Book Suggestions for the Jewish Women's Book Club

By request, a list of suggestions for book clubs.

Some Favorite Book Club Picks

If you haven't read Room, you're missing a great book. There's plenty for discussion - if the mother, and not her child, told the story of their life in one room, this would be a very different book. The writing is very important but the plot is a page-turner. (Both sisters have reviewed this book: little sister's review; older sister's review.)


I love so much about The Snow Child. The author is an Alaskan bookseller who set her first book in frontier Alaska. She started with a Russian folktale about a child born from snow and turned into a story about marriage, parenthood, and love of a land. The paperback will be out in November.

Explorations of Jewish History

The Dovekeepers is widely considered to be Alice Hoffman's best. Don't expect the lightness of some her previous books. With this book she's imagining the lives of four women during the last days of Masada.


The Hare with Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance is a memoir that started out as an exploration of how a family maintained their well-curated art collection through the generations. But it ends up being a microcosm on Nazi art thefts.


OK, technically No One Is Here Except All of Us is on my to-read list (starting it tonight, actually), based on someone telling me it was the best book he's read so far this year. It's a novel about an entire town trying to hide themselves during the Holocaust.


Perhaps an obvious choice The Book Thief leads itself to discussion. How responsible were German citizens for the Holocaust? I recommend reading this alongside another "children's" book that was published at the same time: The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

Israeli Authors, Translated

Etgar Keret writes awesome short stories. The Goldfiles sister loves The Nimrod Flipout: Stories best. Don't be scared that he writes short stories, they're all good and you will want to read them all. If you read the New Yorker (in which he sometimes writes), you can read Etgar Keret's books. His newest translation is Suddenly, a Knock on the Door: Stories.


For a different writing style, David Grossman is highly recommended. You'll find some similar themes about the Israeli experience in To the End of the Land (Vintage International), but where Etgar Keret embraces the absurd, David Grossman explores emotions.

Missing Downton Abbey?

Nonfiction isn't always easy to read, but Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey: The Lost Legacy of Highclere Castle is. Did you know that the real Downton Abbey family was involved with the search of King Tut's tomb? And that the actual Lady was an American Jew?


Unreliable narrators are rarely done well. The Lifeboat's untrustworthy narrator will lead to great discussion as will the plot. What would you do if you escaped a shipwreck only to find yourself stranded on an over-full lifeboat? This is also a great pick for those thinking about the Titanic's 100th anniversary or anxiously waiting the next season of Downton Abbey.

About the Immigrant Experience

American Dervish is the only book I've ever read that gets right the experience of being the child of an immigrant in America. We Goldfiles sisters are the daughters of an Israeli immigrant; the main character of this book is a Muslim child of Pakistani parents now living in the Midwest. For him, extremism in Islam is part of growing up and how that affects Jews is part of the story. The book is only in hardcover; The paperback comes out in September. 



22 Britannia Road is about a family separated, re-located, and re-found during and immediately after WWII. The writing is a bit literary but how the characters react to World War II is interesting.

I could recommend many other books but I'm stopping because this list has more titles on it than there are months in the year. (And I know this book club meets once a month.) Want more recommendations, for this club, another, or an entirely different subject? Feel free to email us at: goldfilesbookreviews at gmail dot com.