Natan and Jew­ish Book Coun­cil are thrilled to announce the Sum­mer 2026 Natan Notable Book: Return­ing: A Search for Home Across Three Cen­turies by Nicholas Lemann (Liv­eright Pub­lish­ing, 2026). 

Twice a year, Natan Notable Books rec­og­nizes recent­ly pub­lished or about-to-be-pub­lished non-fic­tion books that promise to cat­alyze con­ver­sa­tions aligned with the themes of Natan’s grant­mak­ing: rein­vent­ing Jew­ish life and com­mu­ni­ty for the twen­ty-first cen­tu­ry, shift­ing notions of indi­vid­ual and col­lec­tive Jew­ish iden­ti­ty, the his­to­ry and future of Israel, under­stand­ing and con­fronting con­tem­po­rary forms of anti­semitism, and the evolv­ing rela­tion­ship between Israel and world Jewry.

In Return­ing, Lemann traces his family’s his­to­ry, from the arrival of his great-great-grand­fa­ther in the Unit­ed States from Ger­many in the 1830s through five gen­er­a­tions of Lemanns who made their home in the Amer­i­can South. A vet­er­an jour­nal­ist who has long con­tributed to the New York­er and Dean Emer­i­tus of the Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty School of Jour­nal­ism, Lemann spent years writ­ing about oth­er his­to­ries, oth­er fam­i­lies, before turn­ing his atten­tion to his own. Trac­ing that his­to­ry through pub­lic doc­u­ments, arti­cles, and archival cor­re­spon­dence, Lemann tells the sto­ry of a fam­i­ly who suc­ceed­ed as Amer­i­cans by mov­ing far­ther away from their Jew­ish roots. It is Lemann him­self who revers­es that jour­ney, return­ing to a Jew­ish iden­ti­ty and reli­gious obser­vance that had become for­eign, and, in the process, find­ing the con­nec­tion that was miss­ing from his ear­ly life. 

But it’s Lemann’s thought­ful exam­i­na­tion of the forces that led to his fam­i­ly only attend­ing syn­a­gogue on Thanks­giv­ing, of his own dis­com­fort with the social and racial stric­tures and hier­ar­chies that com­prised the cul­ture of the Amer­i­can South in which his fam­i­ly set­tled, that give the book sig­nif­i­cance beyond just the his­tor­i­cal facts. Natan Notable Books pan­el mem­ber Matthew Hiltzik shared that ​“Nicholas Leman­n’s Return­ing is a com­pelling sto­ry that explores iden­ti­ty, fam­i­ly his­to­ry, accep­tance, and the impor­tance of embrac­ing our Judaism with pride. This touch­ing sto­ry of reclaim­ing her­itage near­ly lost to assim­i­la­tion speaks to the shift­ing, evolv­ing nature of Jew­ish iden­ti­ty and is espe­cial­ly time­ly giv­en the glob­al rise in anti­semitism in a post-Octo­ber 7 world.”

The author will receive a $5,000 cash prize, as well as cus­tomized sup­port for pro­mot­ing the book and its ideas, draw­ing on Natan’s and Jew­ish Book Coun­cil exten­sive net­works through­out the Jew­ish phil­an­thropic and com­mu­nal worlds. At its pub­li­ca­tion, Return­ing was select­ed as the first non-fic­tion offer­ing for Jew­ish Book Council’s Nu Reads book sub­scrip­tion series, and received an unprece­dent­ed num­ber of requests from among the subscribers. 

Natan Notable Books sub­mis­sions are rolling, and can be sub­mit­ted at any time. The next dead­line for con­sid­er­a­tion of a recent or soon-to-come non-fic­­tion title is Novem­ber 15, 2026. Titles must have a pub­li­ca­tion date between May 1, 2026 and May 1, 2027. Inquiries can be direct­ed to natannotable@​jewishbooks.​org. For more infor­ma­tion on the award and eli­gi­bil­i­ty or to sub­mit a title, go to https://​www​.jew​ish​book​coun​cil​.org/​a​w​a​r​d​s​/​n​a​t​a​n​-​n​o​t​a​b​l​e​-​books. 

Natan Notable Books at the Jew­ish Book Coun­cil has pre­vi­ous­ly been award­ed to Sarah Hurwitz’s As a Jew: Reclaim­ing Our Sto­ry from Those Who Blame, Shame, and Try to Erase Us (2025), Lee Yaron’s 10/7: 100 Human Sto­ries (2024), Hen­ri­et­ta Szold: Hadas­sah and the Zion­ist Dream by Francine Klags­brun (2024), Tar­get Tehran: How Israel Is Using Sab­o­tage, Cyber­war­fare, Assas­si­na­tion – and Secret Diplo­ma­cy – to Stop a Nuclear Iran and Cre­ate a New Mid­dle East by Yon­ah Jere­my Bob and Ilan Evy­atar (2023), The Land of Hope and Fear: Israel’s Bat­tle for its Inner Soul by Isabel Ker­sh­n­er (2023), Feed­ing Women of the Tal­mud, Feed­ing Our­selves: Uplift­ing the Voic­es of Tal­mu­dic Hero­ines and Hon­or­ing Them with Sim­ple, Veg­an Recipes edit­ed by Kenden Alfond (2022), Michael Frank’s One Hun­dred Sat­ur­days: Stel­la Levi and the Search for a Lost World (2022), Dara Horn’s Peo­ple Love Dead Jews (2021), Nan­cy Sinkoff’s From Left to Right (2020), Ilan Sta­vans’ The Sev­enth Heav­en (2020), Susie Linfield’s The Lion’s Den (2019), and Bari Weiss’ How to Fight Anti-Semi­tism (2019). Natan Notable Books is an evo­lu­tion of the Natan Book Award, which was pre­vi­ous­ly award­ed to Mat­ti Friedman’s Spies of No Coun­try (2018) and Ari Shavit’s My Promised Land (2013). 

About Natan

Natan cat­alyzes emerg­ing phil­an­thropists to become active­ly engaged in build­ing the Jew­ish future by giv­ing col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly to cut­ting-edge ini­tia­tives in Israel and in Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ties around the world, and by build­ing an inter­con­nect­ed com­mu­ni­ty of givers through grant­mak­ing, events and oth­er pro­grams. Natan believes that engaged and entre­pre­neur­ial phil­an­thropy can trans­form givers, grant recip­i­ents, and the fields in which Natan invests.

About Jew­ish Book Council

Jew­ish Book Coun­cil is a non­prof­it orga­ni­za­tion ded­i­cat­ed to edu­cat­ing, enrich­ing, and strength­en­ing the Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty through Jew­ish inter­est lit­er­a­ture. With over 290 tour­ing authors each year; over 3,000 book clubs; 1,400 events; near­ly 2,500 sub­scribers to the Nu Reads book sub­scrip­tion ser­vice; the Nation­al Jew­ish Book Awards; Natan Notable Books; its pop­u­lar lit­er­ary series Unpack­ing the Book: Jew­ish Writ­ers in con­ver­sa­tion; the annu­al cel­e­bra­tion of Jew­ish Book Month; and a vibrant dig­i­tal pres­ence reach­ing close to 1 mil­lion read­ers, JBC ensures that Jew­ish-inter­est authors have a plat­form, and that read­ers are able to find these books and have the tools to dis­cuss them with their community.