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Our newly revitalized TI Book Group will focus on contemporary Jewish fiction. We will meet both in person and on Zoom.

Upcoming Book Group Dates and Times

 

March 6, 2024 at 11:45a       The American Way: A True Story of Nazi Escape, Superman, and Marilyn Monroe  by Helene Stapinski (Author), Bonnie Siegler (Author) 

April 3, 2024   at 11:45a        The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem: A Novel  by Sarit Yishai-Levi (Author), Anthony Berris (Translator)

May 1, 2024     at 11:45a         The House of Love and Prayer: and Other Stories by Tova Reich (Author)

May 29, 2024  at 11:45a         To be determined.

 The American Way: A True Story of Nazi Escape, Superman, and Marilyn Monroe  by Helene Stapinski and Bonnie Siegler

Mar 6 | 11:45a

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In this “necessary and beautifully told story of struggle, compassion and serendipity” (Forbes), the publisher of DC Comics comes to the rescue of a family trying to flee Nazi Berlin, their lives linking up with a dazzling cast of 20th-century icons, all eagerly pursuing the American Dream.

Family lore had it that Bonnie Siegler’s grandfather crossed paths in Midtown Manhattan late one night in 1954 with Marilyn Monroe, her white dress flying up around her as she filmed a scene for The Seven Year Itch. An amateur filmmaker, Jules Schulback had his home movie camera with him, capturing what would become the only surviving footage of that legendary night. Bonnie wasn’t sure she quite believed her grandfather’s story…until, cleaning out his apartment, she found the film reel. The discovery would prompt her to investigate all of her grandfather’s seemingly tall tales—and lead her in pursuit of a remarkable piece of forgotten history that reads like fiction but is all true.

A “fast-moving American epic with a cast of refugees and starlets, publishers and bootleggers, comic-book creators and sports legends” (The Washington Post), The American Way follows two very different men—Jules Schulback and his unlik

The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem: A Novel by Sarit Yishai-Levi and Anthony Berris
Apr 3 | 11:45a

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Finalist for the Book Club category of the 2016 National Jewish Book Awards.

The #1 International Best Seller, The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem is a dazzling novel of mothers and daughters, stories told and untold, and the ties that bind four generations of women.

Gabriela’s mother Luna is the most beautiful woman in all of Jerusalem, though her famed beauty and charm seem to be reserved for everyone but her daughter. Ever since Gabriela can remember, she and Luna have struggled to connect. But when tragedy strikes, Gabriela senses there’s more to her mother than painted nails and lips.

Desperate to understand their relationship, Gabriela pieces together the stories of her family’s previous generations―from Great-Grandmother Mercada the renowned healer, to Grandma Rosa who cleaned houses for the English, to Luna who had the nicest legs in Jerusalem. But as she uncovers shocking secrets, forbidden romances, and the family curse that links the women together, Gabriela must face a past and present far more complex than she ever imagined.

Set against the Golden Age of Hollywood, the dark days of World War II, and the swinging ’70s, The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem follows generations of unforgettable women as they forge their own paths through times of dramatic change. With great humor and heart, Sarit Yishai-Levi has given us a powerful story of love and forgiveness―and the unexpected and enchanting places we find each.

The House of Love and Prayer and Other Stories by Tova Reich
May 1 | 11:45a
[Tova Reich’s] verbal blade is amazingly, ingeniously, startlingly, all-consumingly, all-encompassingly, deservedly, and brilliantly savage.”—Cynthia Ozick

In this extraordinary collection of short fiction, Tova Reich dives deep into the world of Orthodox Jewry—a world that her stories, like the shows “Unorthodox” and “Shtisel,” embrace with respect and affection while also poking at the faultlines in its unshakeable traditions.

The eight stories collected in this volume are all populated by seekers—of holiness, illumination, liberation, meaning, love. Their journeys unfold in the U.S., Israel, Poland, China, often in the very heart of the Jewish world, and are rendered with an insider’s authority. The narrative voice bringing all this to life has been described as fearlessly satiric and subversive, with a moral but not moralizing edge, equally alive to the sacred and the profane, comically absurd to the point of tragedy.

From the opening story, “The Lost Girl” (winner of a National Magazine Award in Fiction) to “Dead Zone” in the closing pages of this collection, we are confronted with souls unable to rest, unable to find release, searching for their place in this life, and beyond. Between these two stories, we encounter a true believer seeking personal redemption in China (“Forbidden City”), and an aged woman longing at the end of her life to find a way back to her mother (“The Plot”). Three of the stories, “The Page Turner,” “The Third Generation,” and “Dedicated to the Dead,” are  animated by the long-term fallout from the Holocaust—generational trauma, abuse of memory, competitive victimization, and more. In the midst of all this is the story “The House of Love and Prayer,” which, in its way, encompasses the entire spectrum. 

The novelist Howard Norman has said, “Few contemporary writers are truly original. Tova Reich is one of them.” Read this book and discover her satiric genius.