Jewish American Heritage Month - Great Books for AdultsLike this list

38 items

• This Is a Love Story

  a Novel

  Soffer, Jessica,

  Add This Is a Love Story to your for later shelf

  For fifty years, Abe and Jane have been coming to Central Park, as starry-eyed young lovers, as frustrated and exhausted parents, as artists watching their careers take flight. They came alone when they needed to get away from each other, and…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Wild West Village

  Not a Memoir (unless I Win An Oscar, Die Tragically, or Score a Country #1)

  Kirke, Lola,

  Add Wild West Village to your for later shelf

  Wild West Village by Lola Kirke is a memoir that details her unconventional upbringing as the youngest daughter of a rock star and a clothing designer. Raised in a chaotic West Village brownstone, surrounded by a mix of celebrities and eccentric…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Matchmaker Matchmaker

  Find Me a Love That Lasts

  Ben Shalom, Aleeza,

  Add Matchmaker Matchmaker to your for later shelf

  Aleeza Ben Shalom, Jewish dating coach and Netflix "Jewish Matchmaking" star, guides readers through her perspective on dating with her blend of wisdom and humor. Helpful tools — including checklists, rules, reminders, tips, hacks and frequently…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Kaplan's Plot

  a Novel

  Diamond, Jason,

  Add Kaplan's Plot to your for later shelf

  Elijah Mendes was hoping for a more triumphant return to Chicago. His mother, Eve, is dying of cancer, his business flamed out, and he has nowhere else to go. So he returns to Chicago feeling listless and shattered, worried about how he's going to…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Jewish Futures

  Science Fiction From the World's Oldest Diaspora

  Add Jewish Futures to your for later shelf

  The first Jewish diaspora began nearly three thousand years ago. Those three millennia have informed a rich story-telling tradition that will only continue to expand in the coming centuries. This volume-the literary heir to the Wandering Stars…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• I Want to Burn This Place Down

  Essays

  Kreizman, Maris,

  Add I Want to Burn This Place Down to your for later shelf

  Maris Kreizman is a Jewish feminist cultural critic, and in her debut collection of essays, she opens up about her lived experiences in the United States, a country full of flaws, that made her realize it’s never too late to become radicalized.

• Maine Characters

  a Novel

  Orenstein, Hannah,

  Add Maine Characters to your for later shelf

  Every summer, Vivian Levy and Lucy Webster spend a month with their father at his lake house -- separately. Raised in New York City, Vivian is an ambitious sommelier with a secret that could derail her future. Lucy grew up in a tiny Maine town,…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• American Pastoral

  Roth, Philip. 1933-2018

  Add American Pastoral to your for later shelf

  As the American century draws to an uneasy close, Philip Roth gives us a novel of unqualified greatness that is an elegy for all our century's promises of prosperity, civic order, and domestic bliss. Roth's protagonist is Swede Levov, a legendary…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Forest Dark

  a Novel

  Krauss, Nicole,

  Add Forest Dark to your for later shelf

  In the wake of his parents' deaths, his divorce from his wife of more than thirty years, and his retirement from the New York legal firm where he was a partner, Jules Epstein has felt an overwhelming need to give away everything he owns, alarming…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Adventures of Augie March

  Bellow, Saul

  Add The Adventures of Augie March to your for later shelf

  As soon as it first appeared in 1953, this novel by the great Saul Bellow was hailed as an American classic. Augie, the exuberant narrator-hero, is a poor Chicago boy growing up during the Great Deptression. A "born recruit," Augie makes himself…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Your Presence Is Mandatory

  a Novel

  Vasilyuk, Sasha,

  Add Your Presence Is Mandatory to your for later shelf

  Ukraine, 2007. Yefim Shulman, husband, grandfather and war veteran, was beloved by his family and his coworkers. But in the days after his death, his widow Nina finds a letter to the KGB in his briefcase. Yefim had a lifelong secret, and his…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Our Country Friends

  a Novel

  Shteyngart, Gary, 1972-

  Add Our Country Friends to your for later shelf

  In the rolling hills of upstate New York, a group of friends and friends-of-friends gathers in a country house to wait out the pandemic. Over the next six months, new friendships and romances will take hold, while old betrayals will emerge, forcing…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Best Minds

  a Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions

  Rosen, Jonathan, 1963-

  Add The Best Minds to your for later shelf

  When the Rosens moved to New Rochelle in 1973, Jonathan Rosen and Michael Laudor became inseparable. Both children of college professors, the boys were best friends and keen competitors, and, when they both got into Yale University, seemed set to…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Kissing Girls on Shabbat

  a Memoir

  Glass, Sara Dr.,

  Add Kissing Girls on Shabbat to your for later shelf

  Growing up in the Hasidic community of Brooklyn's Borough Park, Sara Glass knew one painful truth: what was expected of her and what she desperately wanted were impossibly opposed. Tormented by her attraction to women and trapped in a loveless…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Lake Success

  a Novel

  Shteyngart, Gary, 1972-

  Add Lake Success to your for later shelf

  Narcissistic, hilariously self-deluded, and divorced from the real world as most of us know it, hedge-fund manager Barry Cohen oversees $2.4 billion in assets. Deeply stressed by an SEC investigation and by his three-year-old son's diagnosis of…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Wait Till I'm Dead

  Uncollected Poems

  Ginsberg, Allen, 1926-1997,

  Add Wait Till I'm Dead to your for later shelf

  Wait Till I'm Dead is edited by renowned scholar Bill Morgan, with a foreword written by award-winning poet Rachel Zucker. Many of the poems collected in this volume were scribbled in letters or sent off to obscure publications and unjustly…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Herzog

  Bellow, Saul

  Add Herzog to your for later shelf

  This is the story of Moses Herzog, a great sufferer, joker, mourner, and charmer. Although his life steadily disintegrates around him--he has failed as a writer and teacher, as a father, and has lost the affection of his wife to his best…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Natural

  Malamud, Bernard

  Add The Natural to your for later shelf

  In The Natural, Malamud, usually appreciated for his unerring portrayals of postwar Jewish life, took on very different material--the story of a superbly gifted "natural" at play in the fields of the old daylight baseball era--and invested it with…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• We Are the Weather

  Saving the Planet Begins at Breakfast

  Foer, Jonathan Safran, 1977-

  Add We Are the Weather to your for later shelf

  Some people reject the fact, overwhelmingly supported by scientists, that our planet is warming because of human activity. But do those of us who accept the reality of human-caused climate change truly believe it? If we did, surely we would be…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• A Grace Paley Reader

  Stories, Essays, and Poetry

  Paley, Grace,

  Add A Grace Paley Reader to your for later shelf

  A Grace Paley Reader compiles a selection of Paley's writing across genres, showcasing her breadth of work as well as her extraordinary insight and brilliant economy of words. Best known for her inimitable short stories, Grace Paley was also an…Read moreRead more of this annotation