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By Rachel Fishman Feddersen March 18, 2020

Dear reader:

I hope you’ll join me in a new project we’re launching: The Forward Book Club. For me, it’s a way to combine something I love (reading) with something I crave (connection in a time of crisis).

We’re going to start with a book that’s perfect for this moment: “The Bread Givers,” by Anzia Yezierska. I read it in college and am really looking forward to revisiting it now. I recall it being electrifying; it’s told in the singularly powerful voice of a young woman living on the Lower East Side with her family in the 1920s. Our narrator is intense, she’s funny, she’s frustrated… and she quite likely read the Jewish Daily Forward. (We know the author did.)

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Even better: It’s absorbing, and it goes fast, so it’s just right for both launching a book club, and distracting yourself from the news of the day.

Your Hosts

Rachel Fishman Feddersen (me), Publisher and CEO of the Forward
Talya Zax, Deputy Culture Editor
Chana Pollack, Forward Archivist

How It Works

Starting on Wednesday, March 25th, our “meetings” will be posts to Instagram and Facebook, with discussion happening in the comments; we’ll be commenting live for the first hour, and then following up all week long. As a thought starter, we’ll post a passage from the book and go from there. We’ll also send a weekly email summarizing what we talked about.

The book is about 300 pages long, so we’ll divide it into thirds and meet three times. And meanwhile, we’ll accept suggestions for our next book.

What To Do

Buy: “The Bread Givers” is still in print, and is available in digital format as well. You can buy it online from independent booksellers the Strand, Greenlight Bookstore or Powell’s Books, or contact your local bookstore to arrange delivery. (Amazon does stock the book, but is de-prioritizing book sales until early April, an added incentive to support independent outlets.)
Email: Contact us at [email protected], and put Forward Book Club in the subject line.
Join: We’ll be having our first discussion next Wednesday, March 25, at 2 p.m. EST. We’ll send out details about how to join once you email us (see above). We’ll also share those details in our daily newsletter that morning — sign up here. We hope to see you there!

Sincerely,

Rachel Fishman Feddersen

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—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

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