Books Are for Sharing
While I love many things about being Jewish (holidays and herring, to name a few), the tagline “People of the Book” is one of my favorites.
The essential Book in question is, of course, the Torah. But books of all kinds have shaped who we are culturally, intellectually, and religiously. They continue to. They are among our totems. Plus, they are portable, an important consideration given that our rocky history has always had us on the go — or on the run, as it were. On a personal level, I cannot imagine a day, especially a Shabbos, without them.
That said, my reading choices are generally unplanned, even serendipitous. I pick up whatever book strikes me in the moment. I read open-mindedly, broadly, and with curiosity. Sometimes, I’ll choose a hot bestseller; at others, a Yiddish classic in translation or an untouched paperback that’s been hiding on our shelves since 2009, which I discover by chance (Oh, there you are!) during a rare fit of dusting.
Seven years ago, I went to our local library book sale, my favorite day of the year, and bought a book that looked interesting. Later, I realized that I’d not only read it already, but had donated my copy (Hey, that’s my name on the inside cover!) to the sale. So embarrassing to have forgotten. I still told everyone because it was a good story.
Since then, I’ve kept a reading diary. And because books are for sharing, I’m excited to share last year’s list with you.
It’s no small labor of love. Not all are recommendations. It’s also a long list — I read even more than usual in 2022. Of the lot, I am still thinking about three books the most: 100 Saturdays by Michael Frank, The Book of Goose by Yiyun Li, and Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin. They are beautiful stories that touched my heart in many different ways. My deep gratitude to their writers.
My wish is that one of the titles on my list will call out to you, that we will share an encounter with a book. I also hope that you’ll share back. What did you read and love in 2022? What’s at the top of your reading list now?
And, as always, if you like what you read here on Days of Rest, please invite your friends to join the conversation. This community grows through new subscriptions.
Love,
Merri
My Year in Books 2022
This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentleman by Tadeusz Borowski – Powerful, merciless, important stories inspired by a Polish survivor’s experience in Auschwitz.
A Boy of Old Prague by S. Ish-Kishor – Short tale about a medieval pogrom and tolerance.
Back When We Were Grownups by Anne Tyler – Funny, moving novel about a middle-aged widow who rediscovers herself.
These Precious Days by Anne Patchett – Essays are Patchett’s greatest magic.
The Passenger by Ulrich A. Boschwitz – A must-read novel about a German Jew who flees after Kristallnacht, published in 1938.
Drive Your Plows over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk – Powerful whodunnit, though much more than that.
They Came Like Swallows by William Maxwell – Gut-wrenching novel about a family and its losses during the flu epidemic of 1918.
The Reading List by Sara Nisha Adams – Sweet novel about a book list, a library, and chance encounters.
Nobody Will Tell You This But Me by Bess Kalb – Touching yet also very funny memoir that portrays the author’s relationship with her grandmother.
Maus by Art Spiegelman – Read this graphic novel when it was published. Reread it this past year after it was banned by a Tennessee school board. Please read it if you have not.
Caste: The Origin of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson – Non-fiction. Explores American’s foundational caste system and its implications. Excellent.
Extra Yarn by Mac Barnett – Lovely children’s book about imagination, kindness, and yarn. <3
Sea Beach Line by Ben Nadler – I am always sad when this happens, but the characters put me off.
Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff – Absorbing novel that explores a marriage through separate tellings by the husband and the wife.
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead – The escape route depicted as an actual railway. So so good.
Clock Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr – Characters interconnected through one book over the course of several centuries. About the power of storytelling. Liked all but the end.
City without Jews by Hugo Bettauer – Prescient novel, written in 1923, that imagines Austria expelling its Jews.
A Shooting Star by William Stegner –Stegner is a wonderful writer, but the storyline did not grip me.
Soul Connection by Ruchi Koval. Eight steps to character-building from the timeless Jewish practice of Mussar.
Anne Frank: Witness to History by Mark Shulman – No, no, no.
Still Alive: A Holocaust Girlhood Remembered by Ruth Kluger. Wry, dogged, forthright memoir. An absolute standout.
The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot by Marianne Cronin. Charming story of the friendship between an 83-year-old and a 17-year-old in a hospital.
The Boat Runner by Devin Murphy. Chilling novel about a Dutch soldier’s complicity during World War II.
Tomorrow There Will Be Apricots by Jessica Soffer. Story of the unlikely connection between a troubled teen and an Iraqi-Jewish widow in New York.
Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro – Sci-fi-light novel that explores interesting questions about humanity. A good read with a pareve ending.
Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys. Novel about a Lithuanian family deported by the Soviets to Siberia in 1941.
The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray. Fictionalized story of Bella da Costa Greene, personal librarian to J.P. Morgan.
Anne Frank’s Diary: The Graphic Adaptation, adapted by Ari Folman. Well-done adaptation authorized by the Anne Frank Foundation to bring Anne’s story to new audiences.
The Travels of Benjamin III – Mendele Mocher Sforim. Published in Yiddish in 1878, a satirical, bitter story of Jewish life in exile.
I’d Like to Say I’m Sorry, But There’s No One to Say Sorry To by Mikolaj Grynberg. An engaging collection of micromonologues presented as fiction that reflect the Jewish experience in Poland today.
The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates. A beautifully written, surrealist novel set in the antebellum South.
The Night of the Girondists by Jacques Presser. Novel about a young Dutch Jew complicit in sending fellow Jews to Auschwitz. Preface by Primo Levi. Raw, painful, hard to stomach, but try if you can.
Croatian War Nocturnal by Spomenka Štimec. Fictionalized memoir of the Yugoslav Wars in the 1990s. Translated from Esperanto.
Death and the Penguin by Andrey Kurkov. A strange yet engaging satire about a man and his unconventional pet in post-Soviet Ukraine.
Netherland by Joseph O’Neill – Novel, a post-9/11 paean to New York (and cricket) through the story of a Dutchman living in the city.
The Heist by Daniel Silva. A thriller in the Gabriel Allon series. A chance read picked up from a free airport library while on vacation.
The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosinski. Novel about cruelty and survival and a young boy on his own during WWII. I won’t use the word recommend, but try if you can.
The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling. Finally read these classic stories from 1894.
Borrowed Finery by Paula Fox. A very different kind of memoir. Detached, moving, elegantly written story of her peripatetic childhood.
The Slaugherman’s Daughter by Yaniv Iczkovits. A novel, really a fable, about a Jewish woman’s search for self and purpose in the Pale of Settlement.
The Watchmakers: A Story of Brotherhood, Survival, and Hope amid the Holocaust by Harry Lenga & Scott Lenga. Compelling memoir of three brothers who survived the war.
The School that Survived the Nazis: The True Story of the Schoolteacher who Defied Hitler by Deborah Cadbury. Anna Essenger relocated her school from Germany to England in 1933. Moving story, though the narrative bounces around.
Recipes for a Sacred Life by Rivvy Neshama. Stories and wisdom from the author’s own spiritual life.
Murder on a Kibbutz by Batya Gur. A murder mystery set in the insular world of a kibbutz. Love how Gur spins a tale.
The Thursday Night Murder Club by Richard Osman. I couldn’t get through it.
Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur. Best-selling book of poems about the beauty and brutality of womanhood.
The Girl in His Shadow by Audrey Blake. Novel of a young Englishwoman’s interest in scientific medicine before women had entrée into the field.
A Darker Place by Laurie King. A tale of suspense about a woman who infiltrates a cult.
Tell Me More by Kelly Corrigan. Memoir with meditations on love, life, and loss. Really enjoyed.
Fly Girl by Ann Hood. Memoir of her career as a flight attendant with insight into the industry and women’s changing place in the world.
The Library of the Unwritten by A.J. Hackwith. Interesting premise, but I only made it through two chapters.
The Body in the Library by Agatha Christie. The murder aside, the book was a fun diversion.
Shiksa Goddess (Or, How I Spent My Forties) by Wendy Wasserstein. I laughed, I cried. Several of these essays deeply resonated.
How to Paint a Dead Man by Sarah Hall. Beautifully written novel of four interconnected people, their grief and art and the ways they find meaning.
The Spinoza of Market Street by I.B. Singer. Wonderful short story collection from a lost world.
The Tenth Muse: My Life in Food by Judith Jones. Memoir from the editor who discovered Julia Child, Joan Nathan, and more, changing the way we cook and eat.
Euphoria by Lily King. Liked this novel of three young scientists caught in a love triangle. Inspired by the life of Margaret Mead.
Where’d You Go, Bernadette? by Maria Semple. A mother reconnects with her creative passions and herself after years of parenting. A nice read.
Songs of Songs by Shalom Aleichem. Translated from the Yiddish, a sweet tale of a boy who can only express his affection through biblical language.
A Hole Is to Dig by Ruth Krauss and Maurice Sendak. Hilarious classic for children (but never only for children).
The Mandelbaum Gate by Muriel Spark. Novel about a pilgrimage and a love affair set in a divided Jerusalem. So much here.
Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking: A Memoir of Food and Longing by Anya Von Bremzen. A clever, creative, tragicomic memoir.
My Phantoms by Gwendoline Riley. The novel vividly portrays the tricky terrain of mothers and daughters.
My Nest Isn’t Empty, I Just Have More Closet Space by Lisa Scottoline with Francesco Scottoline Serritella. Essays from real life. I read just a few.
Heir to the Glimmering World by Cynthia Ozick. Liked this novel about a teenaged girl who takes a job with a quirky immigrant family in New York.
The Foreign Correspondent by Alan Furst. Spy novel about a group of antifascists on the eve of World War II.
How to Eat a Book by Mrs. & Mr. Macleod. Whimsical picture book about how books make us feel.
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin. I mourned the end of this book, as the best books make me do.
Life and Crimes of Hoodie Rosen by Isaac Blum. Overall, really enjoyed this YA novel with a frum main character, though I overanalyzed it a bit.
Lucy by the Sea by Elizabeth Strout. A novel that captures the loneliness and isolation of the pandemic.
The Gustav Sonata by Rose Tremain. Failed relationships and more in Switzerland during and after WWII. Quick read. Mixed review.
In the Kitchen by Essays on Food and Life. About cooking and food and how they shape our lives. Enjoyed several very much.
Still Life by Sarah Winman. Loved several characters and the descriptions of Florence, where an English soldier rebuilds his life, but the narrative had too many distractions.
Rabbis and Wives by Chaim Grade. Yiddish classic, three novellas of communal drama among Litvak Jews, set during the interwar years. Wonderful.
The Book of Goose by Yiyun Li. Oh, this book! A novel of friendship in rural France.
100 Saturdays by Michael Frank. Stella’s moving story about Jewish life in Rhodes and how the Germans, with Italian help, took it all away. Do something special for yourself and read it.
People Love Dead Jews by Dara Horn. Profound look at the many ways Jewish history is exploited.
The Secret Chord by Geraldine Brooks. Fictionalized account of King David’s life, loves, and leadership.
There were many this year, but of the almost 80 books I read, most weren't. I feel compelled to read Holocaust memoirs especially. We'll see what 2023 brings. So far, 4 books entirely unrelated to it.
I'd love to hear about some of your favorites from last year. Always looking for recommendations. I am not surprised that some of the ghost stories overlap with your reading. We're kindred spirits int that way.