

By Erika Dreifus

Unlike Hans Keilson’s bestsellers, ‘Life Goes On’ is not grounded in the crises and moral dilemmas posed by the Nazis’ reign. It takes on the period of economic decline that preceded it.Read More

Rachel Tzvia Back’s Verse Confronts Devastating Loss

By Sarah Wildman

Poet Rachel Tzvia Back palpates the edges and depths of grief and mourning. The text in her latest book of verse, ‘A Messenger Comes,’ is unflinching and raw.Read More

Michael Feinstein Strikes Up The Bland

By Erik Tarloff

Michael Feinstein’s ‘The Gershwins and Me,’ is a sustained act of homage to the legendary composers. Unfortunately, that doesn’t make it a great book.Read More

Jami Attenberg Phones Home

By Jami Attenberg

Jami Attenberg wanted to investigate why she’s so interested in food (which plays a big role in her novel, ‘The Middlesteins’). So she called her father to find out.Read More

Némirovsky’s ‘Wine of Solitude’ Confirms Her Place

By Andrea Palatnik

‘The Wine of Solitude’ is the most autobiographical novel from Irene Némirovsky, who died in Auschwitz in 1942. It confirms her place in the pantheon of Jewish writers.Read More

A.M. Homes' Novel Addresses '70s Childhood

By Jennifer Gilmore

A.M. Homes calls her new work a ‘midlife coming-of-age novel,’ which makes ‘May We Be Forgiven’ sound sweet or langorous. In truth, it’s neither.Read More

Teenage Hero Is a Distinctly West Coast Jew

By Amy Klein

Has any Jewish teenager in recent American literature felt as much antipathy toward attending Hebrew school as Sanskrit Aaron Zuckerman?Read More

Don’t Know Much About Semitism

By Susan Isaacs

Susan Isaacs came from an assimilated family that had a Christmas tree. The author explains how coming to faith late in life informs her approach to Jewish fiction.Read More

Holocaust Memoir Fraud Inspires Novel

By Joshua Furst

After a Holocaust memoir was revealed as a fraud, Benjamin Stein wove a fictional tale of a literary hoax that takes on the sentimental link between Jewish identity and the shoah.Read More




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