Jewish Fiction
Jacob the Liar
by Jurek Becker
Acclaimed as the most remarkable novel of the Holocaust ever written in Germany, Jacob the Liar breaks with the genre's tradition of unremitting realism to offer a suspenseful and masterfully crafted tale of hope, desire, and the life-giving force of fiction.
The Unthinkable Thoughts of Joseph Green by Joshua Braff
Jacob Green, a Jewish boy growing up in 1970s suburban New Jersey, struggles to deal with his fear of disappointing and yearning to escape the demands and expectations of his tyrannical, narcissistic father, Abram.
The Yiddish Policeman’s Union by Michael Chabon
In a world in which Alaska, rather than Israel, has become the homeland for Jews following World War II, Detective Meyer Landsman and his partner Berko investigate the death of a heroin-addled chess prodigy.
Carry Me Across the River by Ethan Canin
Follows the life and fortunes of August Kleinman, a man who shapes his destiny in the fires of World War II and its aftermath.Ultimately, near the end of a long and bountiful life, his resolution of a haunting encounter with a Japanese soldier during World War Two finally illuminates, at the deepest levels, the way authentic lives truly unfold.
The Ministry of Special Cases by Nathan Englander
From its unforgettable opening scene in the darkness of a forgotten cemetery in Buenos Aires, The Ministry of Special Cases casts a powerful spell. In the heart of Argentina’s Dirty War, Kaddish Poznan struggles with a son who won’t accept him; strives for a wife who forever saves him; and spends his nights protecting the good name of a community that denies his existence – and denies a checkered history that only Kaddish holds dear.
Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
Hilarious, energetic and profoundly touching, a debut novel follows a young writer as he travels to the farmlands of eastern Europe, where he embarks on a quest to find Augustine, the woman who saved his grandfather from the Nazis, and, guided by his young Ukrainian translator, he discovers an unexpected past that will resonate far into the future.
Golden Country by Jennifer Gilmore
In a powerfully moving and ambitious debut, Gilmore follows the lives of three immigrant families, the Brodskys, the Verdoniks and the Blooms, who all begin their American journeys in shtetl-like Brooklyn and end up somewhere unexpected between the 1920s and the 1960s.
Bee Season by Myla Goldberg
Eliza Naumann, a seemingly unremarkable nine-year-old, expects never to fit into her gifted family: her autodidact father, Saul, absorbed in his study of Jewish mysticism; her brother, Aaron, the vessel of his father's spiritual ambitions; and her brilliant but distant lawyer-mom, Miriam. But when Eliza sweeps her school and district spelling bees in quick succession, Saul takes it as a sign that she is destined for greatness.
Kaaterskill Falls by Allegra Goodman
In the summer of '76, the Shulmans and the Melishes migrate to Kaaterskill, the tiny town in upstate New York where Orthodox Jews and Yankee year-rounders live side by side from June through August. Elizabeth Shulman, a devout follower of Rav Elijah Kirshner and the mother of five daughters, is restless. She needs a project of her own, outside her family and her cloistered community.
Snow in August by Pete Hamill
In 1940s Brooklyn, friendship between an 11-year-old Irish Catholic boy and an elderly Jewish rabbi might seem as unlikely as, well, snow in August. But the relationship between young Michael Devlin and Rabbi Judah Hirsch is only one of the many miracles large and small contained in Pete Hamill's novel.
The World to Come by Dara Horn
Having stolen a million-dollar Marc Chagall masterpiece, 30-year-old quiz-show writer Benjamin Ziskind and his twin sister work to evade the police and evaluate the 80-year-old link between their family and the famous painting.
The Kommandant’s Girl by Pam Jenoff
Becoming a spy for the resistance after the Nazis invade Poland, Emma Bau, taking on a new identity as a gentile, becomes a high-ranking Nazi official's assistant and, leading a double life, compromises her marriage vows, her safety and the lives of those she loves for the cause.
The History of Love by Nicole Krauss
Leo Gursky is just about surviving, tapping his radiator each evening to let his upstairs neighbor know he's still alive. But life wasn't always like this: sixty years ago, in the Polish village where he was born, Leo fell in love and wrote a book. And though Leo doesn't know it, that book survived, inspiring fabulous circumstances, even love.
The Autobiography of God by Julius Lester
Working as a counselor at a small Vermont college, rabbi Rebecca, who has come into possession of a Torah once owned by holocaust victims, pursues suspicions about the identity of a campus murderer and spiritually explores the nature of a God who would allow evil to happen in the world.
The Singing Mountain by Sonia Levitin
While traveling in Israel for the summer, seventeen-year-old Mitch decides to stay and pursue a life of Jewish orthodoxy, forcing him to make some important decisions about the family and life he is leaving in southern California.
A Conspiracy of Paper by David Liss
An outsider in 18th-century London, Jewish pugilist and hired thug Benjamin Weaver prowls the city's mean streets in the service of England's gentry, tracking down debtors and thieves.
A Tale of Two Sisters by Anna Maxted
Heartache, professional differences and other mistakes threaten to separate two very different sisters – Cassandra, a charismatic and successful woman caught in a not-so-wonderful marriage, and Lizbet, a dreamer striving to make a name as a journalist.
The Outside World by Tora Mirvis
Follows the courtship and marriage of Bryan and Tzippy, the former of whom astonishes his family by rejecting their way of life in favor of a strict Orthodox lifestyle, and the latter, who longs to escape the expectations of familial obligation.
Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky
A story of life in France under the Nazi occupation includes two parts – "Storm in June," set amid the chaotic 1940 exodus from Paris, and "Dolce," set in a German-occupied village rife with resentment, resistance and collaboration.
The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer
An unforgettable story of three brothers, of history and love, of marriage tested by disaster, of a Jewish family's struggle against annihilation, and of the dangerous power of art in a time of war.
Heir to the Glimmering World by Cynthia Ozick
James A'bair, whose father is the author of the popular series "The Bear Boy," has taken in the eccentric Mitwisser family and the orphaned Rose Meadows, who must resist the pull of the actual Bear Boy, in a novel of Depression-era New York.
The Covenant by Naomi Ragen
When her husband and daughter disappear from their violent Jerusalem community, a pregnant Elise Margulies desperately calls her grandmother in America for help and finds herself at the front lines against terrorism.
The First Desire by Nancy Reisman
The lives of the four Cohen siblings – Sadie, Jo, Goldie and Irving – are turned upside down by the secrets that they have kept hidden, even from themselves, as the sudden disappearance of Goldie sparks revelations about their family.
Joy Comes in the Morning by Jonathan Rosen
Wrestling with the contradictions in her life, rabbi Deborah Green discovers a world of tragedy, madness, love and redemption when she encounters Henry Friedman, an older patient and Holocaust survivor who had attempted suicide.
Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay
On the sixtieth anniversary of the 1942 roundup of Jews by the French police in the Vel d'Hiv section of Paris, American journalist Julia Jarmond is asked to write an article on this dark episode during World War II and embarks on investigation that leads her to long-hidden family secrets and to the ordeal of Sarah, a young girl caught up in the raid.
Call it Sleep by Henry Roth
A novel of Jewish life in New York's Lower East Side in the early 1900s.
Austerlitz by W.G. Sebald
Shares the struggle of Jacques Austerlitz to uncover his identity as he follows the memory of his childhood back to the heart of war-torn Europe, to the place from which he emigrated as a young orphan in 1939.
Old School by Tobias Wolff
During his senior year at an elite New England prep school, a young man who had struggled to fit in with his contemporaries finds his life unraveling due to the school's obsession with literary figures and their work.
The Liberated Bride by Abraham B. Yehoshua
As Yohanan Rivlin, a professor at Haifa University, embarks on research into recent Algerian history with the help of a student, a young Arab bride from a Galilee village, he becomes obsessed with his son's failed marriage.