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| February
2005 |
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The
Book of Memories by Ana Maria Shua
The
Book of Memories by Ana Maria Shua narrates the migration
of a Jewish Family from Poland to Buenos Aires, Argentina
and the challenges and transitions it faced there. Shua
illustrates, through her central characters, three generations
of women, the commonalities and differences of Jewish
experience in Latin America with their cousins in the
United States who have made an important contribution
to our national literature and consciousness. |
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Book
of Memories recommended by Achy Obejas
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 Days
of Awe by Achy Obejas
Born right in the heart of
Castro's revolution, Alejandra is brought to North America
by her desperate parents, where she remains until her
job brings her back to Cuba, a land which awakens in
her a vibrantly-told journey of discovery. |
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| March
2005 |
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An
Hour in Paradise by Joan Leegant
A former drug dealer turned
yeshiva student faces his past while visiting a dying
AIDS patient. A disaffected young American in the ancient
city of Safed ventures in Kabbalist mysticism and gets
more than he bargained for. Three sisters - one a Hindu,
one an Orthodox Jew, and one a struggling actress just
trying to get by - find unexpected happiness with the
help of an unseen, yet beloved, hand. Interspersed with
these are tales of love lost and found - between fathers
and sons, old childhood sweethearts past their prime,
and strangers thrown together by circumstance and chance. |
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Joan
Leegant Recommends: |
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 The
Complete Stories by Bernard Malamud
In all his work, Malamud was
concerned to identify and dramatize a quality he spoke
of as "the human." This quality is found in the way
his characters cling to hope against all reason, in
their capacity for sudden deep feeling and their awareness
of the world's comic indifference to their aspirations. |
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| April
2005 |
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The
English Disease by Joseph Skibell
Described as "a wildly funny
novel that is equal parts Philip Roth, Groucho Marx
and Woody Allen," this novel by award winning author
Skibell, engages us in the search for identity of
a neurotic and talented Mahler expert as he contemplates
divorce, parenthood and human compassion.
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Joseph
Skibell Recommends: |
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 Ragtime
by E.L. Doctorow
An extraordinary tapestry,
Ragtime captures the spirit of America in the era between
the turn of the century and the First World War. One
lazy Sunday afternoon, the famous escape artist Harry
Houdini swerves his car into a telephone pole outside
their house, and almost magically, the line between
fantasy and reality disappears. |
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