The Secret Chord by Geraldine Brooks

By David J. Wolpe for The Weekly Standard

The biblical framework for a novel of redemption.

The Hebrew Bible is shaped by two extended portraits, of Moses and David. Of the two stories, Moses’ is better known, but the narrative of David is more psychologically complex and dramatically vivid. As they divide the great mountains (Sinai and Zion) and two dominant terrains (desert and land) between them, Moses and David represent, respectively, the giving of the law and the attaining of ultimate redemption through the line of the Messiah.

The story of David is less familiar, partly due to its placement in the book of Samuel instead of the Pentateuch. David's story is intricate, incident-packed, and follows several different strands. Fascinating in all its parts, it requires some thought and time to weave it together. In some ways, therefore, David's life is ripe for a novel. Skillful novels unfurl complicated stories and run a strong narrative line through them, helping the reader to understand their shape. Novels can also alter or supplement the original to help the reader understand its essential shape. Here, in Geraldine Brooks's skillful and eloquent account of the life of David, rather than hint at the apparent hostility David's brothers bear him, she has one of them accuse him of bestiality. There is no warrant for this in the biblical text, but it certainly does fix the animosity in the reader's mind.

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Jewish Book Council Book Clubs

From  Jewish Book Council

Whether your book club is formal or informal; social or educational; interested in reading only books of Jewish content, just a few Jewish books throughout the year, or good literature that happens to have Jewish themes, JBC has a book for you and the resources to take you to the next level.

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The Catskills: Its History and How It Changed America

by Stephen M. Silverman and Raphael D. Silver

Review by Maron L. Waxman for Jewish Book Council

Mention the Catskills and most Jews immediately call to mind the Borscht Belt. But as Stephen Silverman, a Time Inc. veteran, and Raphael Silver, a real estate developer and film producer, demonstrate in this richly illustrated volume, the Catskills have far more stories to tell than a Grossinger’s tummler.

The story begins with Henry Hudson, who sailed up the river now named for him—he called it the “Great River of the Mountains”—in 1609, seeking the northwest passage to Asia. The search was futile, but Hudson claimed the territory for the Netherlands. A trading post was established a few years later and settlement followed, with the English taking over in 1664. Soon after, the Catskills became an active center of American social, economic, and cultural history, perhaps influencing if not, as suggested in the subtitle, changing it.

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The Raging Skillet, From Microwave to Top Caterer

By Amy Kritzer for Hadassah Magazine

Oprah. Cher. Madonna. Rossi. One of those names may not immediately conjure up a powerful, take-no-prisoners woman, but as the owner of The Raging Skillet catering company, Chef Rossi has earned her mononym nonetheless. She shares her wild rise to award-winning caterer in her memoir with recipes, appropriately titled The Raging Skillet: The True Life Story of Chef Rossi.

Chef Rossi has a vivacious and unapologetic personality that gives life to her almost unbelievable anecdotes, from rebellious, runaway teenager, to a short-lived stint in Lubavitch Brooklyn (“Feminism was not popular in shul,” she writes) to maritime bartender, to her eventual success as an “anti-caterer.” Chef Rossi’s favorite career moment? Catering the celebrity-packed Vagina Monologues after-party. Complete with an anatomically correct feast including a giant vagina-shaped fruit platter.

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Photos from the World’s Most Isolated Jewish Communities

By Abby Sher for Jewniverse

The wandering Jew is more than a stereotype and a striped houseplant.

In their beautiful new book, Scattered Among the Nations: Photographs and Stories of the World’s Most Isolated Jewish Communities, Bryan Schwartz, Jay Sand, and Sandy Carter explore what it feels like to practice Judaism in far-flung corners of the globe.

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Herman Wouk, the American Jewish Writer Who Wrote Huge Best-Sellers and Wasn’t Especially Neurotic

The 100-year-old titan of American letters recalls his very happy publishing career, in the new ‘Sailor and Fiddler’

By Adam Kirsch for Tablet Magazine   

Looking back on it, the triumph of American Jewish literature in the 20th century seems like something foreordained. Take a people, Eastern European Jewry, that had always cherished literacy and give them a freedom they had never been granted before, and the result is a creative explosion—Death of a Salesman, The Adventures of Augie March, Portnoy’s Complaint, The Catcher in the Rye (not to mention the Broadway musical, Tin Pan Alley, and Hollywood). Why is it, then, that the American Jewish writers who were most successful, whom we now regard as classics, did not make success their theme? On the contrary, they generally wrote about failure, alienation, neurosis, and guilt—to the point that these subjects came to seem stereotypically Jewish in American culture. If the American Jewish story is, on balance, a very happy one, why are our books so miserable? Where are the well-adjusted Jewish writers?

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Good on Paper: A Novel

Review by Juli Berwald for Jewish Book Council

Don’t be fooled by the chick-lit-sounding title of Rachel Cantor’s second novel, Good on Paper. Much more than a beach read, this book a highly-crafted, multi-layered, complex story that prompts the reader to question the line between fiction and reality.

Shira Greene is a temp worker and a single mother raising her daughter, Andi, with the help of her old college friend Ahmad. She’s also a Ph.D. washout. Her thesis on Dante was nearly brilliant—until life got in the way. Shira suffers from the wounds of her mother’s abandonment of her when she was a child, her father’s suicide, and a freak accident that killed Ahmed’s best friend. Unable to cope with the compounding losses, Shira retreats into a comfortable safety of mediocrity.

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