The Romance Reader, by Pearl Abraham
In this coming of-age story, Rachel, the daughter of a rabbi, rebels against the conventions of ultra-Orthodox Hasidic Jews and escapes to the world of romance novels.
The Wonder Spot, by Melissa Bank
Over the course of 20 years, we follow Sophie Applebaum through her school years, careers and search for Mr. Right.
Jane Austen in Boca: A Novel, by Paula Marantz Cohen
Another variation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice set in a Boca Raton, Florida retirement center.
Bee Season: A Novel, by Myla Goldberg
After Eliza, an unremarkable nine year old, wins both her school and district spelling bees her father decides she is destined for great things. Problems occur when he lavishes all the attention on her that was given to her older brother, Aaron. Bee Season is also on DVD starring Richard Gere and Juliette Binoche.
Kaaterskill Falls, by Allegra Goodman
A small, deeply religious group of orthodox Jews spends each summer in Kaaterskill Falls in upstate New York with their every move guided by their powerful and frail leader.
Kabbalah: A Love Story, by Lawrence Kushner
Rabbi Kalman Stern was deserted by his wife and has not had a relationship with a woman in 20 years. Just one of the stories in this multi-leveled novel as Stern searches for the meaning of life and the shape of the universe e.g.
The Coffee Trader: A Novel (Ballantine Reader's Circle), by David Liss
This historical novel takes place in seventeenth-century Amsterdam where Miguel Lienzo, a Portuguese-Jewish trader tries to recover his lost fortune by introducing coffee to the city.
The Ladies Auxiliary (Ballantine Reader's Circle), by Tova Mirvis
A a free-spirited widow arrives with her young daughter in Memphis, Tennessee, the hometown of her deceased husband, and shakes up the world of the Orthodox Jews living there.
The Plot Against America, by Philip Roth
In this alternative history novel, Roth writes of aviation hero Charles A. Lindbergh defeating Franklin Roosevelt in the 1940 presidential election and negotiating an accord with Adolf Hitler and accepting his conquest of Europe and anti-Semitic policies.
The Reader (Oprah's Book Club), by Bernhard Schlink
15-year-old Michael Berg and an older woman named Hanna have a passionate love affair where Michael reads German classics aloud to her before making love. Hanna disappears without a word and years later Michael encounters her as the defendant in a court case where she is being tried as a war criminal.
, by Pearl Abraham
, by Melissa Bank
, by Paula Marantz Cohen
, by Myla Goldberg
is also on DVD starring Richard Gere and Juliette Binoche.
, by Allegra Goodman
, by Lawrence Kushner
, by David Liss
, by Tova Mirvis
, by Philip Roth
, by Bernhard Schlink
