City of Laughter, a new novel by Temim Fruchter, begins in Ropshitz, 1920, a shtetl where a badchan (a wedding jester) tries, in vain, to amuse the bride and groom as well as to entertain the guests. Nothing works. His jokes fall flat. Nobody laughs in Ropshitz. On one such glum day the…
Lech A provocative work that hits you in the “kishkes” (guts) Lech, the debut novel by Sarah Lippmann, speaks with the voices of five sinister characters, all of whom exhibit the predatory nature of humanity. The title echoes the biblical imperative in Genesis “lech…
Current winner of the prestigious Sami Rohr Prize, Time’s Echo, is an extraordinary and (for me) an extraordinarily challenging book in which music critic author, Jeremy Eichler, analyzes music’s “ability to recall the past.” Music, Eichler posits, is a “carrier of memory," as…
Stockholm by Noa Yedlin Israeli author Noa Yedlin’s new work, Stockholm, is packed with hijinks, shenanigans, escapade and ‘best laid plans’ that go terribly awry. It’s only a few days before, “the call," announcing the winner of the prestigious Nobel Prize. A shoo-in for…
Israeli-American, Leela Shuster, the narrator and protagonist of the psychological thriller, The Wolf Hunt, feels overwhelmed amid rumors alleging her teenage son, Adam, murdered Jamal Jones, a black American student. Leela insists Adam is unequivocally innocent of any crime. Author…
