Post­ed by Nao­mi Firestone-Teeter

This fall brings not only a boun­ty of fic­tion, but a boun­ty of non­fic­tion, as well. This edi­tion of JBC Book­shelf” offers mem­oirs, a biog­ra­phy,” and humor, tak­ing us from Israel to Egypt to France (keep­ing with the trav­el” trend). Many of the below titles will be reviewed in our fall or win­ter issue of Jew­ish Book World, so be on the look out for more about each of them. And, while we love bring­ing you fall book treats, we also have anoth­er (lit­er­ary) treat in store for you…stay tuned…

Jerusalem: The Biog­ra­phy, Simon Sebag Mon­te­fiore (Octo­ber 2011, Knopf)
Watch Simon Sebag Mon­te­fiore talk about Jerusalem with the BBC here.

The Mirador: Dreamed Mem­o­ries of Irene Nemirovsky by her Daugh­ter, Elis­a­beth Gille; Mari­na Harss, trans. (Sep­tem­ber 2011, NYRB Clas­sics)
Have you read Irene Nemirovsky’s Suite Fran­caise?

Bad for the Jews, Scott Sher­man (August 2011, St. Martin’s Grif­fin)
Fun Fact: Scott Sher­man writes for The Col­bert Report.

The Arro­gant Years: One Girl’s Search for Her Lost Youth, from Cairo to Brook­lyn, Lucette Lagna­do (Sep­tem­ber 2011, Ecco)
Lucette Lagna­do won the Sami Rohr Prize for Jew­ish Lit­er­a­ture for her Mem­oir The Man in the White Shark­skin Suit: A Jew­ish Family’s Exo­dus from Old Cairo to the New World .

My Russ­ian Grand­moth­er and Her Amer­i­can Vac­u­um Clean­er: A Fam­i­ly Mem­oir, Meir Shalev; Evan Fal­l­en­berg, trans. (Octo­ber 2011, Schock­en)
Meir Shalev won the 2007 Nation­al Jew­ish Book Award for Fic­tion for A Pigeon and a Boy.


Orig­i­nal­ly from Lan­cast­er, Penn­syl­va­nia, Nao­mi is the CEO of Jew­ish Book Coun­cil. She grad­u­at­ed from Emory Uni­ver­si­ty with degrees in Eng­lish and Art His­to­ry and, in addi­tion, stud­ied at Uni­ver­si­ty Col­lege Lon­don. Pri­or to her role as exec­u­tive direc­tor, Nao­mi served as the found­ing edi­tor of the JBC web­site and blog and man­ag­ing edi­tor of Jew­ish Book World. In addi­tion, she has over­seen JBC’s dig­i­tal ini­tia­tives, and also devel­oped the JBC’s Vis­it­ing Scribe series and Unpack­ing the Book: Jew­ish Writ­ers in Conversation.