Books
Love in the time of the Spanish Inquisition: A Q & A with Cambria Gordon
Cambria Gordon’s debut YA novel “The Poetry of Secrets” explores forbidden Jewish-Christian love
‘This man is not going to daunt me:’ Talking with Philip Roth’s biographer, Blake Bailey
If Philip Roth wasn’t a good man, he was certainly an original one.
Farewell to Norton Juster, who guided generations of readers through ‘The Phantom Tollbooth’
Reading Juster’s work, even the most reluctant math students experienced a flicker of interest in fractions.
“Golem Girl” captures life of imagination and disability culture
When artist Riva Lehrer was a child, Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” deeply resonated with her. Her association with the legend was understandable—Lehrer was born with spina bifida, a condition when the spine and spinal column do not fuse in utero. Lehrer was born in 1958, when 90% of children with spina bifida did not survive. It was also a time when the term “birth defect” was thoughtlessly bandied about.
You’ve probably never heard about the world’s first female rabbi. Sigal Samuel wants to change that
“We don’t have to react as if it’s some kind of crazy thing for a woman to lead a spiritual community.”
Yiddish culture barely touched upon in ‘The New Jewish Canon’
The message given by the book is clear: for the American Jewish intelligentsia, Yiddish is primarily associated with the Holocaust.
Nicole Krauss’s debut short story collection is an argument against staying calm
Called to confront the possibility of radically altered worlds, Krauss’s characters find themselves trapped in the undertow of daily life.
In Nessa Rapoport’s ‘Evening,’ the sun sets on a complicated sisterhood
A week of shiva forces the novel’s protagonist to confront the unsettling fact that the central bond in her life has been one of conflict.
Out of a stereotype of beauty, Elena Ferrante has created something beautiful
Is it possible to root a story entirely in a noxious stereotype, and still create something genuinely human — and genuinely good?
Pete Hamill was New York’s last great storyteller
For Hamill, there were never enough stories, never enough ways to speak truth to power and never enough ways to make a tale just a little more grand.