Doris Gould

One of my favorite books from 2024 is On Her Own by Lihi Lapid. An elderly woman and a runaway teen meet. They are both on their own, but in wildly different circumstances. A tender, hopeful story. In 2025, I plan to read Next Stop, a dark, dystopian novel of a future time when a black hole consumes Israel. Weird events are happening in other places and conspiracy theories and antisemitism take hold of the population. This is the debut novel for Benjamin Resnick, an ordained Rabbi. Several reviewers use the word “prophetic” to describe this novel; I hope that’s just hyperbole.

Kathy Coskey

I highly recommend both The Personal Librarian and The First Ladies, both cowritten by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray. Marie Benedict is also the author of The Only Woman in the Room, which Rabbi Phyllis’ book group discussed last year.

Laurie Levin

I loved The Blackbird Girls by Anne Blankman. In 1986 Russia two girls, one Jewish and one who bullies the other because she’s Jewish, wake up to a disastrous event. The girls must embark alone together on a journey to find safety. It’s a novel of friendship, courage and survival, written as a Y/A novel but every adult I know who’s read it has loved it.

Ellen Heinbach

I recommend The Dragon from Chicago by Pamela D. Toler, a non-fiction account of Chicago native Sigrid Schultz, who served as the Tribune’s bureau chief in Berlin from 1926-1941. She interviewed Hitler and knew Goring. She was definitely a woman in a man’s world.

Mindy Nadell

Some of my past book discussion favorites include The Yellow Bird Sings about the unbreakable bond between parent and child during WWII, The Third Daughter and Hotel Cuba which are both set in Havana, The Thread Collectors a story of female strength and friendship set in New Orleans and Leaving Eastern Parkway, about a boy who leaves the Brooklyn Hasidic community and spends time in Champaign and Chicago.

Rabbi Phyllis (can’t pick just one)

• Don’t Forget to Write by Sara Goodman Confino -This book is set in 1960, and a young woman is caught kissing the rabbi’s son! From there, her whole life turns upside down as she’s sent off to live with her aunt on the Jersey shore. Light but also meaningful read.

• Have You Seen Luis Velez? By Catherin Ryan Hyde – An intergenerational friendship story that plays out in a beautiful way. It’s not overtly Jewish, but you’ll spot the Jewish character fairly quickly.

• The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern by Lynda Cohen Loigman – It’s historical, a little magical realism, a love story, Jewish…checked so many happy boxes for me. I wanted it to keep going….

• Songs for the Brokenhearted by Ayelet Tsabari – A look backwards and forwards at the Yemeni Jewish community as they came to Israel in 1950 and their generations in the 1990s. Such a compelling story as Zohara tries to figure out her mother’s hidden past and her own Yemeni-Israel-Jewish identity.

A few that I’m looking forward to reading:

1. See: Loss. See Also: Love by Yukiko Tominaga
2. Like Mother, Like Mother by Susan Rieger
3. Your Presence is Mandatory by Sasha Vasilyuk

And a note from Am Shalom Librarian Barbara Breakstone:
Don’t forget the Am Shalom library! Lots of books for kids and adults – fiction and non-fiction. You can read books in the library in our comfortable chairs or take books out to read at home in your own comfortable chairs!