PositiveThe Washington PostHis compelling exploration of its impact on the community is by turns searing and compassionate. It is an emotionally draining terrain, flecked with occasional, unexpected pockets of consolation. But in placing this hate crime against our country’s patchwork canvas of faith, politics and violence, Oppenheimer provides a powerful meditation on the changing meaning of community and belonging in an age of disconnection and isolation ... Nonetheless...I wanted Oppenheimer to dig deeper into the psychological impact and the enduring ache that trauma leaves behind ... his familiarity [with Squirrel Hill] lends his empathic interviews depth and nuance ... he is consistently attuned to the pulse of the reeling community as it struggles to regain some sense of balance.
Gary Shteyngart
RaveWashington PostGary Shteyngart never strays far from the absurd ... In his latest novel, Our Country Friends, Shteyngart convincingly demonstrates that large doses of caustic irony mixed with poignancy and melancholy may be the most effective tonic for coping with the lunatic mood swings so many of us have experienced since the virus first appeared ... Shteyngart wields his satiric bite to good effect ... Shteyngart deftly pivots from this hilarious, tragicomic parody to a mood closer to the wistful, elegiac tones of his beloved Russian master, Chekhov. Astute readers will also realize that in keeping with Chekhov’s principle that a gun placed on the stage must go off before the curtain falls, the coronavirus, too, will inevitably find a target ... By novel’s end, Shteyngart’s flawed characters have absorbed lessons in humility, compassion and grief. And even though Shteyngart leaves too many loose ends curiously unexplained, his darkly brilliant comedy of love and folly gives us the absurd leavening we need to keep on laughing, and living, in covid’s all too tragic wake.
Marilyn Brookwood
RaveThe Washington Post... gripping, meticulously researched ... The bracing revelation of Brookwood’s book is that these essential lessons in countering the effects of neglect and disadvantage came frighteningly close to disappearing without a trace. Discovering that past helps us recognize just how far we still have to go to provide opportunities to help all young minds realize the promise they possess.
Julie Klam
PositiveThe Washington Post... a divertingly chatty yet thought-provoking exploration of how the family stories we don’t know can define us just as much as the ones we think we do ... At times, Klam can ramble and become repetitive, but her lively wit carries us along. With genealogical quests all the rage, Klam’s book serves as a droll guide for other ancestry seekers. It’s also a cautionary tale about the obsessional nature of such a search and the bracing truths that may lie buried beneath the family lore.
Charlie English
PositiveWall Street Journal[A] penetrating chronicle ... Mr. English traces [Hitler\'s] trajectory in fascinating, grueling detail ... At times, Mr. English can be repetitive, but he deftly links art history, psychiatry and Hitler’s ideology to devastating effect. Because seeing art through Hitler’s eyes, as Mr. English compels us to do, is nothing less than soul-crushing, I often needed to pause for air.
Martha Teichner
RaveThe Washington PostTeichner’s main themes are sure to warm readers ... Adding to the book’s allure is the nostalgia of its pre-pandemic setting, the story unfolding in a Manhattan still bustling at full speed ... Teichner brings an enjoyably light (though sometimes too cutesy) touch ... From Carol and Harry, Teichner has learned that we all have the capacity to create and build new friendships and attachments at any age or stage of life. That such rewards are possible is the inspirational lesson for all the characters in — and readers of — this touching saga.
Cynthia Ozick
RaveThe Washington PostAbout to turn 93 years old, she is as vibrant on the page as ever. In Antiquities, the latest of her many books, Ozick employs her virtuosic literary style to weave an enigmatic tale about the ephemeral nature of memory and the transience of life ... vintage Cynthia Ozick. But whether you’re new to her work or a longtime fan, you’ll find plenty to entertain as well as to astonish ... Ozick simultaneously builds suspense and provides comic relief by having the absent-minded Petrie repeatedly begin to spill the beans, then suddenly meander away to another topic ... Indisputable is Ozick’s exquisite artistry in rendering yet another resonant and unsettling tale.
Judy Batalion
PositiveThe Wall Street Journal... in her well-researched and riveting chronicle The Light of Days, Judy Batalion brings these unsung heroines to the forefront ... This group portrait forcefully counters the myth of Jewish passivity, at once documenting the breadth and extent of Jewish activism throughout the ghettos and underlining in particular the crucial roles women played in the fight to survive. Indeed, several of the women whose stories Ms. Batalion tells also helped lead the most significant act of anti-Nazi Jewish resistance, the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto uprising, which is recounted here in brutal detail ... Ms. Batalion’s book is both comprehensive and important, but reading it can prove frustrating and confusing, especially as the author toggles back and forth in time and from one woman’s story to another. And although Ms. Batalion does not flinch from describing the wanton acts of Nazi-inflicted cruelty and torture these women witnessed and endured, readers may need to pause for air. Yet spelling out the specifics of these horrors underscores the monumental strength and resolve these extraordinary women possessed. The Light of Days pays tribute to their individual grit and their collective will to keep the Jewish people alive.
Deborah Tannen
PositiveThe Wall Street Journal... [Tannen] displays an acute ability to decode and explain the hidden messages and assumptions our words unwittingly convey, whether about power, status, a wish for greater connection or its opposite ... appealing ... overly discursive early chapters ... I wish Ms. Tannen—and her book—had arrived at this knowledge in fewer pages, but the ultimate recognition of her father’s painful need for connection is searing, the depiction of the Jewish community in World War I-era Warsaw riveting. Not only does Ms. Tannen’s heartfelt portrait keep her father—and his memories—alive, but her story also hints at the undiscovered currents that may await us, too, if we but delve beneath the surface of our own family myths.
Geraldine Schwarz
RaveThe Wall Street Journal... [a] riveting exploration of Germany’s post-World War II reckoning with guilt and responsibility ... Ms. Schwarz makes a strong case that without the support of Nazis like her paternal grandparents, \'Germany could not have descended so far into chaos and crime.\' She is equally persuasive in her thesis that it is only through the hard work of remembering the past, with equal parts historical accuracy and personal courage, that we can begin to heal from the hurt and residual distrust we lean on to rationalize prejudice and hatred of others. With eloquence and passion she demonstrates that we can never be reminded too often to never forget.
Bethany Saltman
PositiveThe Washington Post...[an] absorbing and edifying corrective ... Saltman tells two separate stories here: One is her personal journey as a mother, the other the story of the science of attachment. But the narratives are also deeply intertwined. How could it be otherwise when her drive to understand attachment is fueled by her desire to settle her doubts about her maternal instincts and capabilities? ... All these worries carry echoes of the ingrained but unreachable, perfectionistic standards of motherhood so many of us carry. But Saltman’s refrain of self-reproach can grow tedious, as can her tendency to invoke Zen philosophy ... By contrast, her research enlivens her ... Saltman is at her best in her chapters on Ainsworth and the development of attachment theory. Yet she can go overboard in her identification with Ainsworth, venerating her as an idealized mentor and mother figure ... Fortunately, for the most part Saltman remains securely attached to her material and to the science itself. Of that, Ainsworth would have surely approved.
Anthony David
PositiveThe Washington PostFans of the medical-mystery television series House will find arresting parallels—and striking differences—in the absorbing collection of real-life psychiatric case histories the distinguished British neuropsychiatrist Anthony David recounts ... the compassionate, philosophical Dr. David can’t help second-guessing himself, and that’s only one reason his case histories are so compelling ... I wish he had provided more details about the state of our still-unfolding knowledge of the neurological and other channels through which mind and body communicate with each other. That may be for another book, however. In the meantime, he has given us a gripping overview of the dilemmas that the traditional binary medical mind-set has yet to fully explore or grasp.
Francoise Frenkel
RaveThe Wall Street Journal... [a] taut, eloquent memoir of wartime survival ... Reflecting on how little is known about Frenkel’s life beyond the confines of this, apparently her only book, Mr. Modiano likens reading it to the experience of becoming privy to an intimate confession from a stranger met by chance, someone whose secrets you now share but whose identity remains essentially anonymous. This enigmatic quality combines with the story’s own underlying sense of urgency to propel the reader forward. Composed in the immediate aftermath of her arrival in Switzerland, Frenkel’s suspense-filled saga spills out with absolute clarity as she details her flight’s every hazardous step and misguided stop ... Frenkel artfully sketches a range of characters she encountered along the way ... We can only remain grateful to the constellation of luck and chance that allowed, first, Frenkel’s survival, and now, the recovery of her exceptional book.
Tom Segev trans. by Haim Watzman
PositiveThe Washington PostDeploying exhaustive research, which included access to previously unavailable archival material, Segev unearths a man of contradictions ... Segev is unafraid to point out Ben-Gurion’s flaws and failings ... Segev’s hefty, detailed volume may leave both critics and admirers unhappy. But what Segev’s deft unfolding of the trajectory of Ben-Gurion’s life makes clear is that his legacy is Israel itself.
Michael Dobbs
PositiveThe Wall Street Journal\"Mr. Dobbs affectingly braids three separate narratives into one ... devastating ... Mr. Dobbs... chronicles in meticulous, suspenseful detail the desperate perseverance of one Kippenheim family after another to find an escape from Nazi Europe. These stories—recovered and reconstructed through letters, memoirs, family photographs, visa documents and oral histories—make up the book’s most wrenching sections.\
Carla Guelfenbein, Trans. by John Cullen
PositiveThe New York Jewish WeekMystery and obsession combine to make Chilean author Carla Guelfenbein’s novel...an atmospheric page-turner ... Guelfenbein adeptly captures the meditative mood of each of her narrators, and successfully conjures Sigall’s linguistic delight in patterning words into poems. One only wishes the author had edited some of the more long-winded passages and made the wandering plot more concise.
Susan Rubin Suleiman
PositiveThe Wall Street Journal...[a] measured, compelling new book ... Rather than bluntly judge, Ms. Suleiman makes us see Némirovsky as a gifted woman situated in a particular historical epoch, carefully analyzing her writings as a product of those times, and clarifying, without excusing, Némirovsky’s most discomforting passages ... There is no denying that Némirovsky closed her eyes to the hateful articles that ran alongside her stories in Nazi-leaning publications. At the same time, Ms. Suleiman points out, as a writer desperate to support her family, as time went on these were the only outlets available that still allowed her, going against rules banning Jewish authors, to nonetheless write for them under a pseudonym.
