This month’s Jewish Book Carnival comes to you from the wilds of Manhattan, where I’ve fetched up on the doorstep of relatives that I had hitherto never met. So here, while my internet access lasts, are some reading recommendations from around the Jewish blogosphere (in more or less alphabetical order). Note that cover images link to the relevant book page on Amazon.
Enjoy!
On her blog, My Machberet, Erika Dreifus routinely curates pre-Shabbat Jewish literary links. Here’s one recent batch. Including a great write-up on how Anita Diamant’s The Red Tent invented a new kind of Jewish fiction.
Deborah Kalb interviews a variety of authors on her website, deborahkalbbooks.blogspot.com. Here’s a link to a Q&A she did with Madelyn Rosenberg and Wendy Wan-Long Shang about their new children’s novel This Is Just a Test.
Over on the Jewish Book Review, Rivka Levy is very pleasantly surprised by the mystical novel Open when you are, by Ben Ackerman, which manages to capture the essence of being a believing Jew without once mentioning God, mitzvot or the ‘J’ word.
On her blog, Letters to Josep, Daniella Levy reviews The Book of Jewish Food, and concludes “We need more books like this one–books that showcase the incredible diversity within the Jewish people, and proclaim to the world, once and for all, that gefilte fish is not the be-all-end-all of Jewish gastronomy.”
Heidi Rabinowitz has compiled a list of Diverse Jewish Kidlit. Please check it out and comment with your own suggestions for the list!
PJ Our Way is a program that delivers free Jewish chapter books to middle grade readers. Heidi Rabinowitz interviews PJ Our Way director Catriella Freedman on The Book of Life Podcast
And what, you ask, have I been up to here at the Memory & Redemption blog? Well, you didn’t ask, but I’ll tell you anyway: I’ve fallen in love with yet another Jewish philosopher. On the recommendation of Rabbi Cardozo, I’ve discovered the writings of Michael Wyschogrod. Here is a glimpse of his thinking on the idea that humans are created in the image of God. Surprisingly, what he has to say tallies in some surprising ways with recent discoveries of neuroscience.
Visit the headquarters of the Jewish Book Carnival, a monthly event where bloggers who blog about Jewish books can meet, read and comment on each others’ posts.
