Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
Nine- year old Oskar Schell is on a mission to find the lock that matches a mysterious key belonging to his father, who died in the World Trade Centre on 9/11.  Oskar is alternately endearing, exasperating and hilarious as he careens from Central Park to Coney Island to Harlem on his search. His journey concludes in an emotional climax of truth, beauty and hearbreak.

Fatelessness by Imre Kertesz (translated by Tim Wilkinson)
At the age of 14, George Koves is plucked from his home in a Jewish section of Budapest and sent to Auschwitz.  He does not particulalry think of himself as Jewish and does not understand the reason for his fate.  In the lowest circle of the Holocaust, Georg remains an outsider. Kertesz received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2002

The Tiger Claw by Shauna Singh Baldwin
An extraordinary story of love and espionage, cultural tension and displacement.  Khan is a Sufi Muslim living in war-torn Paris who falls in love with a Jewish pianist, Armand Rivkin.  Her family tries to keep them apart, but the war conspires to bring them together.  A 2004 Giller Prize nominee.

Barney's Version by Mordechai Richler
Barney Panofsky smokes too many cigars, drinks too much whiskey and is obsessed with two things; the Montreal Canadiens and his ex-wife Miriam.  When a sworn enemy threatens to reveal the secrets of his criminal past, Barney has only one choice- he must tell his own story.

Shadow of Berlin by Dovid Bergelson
Written by one of the greates SOviet Yiddish writers of the twentieth century and a victim of Stalin's purge of Yiddish intellectuals, it presents a chronicle of life in Europe on the edge of WWII.  Part mythic parable, these stories are passionate, hones, dark and often hilarious.

Foiglman by Aharon Megged
The lates work by the celebrated Israeli author to be translated into English.  A haunting and beautifully woven novel delving into the tension of modern day Israel and the remnants of Eastern European Jewish culture.

Rubin, Derek (ed.). Who We Are: On Being (and Not Being) a Jewish American Writer. New York: Schocken Books, 2005; ISBN: 0805242392; $19.
Saul Bellow said "I am a Jew, and I have written some books." Art Spiegelman, the author of the graphic Maus novels (cartoons about the Holocaust) calls himself "just another baby-boom boy" overwhelmed by memory. If Bellow and Spiegelman didn't/don't consider themselves Jewish writers, then who are Jewish writers and what are Jewish books? Rubin's Who Are We is a collection of twenty-nine essays by writers who happen to have been born Jewish. These essays may help readers come up with some definitions.

Sherwin Nuland. Maimonides. New York: Nextbook: Schocken, 2005; ISBN: 0805242007; $13.57.
Maimonides, one of the preeminent personalities of medieval Jewish history, was a jurist, philosopher, expert in Jewish law, physician at the court of Saladin and a respected and dedicated communal leader. Nuland, a surgeon, understandably places his primary focus on Maimonides the physician but also writes about the scholar as philosopher.

Philip Roth: Operation Shylock: A Confession. New York: Vintage Books, 1994; ISBN: 0679750290; $10.24.
From the Barnes & Noble website: " In this fiendishly imaginative, dizzyingly paced bestseller, Philip Roth meets a man who may or may not be Philip Roth. Someone with that name has been touring the State of Israel, promoting a bizarre exodus in reverse [a moving of all the Jews of Israel back to Europe], and it is up to Roth to stop him--even if that means impersonating his impersonator."

Brian Moore. The Statement. New York: Dutton, 1996; ISBN: 0525941282; $9.95.
Moore 's thriller, based upon former pro-Nazi Vichy military officer, Maurice Papon, who for four decades evaded punishment for his complicity in World War II crimes against Jews, is the story of Pierre Broussard, a 70-year-old Vichy collaborator now wanted for crimes against humanity. After forty years of hiding in various French monasteries, Broussard suddenly finds himself chased by both the gendarmerie and assassins. This is a powerful moral statement about modern life.

Dara Horn. World to Come: A Novel. New York: WW Norton, c2006; ISBN: 0393051072; $11.16.
From Amazon and jewishbookweek.com: "Dara Horn's second novel, The World to Come, is an intoxicating combination of mystery, spirituality, redemption, piety, and passion that will take you back into the past, deep into the present and forward into a meaningful future. Using a real-life art heist as her starting point, Horn traces the life and times of several characters, including Russian-born artist Marc Chagall, the New Jersey-based Ziskind family, and the 'already-weres' and 'not-yets' who roam an eternal world that exists outside the boundaries of life on earth."

Goldsmith, Martin. The Inextinguishable Symphony: A True Story of Music and Love in Nazi Germany. New York: Wiley, c2000; ISBN: 0471350974; $11.96.
"Through the vehicle of his remarkable parents' own individual stories, Goldsmith explores the only-dimly known, but fascinating, story of the Judische Kulturbund--the Jewish Culture Association--to which Jewish musicians, actors, and others were artistically exiled in Nazi Germany. Goldsmith reveals much about this controversial and complicated organization which, although the only source of culture for German Jews, knowingly served the Nazis' propaganda purposes. The readeris . . . forced to ask, 'What would I have done in these circumstances? (Barnes & Noble website)

Wendy Wasserstein. Shiksa Goddess, or, How I Spent My Forties. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2001; ISBN: 0375411658; $10.40.
In twenty-five essays collected from The New York Times, The New Yorker, and a variety of other sources, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Wendy Wasserstein takes readers on a roller-coaster ride--from the joy of childbirth to the pain of losing a loved one to cancer.

Tamar Yellin. The Genizah at the House of Shepher. New Milford, CT: Toby, 2005; ISBN: 1592641156; $13.57.
From Midwest Book Review: "The Genizah at the House of Shepher" follows the return of an English biblical scholar to her grandparents' home in Jerusalem. Immersed in a simmering family feud concerning the so-called 'Shepher Codex,' [Yellin] discovers the history of her family, from the great-grandfather who traveled to Babylon in search of the ten lost tribes, to her grandfather's Zionist ideals that caused conflict with his religion, to the tragic love affair of her parents and her own sad past."

Sholem Aleichem. The Bloody Hoax. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991; ISBN: 0253304016; $10.00.

This is the story of two school friends, one Jewish and one Gentile, living in czarist Russia in 1912-1913, who trade identities so that the well-born gentile Grisha can learn what it is like to be a Jew in Tsarist Russia, and the Jewish Hersh can enter university unimpeded by quotas. While the book begins in a humorous way, it gradually darkens as Grisha becomes suspected of a "ritual murder," a development based on the Beiliss blood libel case.

Krauss, Nicole. History of Love.
Krauss's novel of love and loss concerns two New Yorkers unknowingly united by a manuscript thought by its author to have vanished during the Holocaust. Elderly imigrant Leo Gursky conducts a daily struggle against loneliness.

Agosín, Marjorie. House of Memory.
This anthology offers 22 selections from Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Brazil, Venezuela, Cuba and Costa Rica. The stories paint a rich picture of Jewish women's experiences in diverse communities.

Idliby, Ranya. The Faith Club.
Three women, each representing one of the 3 faiths, Judaism, Christianity and Islam discuss their views.

Chabon, Michael. The Yiddish Policemen's Union.
Bad enough the Jewish mini-state established in Alaska for survivors of Hitler is about to revert to US control after 60 years. Now Yiddish-speaking cop Meyer Landsman has to solve a tragic murder that pits him against is ex-wife boss, an assortmen of odd relatives, and a swarn of corrupt Hasidim with apocalyptic dreams.

Nassib, Sélim. Palestinian Lover.
A novel about Golda Meir and her imaginary (?) affair with a Palestinian.

Oz, Amos.Panther in the Basement.
1947, Palestine under the British mandate. A 12-year-old Jewish boy befriends a British soldier to improve his English, only to find himself branded as traitor by his friends. A coming of age novel.

Dean, Debra. The madonnas of Leningrad.

Nemirovsky, Irene. Suite Francaise.
Distinguihsed French Jewish novelist describes the tumultuous lives of people as they are affected by wartime (WW 2) in France.

Oufkir, Malika. Freedom: The Story of My Second Life.

Autobiography.

Anton, Maggie. Rashi’s Daughters: Book II Miriam. Plume. 2007. ISBN: 0452288630. 496 p.
Talmudic authority Rashi’s middle daughter, Miriam, is determined to bring new life safely into the Troyes Jewish community and becomes a midwife. As devoted as she is to her chosen path, she cannot foresee the ways in which she will be tested and how heavily she will need to rely on her faith.

Buxbaum, Yitzhak. Light and Fire of the Baal Shem Tov. Continuum International Press. 2006 ISBN: 0826418880. 420 p.
This is a life, in stories, of Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov (1700-1760), the founder of Hasidism.

Chabon, Michael. The Yiddish Policemen’s Union: A Novel. New York: HarperCollins. 2007. ISBN:97800007014982-7. 414 p.
Israel was crushed in the Arab-Israeli war of 1948, and the US establishes a temporary homeland for displaced European Jews in Sitka, Alaska. Now the District is set to revert to Alaskan control. But homicide detective Meyer Landsman of the District Police has enough problems without worrying about the upcoming Reversion.

Horvistz, David Phillip. Shalom, Friend: The Life and Legacy of Yitzhak Rabin. New York: NewMarket Press, 1996. ISBN: 155704287X 314 p.
Biography of Yitzhak Rabin. This is a collaborative effort by more than a dozen writers and editors of the Jerusalem Report, a prestigious Israeli newsmagazine, all of whom had close personal and professional knowledge of the former prime minister, assassinated in November 1995. Presented here is a detailed tribute offering a great deal of insight into a national leader in the context of Israeli, regional, and world politics.

Rosenthal, Donna. The Israelis: Ordinary People in an Extraordinary Land. Free Press. ISBN:07432703550. 480 p.
How does Israel look to Israelis? From battlefields to bedrooms to boardrooms, discover the colliding worlds in which an astounding mix of 6.8 million devoutly traditional and radically modern people live.

Tolan, Sandy. The Lemon Tree: An Arab, A Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East. Bloomsbury USA. 2007. ISBN: 1596913436. 362 p.

History of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict centered around a tree in the back yard of a home owned at different times by Jews and Palestinians.

Anton , Maggie. Rashi’s Daughters: Book One-Joheved. New York: Plume, 2007 (reprint). ISBN: 9780452288621. $15.00.
In the first of three novels, each focusing on one of Rashi’s daughters, Maggie Anton brings to life the Jewish world of Rashi’s times and the unusual education he provided for his daughters. There are several references to the Talmud as well as the winemaking business in this medieval tale that highlights the customs and history of 11th-century France.

Cohen, Paula Marantz. Jane Austen in Scarsdale. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2005. ISBN: 9780312325020. $23.95.
Anne Ehrlich, a high school guidance counselor, is busy helping students cope with applications for college. A new student’s wealthy uncle is the man her family convinced her to give up years before because he was penniless at the time. The tables have turned and Anne’s life changes during the course of the school year. A take-off on Austen’s Persuasion, Cohen has a sharp handle on the pressures well-meaning families can exert on youth.

Delman, Carmit. Burnt Bread and Chutney: Growing Up between Cultures - A Memoir of an Indian Jewish Girl. New York: Ballantine, 200e. ISBN: 9780345445940. $13.95.
Carmit Delman’s mother is from the Bene Israel community and her father is an American of Ashkenazi descent. In this lyrical, but sometimes overly personal memoir, Delman relates her feelings and insecurities as a young woman who felt she was an outsider in the Jewish community while growing up in America.

Goodman, Allegra. Intuition. New York. Dial Press, 2006. ISBN: 9780385336123. $25.00.
The world of scientific research is deftly probed as Goodman describes the highs and lows of the Philpott Institute for cancer research. The need to produce results and the reality of professional rivalry are portrayed in a setting that examines the characters of younger and older scentists as well as issues in today’s headlines.

Halter, Marek. Sarah: A Novel (Book One of the Canaan Trilogy). New York: Crown, 2004. ISBN: 9781400052721. $24.00.
An example of biblical fiction, Halter’s novel holds the reader’s interest in his extrapolation of Sarah’s life as she narrates details from her childhood and her relationships with Abraham, Hagar, Isaac, and other biblical figures.

Horn, Dara. The World To Come: A Novel. New York: W.W. Norton, 2006. ISBN:9780393329063. $13.95.
Starting with an unusual art theft, the author brings together contemporary issues with references to the shtetl, past Yiddish writers, and Jewish life in early 20th century America. A combination of reality and fantasy, this is an educational and imaginative story.

Krauss, Nicole. The History of Love: A Novel. New York: W.W. Norton, 2006 (New Ed). ISBN: 9780393328622. $13.95.
A fourteen year old and an octogenarian eventually meet when they discover a connection to a book written long ago. Funny in spots, and sad in others, the story incorporates loneliness, grieving, and the power of love.

Lelyveld, Joseph. Omaha Blues: A Memory Loop. New York: Picador, 2006. ISBN: 97803412425104. $13.95.
Son of a famous social activist rabbi and a mother who was a Shakespearean scholar, Lelyveld provides cameos into his unusual childhood. After his retirement as executive editor of The New York Times he had the time to investigate and bring into focus his relationship with with his divorced parents. Includes a description of a maverick friend of the family who had an impact on Lelyveld’s life for a brief period of time.

Silva, Daniel. The Messenger. New York: Putnam, 2006. ISBN: 9780399153308. $25.95.
In the sixth of a mystery series, Gabriel Allon, Israeli master spy and art restorer, is asked to help prevent an attack on the pope's life. Once again, Daniel Silva is able to give insights into current events in the world of terrorism along with cultural references to the art world. In this novel, Silva addresses the role of the Saudis in the intrigue laden Middle East.

Walton, Jo. Farthing. New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 2006.ISBN: 9780765314215. $25.95.
This powerful alternate history novel is set in Post World War II England where several upper-crust families meet for a retreat. Lucy, the daughter of one of the families, and her husband, David, a London Jew, are surprised to be invited, only to find that David is the target of suspicion in the gruesome murder of one of the “Fascist Farthing set” guests.

Yehoshua, A. B. A Woman In Jerusalem. New York: Harvest Book Reprint, 2007. ISBN: 9780156031943. $14.00.
A woman dies during a suicide bomb explosion and her body lies unclaimed at the morgue. The facts about her life are revealed only after the human resource manager for the commercial bakery where she had been employed is assigned to find out more about who she was and to arrange for her funeral. Only the woman has a name in this haunting and well-written novel that examines the value of human life.

Zusak, Markus. The Book Thief. New York: Knopf Books For Young Readers, 2006. ISBN: 978037831003. $16.95.

Death is the narrator in this intriguing story of a young girl in Germany during Wrold War II. Reading and the power of words play pivotal roles in her life and in her survival. Targeted for young adult readers, Zusak’s unique writing is to be savored by adults as well.

City of God by E.L. Doctorow

The Lying Days by Nadine Gordimer

Puttermesser Papers by Cynthia Ozick

Gate of the Sun by Elias Khoury

Out of Egypt by Andre Aciman

Englander, Nathan. The Ministry of Special Cases: A Novel. NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007.

Goldberg, Jeffrey. Prisoners: A Muslim and a Jew Across the Middle East Divide. NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006.

Weber, Katharine. Triangle: A Novel. NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006.

Chabon, Michael. The Yiddish Policmen’s Union: A Novel, 2006. ISBN: 978-0007149827.
Meyer Landsman is a homicide detective in the Federal District of Sitka, a "temporary" safe haven for Jews, created in the wake of revelations of the Holocaust and the collapse of the fledgling state of Israel. Just as the district is set to revert to Alaskan control, Landsman finds himself in the middle of a mysterious murder investigation that has him contending with faith, obsession, hopefulness, evil and salvation.

Zusak, Markus. The Book Thief. New York: Random House Children’s Books, 2006. ISBN: 0375831002.
Living with a foster family in Germany during World War II, a young girl struggles to survive her day-to-day trials through stealing anything she can get her hands on, but when she discovers the beauty of literature, she realizes that she has been blessed with a gift that must be shared with others, including the Jewish man hiding in the basement.

Pinsky, Robert. The Life of David. Schocken. 2005. ISBN: 0805242031.
In The Life of David, Robert Pinsky brings the biblical figure of David to life, teasing apart the many strands of his story—leader, outlaw, poet, warrior, son, father, lover—and then weaving them together into a vibrant biography of this most celebrated biblical king.

Krauss, Nicole. The History of Love: A Novel. New York: Norton, c2005; ISBN: 0393060349.
The History of Love spans a period of over sixty years and takes readers from Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe to present day Brighton Beach. At the center of each main character’s psyche is the issue of loneliness, and the need to fill a void left empty by lost love.

Desai, Kiran. The Inheritance of Loss, 2006. ISBN: 978-0802142818.
Jemubhai Patel, a Cambridge-educated Indian judge has retired from serving a country he finds "too messy for justice." He lives with his cook, his orphaned seventeen-year-old granddaughter, and a red setter. The tranquillity of his existence is contrasted with the life of the cook's son, working in grimy Manhattan restaurants, and with his granddaughter's affair with a Nepali tutor involved in an insurgency that irrevocably alters Jemubhai's life.

Hosseini, Khaled. A Thousand Splendid Suns. ISBN: 978-1594489501.
Set in Afghanistan, the story covers three decades of anti-Soviet jihad, civil war and Taliban tyranny through the lives of two women. Mariam is the illegitimate daughter of a wealthy businessman, forced at age 15 into marrying the 40-year-old Rasheed, who grows increasingly brutal as she fails to produce a child. Eighteen later, Rasheed takes another wife, 14-year-old Laila, a girl whose only other options are prostitution or starvation. Against a backdrop of unending war, Mariam and Laila become allies in an asymmetrical battle with Rasheed.

Anton, Maggie. Rashi’s Daughters, Book I: Joheved. Glendale, Calif.: Banot Press, 2005. ISBN: 0976305054. $15.00.
Returning to eleventh-century Troyes, France, to take over the family winemaking business, Talmudic scholar Salomon ben Isaac, secretly begins teaching the Talmud to his three daughters, including his eldest, Joheveda young woman who is forced to choose between her love of learning and marital happiness. The dramatic second installation of the historical trilogy is Rashi's Daughters, Book II: Miriam.

Chabon, Michael. The Yiddish Policemen’s Union. New York: HarperCollins, 2007. ISBN: 9780007149827. $26.95.
It’s post-World War II, and Alaska has become the homeland for the Jews as Franklin D. Roosevelt actually proposed. There, the murder of a former chess prodigy sends Detective Meyer Landsman on a hunt that leads back to the formidable Rebbe Gold.

Englander, Nathan. The Ministry of Special Cases. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007. ISBN: 9780375404931. $25.00.
In 1976 Buenos Aires, Kaddish Poznan, who's been scraping along at the edge of society, suddenly finds himself in the middle of Argentina's infamous Dirty War when his son disappears. Nathan Englander will be speaking at the JCC Annual Book Fair on Thursday evening, November 8, as part of a special evening for book clubs in the community.

Etzioni-Halevy, Eva. The Song of Hannah. New York: Plume Book, 2005. ISBN: 0452286727 $14.00.
In the tradition of The Red Tent comes a beautiful, sexy novel featuring one of the most well-known and beloved heroines of the Bible. Once close childhood friends, Hannah and Pninah are now rivals for the attention of their husband Elkanah, but they must put aside their differences to protect themselves, their husband, and Hannah's son, Samuel, a man who is destined to become one of the great prophets of the Jewish people.

Goodman, Allegra. Intuition. New York: Dial Press, 2006. ISBN: 0385336128 $13.00.
A trio of researchers - a publicity-seeking oncologist, an exacting scientist driven by a love of research, and an ambitious young lab technician - becomes caught up in the desperate quest for a financial grant from the Philpott, a prestigious research laboratory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a campaign that has a profound impact on all their lives.

Gregory, Jill and Tintori, Karen. The Book of Names. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2007. ISBN: 0312366329 $19.95.
Discovering an ancient text that reveals for every generation thirty-six secret individuals whose lives affect the fate of the world, Professor David Shepherd learns that all but three of the current generation’s Hidden Ones met unnatural deaths.

Némirovsky, Irene. Suite Francaise. New York: Toronto: A.A. Knopf Canada, 2006. ISBN: 0676977707. $14.95.
Némirovsky, a Sorbonne-educated Jewish émigré born into a wealthy Russian family, had planned to write a five-part novel documenting the turmoil of Nazi-occupied France. Instead, she was deported in 1942 and died in Auschwitz. Her daughters hid their mother’s notebook in a valise, and it remained unread for over 60 years. This edition includes the first two books of the projected quintet that tell the remarkable story of the book's provenance and describe the panic and confusion accompanying several Parisian families’ exodus to the countryside as the Germans entered Paris.

Zweibel, Alan. The Other Shulman. New York: Villard Books, 2005. ISBN: 1400062667. $13.95.

Joking that he has been gaining and losing the same thirty-five pounds since junior high, Shulman, a chubby, middle-aged stationery store owner from New Jersey, is stunned when he actually meets this doppelganger Shulman, a successful man who made all the choices that the original Shulman had spurned.

Begley, Louis. Matters of Honor. Knopf, 2007.
In the 1950’s, three Harvard roommates struggle with loyalty, integrity, and status pressures in school and in the ensuing years. One of the roommates, Henry, is a Polish refugee who survived World War II in hiding and continues to battle anti-Semitism at every turn.

Chabon, Michael. The Yiddish Policemen’s Union. N.Y: Harper Collins,2007. ISBN: 978-0-00-714982-7.$26.95.
What if Sitka, Alaska became a Jewish homeland, and not the British mandate in Palestine? It is now six decades later, and Sitka, which has grown prosperous under the Yiddish-speaking Jews, is reverting back to Alaska. Meanwhile, homicide detective Meyer Landsman is busy trying to solve the murder of his neighbor, a former chess prodigy, in this very creative new novel from the Pulitzer-prize winning author of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay.

Piercy, Marge. Pesach for the Rest of Us: Making the Passover Seder YourOwn. Schocken Books, 2007 ISBN: 13: 978-0-8052-4242-3, 10:0-8052-4242-2. $22.95.
Prolific novelist and poet Piercy gives readers a personal guidebook to the holiday, complete with poems, blessings, and recipes.

Rosenbaum, Lisa PearlADay of Small Beginnings N.Y Little, Brown & Co, 2006. ISBN: 10-0316014516. $24.00.
A Polish-American Jewish family searching for its roots uncovers a gripping drama that involves a ghost, anti-Semitism, love, and the small town in Poland that is both its curse and its redemption.

Yahia, Mona. When the Grey Beetles Took Over Baghdad. N.Y: George Braziller, 2007 ISBN: 10:0-80761582X, 13:978-0807615829, $22.50.
Winner of the Jewish Quarterly –Wingate Prize for Fiction, this vivid and personal story of growing up in Baghdad is set against the backdrop of political upheaval and an increasingly fractured society

Appelfeld, Aharon. Katerina. Random House. September, 1992. ISBN: 0679406107. $18.00.
An elderly Slavic peasant woman tells a story of physical hardship and spiritual transformation. Brought up to hate Jews, she learns not only to love them but also to identify with them, after they provide her with the only comfort and care she has ever known.

Benjamin, Marina. Last Days in Babylon: The History of a Family, the Story of a Nation. Free Press. October, 2006. ISBN: 0743258436. $25.00.
The odyssey of how Jewish citizens in Baghdad deteriorated from the region's largest and most prosperous ethnic group to a band of a few dozen survivors under the oppression of a hostile Iraqi government

Chabon, Michael. The Yiddish Policemen's Union. HarperCollins. May, 2007. ISBN: 0007149824 $26.95.
A detective investigates a neighbor's murder in a Jewish settlement in Alaska.

Gur, Batya. Murder in Jerusalem:A Michael Ohayon Mystery. HarperCollins. August, 2006. ISBN: 0060852933. $24.95.
An investigation into the death of the set designer on a film production of S.Y. Agnon’s novella “Iddo and Eynam” reveals the dehumanizing compromises people make for the sake of their ideals.

Kertesz, Imre. Fatelessness. Northwestern University Press. October, 1992. ISBN: 0810110245. $32.00.
A teenage boy, describes life in Auschwitz and Buchenwald with innocence and understated prose. It won the 2002 Nobel prize for literature.

Kluger, Steve. Last Days of Summer. William Morrow. June, 1998. ISBN: 0380976455. $21.00.
Fictional book of correspondence between this young Jewish boy in Brooklyn and his favorite baseball player during WWII.

Mirvis, Tova. The Ladies Auxiliary. W. W. Norton & Co. October, 1999. ISBN: 0393048144. $23.95.
Bathsheba, a free-spirited convert and a newcomer to town, affects the lives of the women and youth of the orthodox community in Memphis, TN in more ways than she or they ever would have expected.

Némirovsky, Irène. Suite Française. Knopf. April, 2006. ISBN: 1400044731. $25.00.
Two novellas portraying life in France from June 4, 1940, as German forces prepare to invade Paris, through July 1, 1941, when some of Hitler's occupying troops leave France to join the assault on the Soviet Union.

Roth, Philip. Everyman. Houghton Mifflin. April 2006. ISBN: 061873516X $24.00.
A nameless protagonist grapples with aging, physical decline and impending death in this slender, elegant novel.

Yehoshua, A.B. A Woman in Jerusalem. Harcourt. August, 2006. ISBN: 0151012261. $25.00.
A woman in her forties is a victim of a suicide bombing at a Jerusalem market. Her body lies nameless in a hospital morgue. A human resources man is at first reluctant to take on the job of identifying her, but as the facts of the woman's life take shape, he yields to feelings of regret, atonement, and even love.