Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

My Chocolate Year: A Novel with 12 Recipes

My Chocolate Year: A Novel with 12 Recipes

by Charlotte Herman

Dorrie Meyers is starting fifth grade, the year of the Sweet Semester baking and essay contest at school. Dorrie is determined to win, but her cakes fall flat, her cookies look like pancakes, and she learns the hard way that chocolate-covered gum is NOT a good idea. Then Dorrie meets her cousin Victor for the first time. Victor is an immigrant from Europe, and he is about to teach Dorrie that a loving family and a... (more)

Me of Little Faith

by Lewis Black

From the hilariously mad-as-hell Daily Show regular and New York Times –bestselling author comes a ferociously funny exploration of religion and faith. What do we believe? And in God’s name why ? Lewis Black has the answers. Or at least his answers. He survived Hebrew school and a bar mitzvah (barely), was a sixties college student who saw the parallels between religious rapture and drug-induced visions... (more)

The Last Jew

by Noah Gordon

In the year 1492, the Inquisition has all of Spain in its grip. After centuries of pogrom-like riots encouraged by the Church, the Jews - who have been an important part of Spanish life since the days of the Romans - are expelled from the country by royal edict. Many who wish to remain are intimidated by Church and Crown and become Catholics, but several hundred thousand choose to retain their religion and... (more)

Saturday the Rabbi Went Hungry

by Harry Kemelman

Saturday brings Yom Kippur to Barnard's Crossing and Rabbi Small is preparing as usual. But his prayers and fasting are interrupted when a member of his congregation is found dead in his car. The police call it accidental. The insurance company calls it suicide. Only Rabbi Small's pregnant wife, Miriam, thinks it's murder. Now it's up to him to prove her right . . . . "A crackling good mystery." -- Time

The Dream of Scipio

by Iain Pears

In The Dream of Scipio , the acclaimed author of An Instance of the Fingerpost intertwines three intellectual mysteries, three love stories-and three of the darkest moments in human history. United by a classical text called "The Dream of Scipio," three men struggle to find refuge from the madness that surrounds them...in the final days of the Roman Empire, in the grim years of the Black Death, and in the... (more)

Golem

by David Wisniewski

Retold from traditional sources and accompanied by David Wisniewski's unique cut-paper illustrations, Golem is a dramatic tale of supernatural forces invoked to save an oppressed people. It also offers a thought-provoking look at the consequences of unleashing power beyond human control. The afterword discusses the legend of the golem and its roots in the history of the Jews. A Caldecott Medal Book.

If Not Now, When? (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics)

If Not Now, When? (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics)

by Primo Levi, Primo Tregua Levi

Primo Levi was among the greatest witnesses to twentieth-century atrocity. In this gripping novel, based on a true story, he reveals the extraordinary lives of the Russian, Polish and Jewish partisans trapped behind enemy lines during the Second World War. Wracked by fear, hunger and fierce rivalries, they link up, fall apart, struggle to stay alive and to sabotage the efforts of the all-powerful German army. A... (more)

The Hiding Place

by Corrie Ten Boom, John L. Sherrill, John L. Sherrill, Elizabeth Sherrill

Corrie ten Boom was a woman admired the world over for her courage, her forgiveness, and her memorable faith. In World War II, she and her family risked their lives to help Jews escape the Nazis, and their reward was a trip to Hitler's concentration camps. But she survived and was released--as a result of a clerical error--and now shares the story of how faith triumphs over evil. For thirty-five years Corrie's... (more)

The Unthinkable Thoughts of Jacob Green

by Joshua Braff

It's 1977. Jacob Green, a Jewish kid from suburban New Jersey, sits on the stairs during his family's housewarming party, waiting for his father, Abram--charming host, everyone's best friend, and amateur emcee--to introduce him to the crowd. Housewarming parties, Annie Hall parties, and bar mitzvah parties punctuate Jacob's childhood and require command performances by all the Green family members. But when the... (more)

The Source: A Novel

by James A. Michener

In his signature style of grand storytelling, James Michener sweeps us back through time to the Holy Land, thousands of years ago. By exploring the lives and discoveries of modern archaeologists excavating the site of Tell Makor, Michener vividly re-creates life in and around an ancient city during critical periods of its existence, and traces the profound history of the Jews, including that of the early Hebrews... (more)

The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million

The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million

by Daniel Adam Mendelsohn

In this rich and riveting narrative, a writer's search for the truth behind his family's tragic past in World War II becomes a remarkably original epic&#8212part memoir, part reportage, part mystery, and part scholarly detective work&#8212that brilliantly explores the nature of time and memory, family and history. The Lost begins as the story of a boy who grew up in a family haunted by the... (more)

The Book of Lights

by Chaim Potok

Gershon Loran, a quiet rabinical student, is troubled by the dark reality around him. He sees hope in the study of Kabbalah, the Jewish bok of mysticism and visions, truth and light. But to Gershon's friend, Arthur, light means something else, the Atom bomb, his father helped create. Both men seek different a refuge in a foreign place, hoping for the same thing....

Davita's Harp

by Chaim Potok

For Davita Chandal, growing up in the New York of the 1930s and '40s is an experience of joy and sadness. Her loving parents, both fervent radicals, fill her with the fiercely bright hope of a new and better world. But as the deprivations of war and depression take a ruthless toll, Davita unexpectedly turns to the Jewish faith that her mother had long ago abandoned, finding there both a solace for her questioning... (more)

Summer of My German Soldier (Puffin Modern Classics)

Summer of My German Soldier (Puffin Modern Classics)

by Bette Greene

Minutes before the train pulled into the station in Jenkinsville, Arkansas, Patty Bergen knew something exciting was going to happen. But she never could have imagined that her summer would be so memorable. German prisoners of war have arrived to make their new home in the prison camp in Jenkinsville. To the rest of her town, these prisoners are only Nazis. But to Patty, a young Jewish girl with a turbulent... (more)

The Ghost of Hannah Mendes

by Naomi Ragen

When Catherine da Costa, a wealthy Manhattan matron, learns she has only a short time to live, she realizes that her family tree will die unless she passes on its legacy and traditions to her granddaughters. But Suzanne and Francesca, beautiful young women caught up in trendy causes and ambitious careers, have no interest in the past. Catherine almost despairs until one night she is visited by the ghost of her... (more)

Mein Kampf

by Ralph Manhein, Adolf Hitler

Hitler's infamous prison writings, a manifesto of hatred and a plan for a program of bloodshed and terror.

Mr. Sammler's Planet

by Saul Bellow

Mr. Artur Sammler, Holocaust survivor, intellectual, and occasional lecturer at Columbia University in 1960s New York City, is a "registrar of madness," a refined and civilized being caught among people crazy with the promises of the future (moon landings, endless possibilities). His Cyclopean gaze reflects on the degradations of city life while looking deep into the sufferings of the human soul. "Sorry for all... (more)

Devil in the Details: Scenes from an Obsessive Girlhood

Devil in the Details: Scenes from an Obsessive Girlhood

by Jennifer Traig

DEVIL IN THE DETAILS announces Jennifer Traig as one of the most hilarious writers to emerge in recent years - and one of the strangest! Recalling the agony of growing up as an obsessive- compulsive religious fanatic, Traig fearlesslessly confesses the most peculiar behaviour - like scrubbing her hands for a full half-hour before meals, feeding her stuffed animals before herself and washing everything she owned... (more)

A Tale of Love and Darkness

by Amos Oz

Tragic, comic, and utterly honest, this bestselling and critically acclaimed new work by "one of Israel's most gifted and prolific authors" (Helen Epstein, The Forward) is at once a family saga and a magical self-portrait of a writer who witnessed the birth of a nation and lived through its turbulent history. It is the story of a boy growing up in the war-torn Jerusalem of the forties and fifties, in a small... (more)

The Victim (Penguin Classics)

by Saul Bellow

Bellow's second novel charts the descent into paranoia of Asa Leventhal, sub-editor of a trade magazine. With his wife away visiting her mother, Asa is alone, but not for long. His sister-in-law summons him to Staten Island to help with his sick nephew. Other demands mount, and readers witness a man losing control.

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Browse Subjects: jewish

Top Books

by Charlotte Herman

by Lewis Black

by Noah Gordon

by Harry Kemelman

by Iain Pears

by David Wisniewski

by Primo Levi, Primo Tregua Levi

by Corrie Ten Boom, John L. Sherrill, John L. Sherrill, Elizabeth Sherrill

by Joshua Braff

by James A. Michener

by Daniel Adam Mendelsohn

by Chaim Potok

by Chaim Potok

by Bette Greene

by Naomi Ragen

by Ralph Manhein, Adolf Hitler

by Saul Bellow

by Jennifer Traig

by Amos Oz

by Saul Bellow