So you’re home for the Hanukkah-days (see also: hol­i­days), and you’re putting togeth­er a few last minute gift pack­ages from your favorite local book­store (vir­tu­al­ly, of course), but you can’t quite find the Jew­ish angle. Here are a few books you can send to friends and fam­i­ly — or to your­self — for that cozy, mir­a­cle-of-read­ing feeling!

To Be a Man Join us for a con­ver­sa­tion with Nicole Krauss on Decem­ber 17th! As any­one who has been entranced by her acclaimed nov­els knows, Nicole Krauss has an uncan­ny abil­i­ty to illu­mi­nate the pow­er of his­to­ry and mem­o­ry, espe­cial­ly as it shapes the fate­ful choic­es peo­ple make in their most vul­ner­a­ble moments.” ‑Ranen Omer-Sherman

The Lost Shtetl Kreskol, the shtetl at this novel’s core, is nes­tled… in a dense East­ern Euro­pean for­est. Through a series of bureau­crat­ic mis­steps and pet­ty grudges, Kreskol was lost” to the rest of Poland and, even­tu­al­ly, to the rest of the world — the Nazis did not find it, nor did the Sovi­ets after them.” ‑Moriel Rothman-Zecher 

All My Mother’s Lovers Ilana Masad’s debut nov­el begins with a phone call: Mag­gie Krause’s broth­er call­ing to tell her that their moth­er, Iris, has died unex­pect­ed­ly at the age of six­­ty-two.” ‑Sacha Lamb

The Tun­nel A. B. Yehoshua sur­pris­es and delights once again with a sto­ry about aging and accep­tance. The now eighty-three-year-old acclaimed author has craft­ed a tale which is both unique­ly Israeli and yet uni­ver­sal in theme; every­one ages and weak­ens, but dig­ni­ty and integri­ty need not fade.” ‑Michal Hoschan­der Malen

Han­nah’s War Hannah’s War explores the wartime life of a bril­liant Jew­ish female physi­cist, Dr. Han­nah Weiss, but based on a real (and large­ly unsung) genius named Lise Meit­ner.” ‑Sonia Taitz

Lot Six David Adj­mi grew up in Brooklyn’s tight-knit Jew­ish Syr­i­an com­mu­ni­ty, where his behav­ior was con­stant­ly mon­i­tored, lest he (inevitably) fail to live up to com­mu­nal expec­ta­tions.” ‑Wayne Hoffman

I Want You to Know We’re Still Here I Want You to Know We’re Still Here is a beau­ti­ful­ly writ­ten account of a relent­less jour­ney to the genealog­i­cal — indeed geo­graph­ic — core of fam­i­ly trau­ma to uncov­er mys­ter­ies buried in the mass graves of an old-world shtetl.” ‑Don­ald Weber

The Col­or of Love The mem­oir is pep­pered with poignant moments from the author’s child­hood — ones that leave her tee­ter­ing between uncon­di­tion­al love and unam­bigu­ous oth­er­ing.’ ”-Ada Brunstein

Nobody Will Tell You This But Me Bess nar­rates an emo­tion­al and deeply affec­tion­ate sto­ry of love and fam­i­ly, that is engag­ing and filled with hope. Her sto­ry is unique, and yet there are uni­ver­sal threads that remind the read­er that, ulti­mate­ly, rela­tion­ships with fam­i­ly can be incred­i­bly influ­en­tial and endure for a life­time.” ‑Reba Carmel

Hon­ey on the Page: A Trea­sury of Yid­dish Chil­dren’s Lit­er­a­ture Hon­ey on the Page lays out a feast of near­ly fifty sto­ries and poems for chil­dren, trans­lat­ed from the orig­i­nal Yid­dish. Arranged by theme, the book takes read­ers from Jew­ish hol­i­days and his­to­ry; to folk­tales and fairy tales; to sto­ries of human­is­tic ethics, wis­dom and fool­ish­ness, class con­scious­ness, and fam­i­ly.” ‑From the publisher

Remix Judaism: Pre­serv­ing Tra­di­tion in a Diverse World Rober­ta Rosen­thal Kwall could not have imag­ined how DIY” would become such a cen­tral part of all of our lives in 2020; her book Remix Judaism: Pre­serv­ing Tra­di­tion in a Diverse World fits remark­ably well into con­ver­sa­tions about what it means to be Jew­ish and prac­tice Judaism in the cur­rent moment.” ‑Deb­o­rah Miller

The Last Kings of Shang­hai: The Rival Jew­ish Dynas­ties That Helped Cre­ate Mod­ern Chi­na If a Jew­ish his­to­ri­an were to advance a claim for the diver­si­ty of the expe­ri­ence of the dias­po­ra, the case would rest with the saga of the Sas­soons and the Kadoories. Once based in Bagh­dad, these two clans (and, yes, they were dis­tant­ly relat­ed) relo­cat­ed to Chi­na in the mid-nine­­teenth cen­tu­ry.” ‑Stephen Whitfield

Cul­ture War­lords: My Jour­ney Into the Dark Web of White Suprema­cy Cul­ture War­lords is the sto­ry of how Lavin, a fre­quent tar­get of extrem­ist trolls (includ­ing those at Fox News), dove into a byzan­tine online cul­ture of hate and learned the intri­ca­cies of how white suprema­cy pro­lif­er­ates online.” ‑From the publisher

The Gift: 12 Lessons to Save Your Life In The Gift, Eger expands on her mes­sage of heal­ing and pro­vides a hands-on guide that gen­tly encour­ages us to change the thoughts and behav­iors that may be keep­ing us impris­oned in the past.” ‑From the publisher

The Auto­bi­og­ra­phy of Alice B. Tok­las As the title sug­gests, the text is pre­sent­ed as an auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal work of Alice B. Tok­las, Stein’s life com­pan­ion. How­ev­er, one does not have to delve deep into this book before it becomes appar­ent that it is actu­al­ly Stein’s own work. ‑Lena Saltos

Edith Halpert, The Down­town Gallery, and the Rise of Amer­i­can Art The founder of the Down­town Gallery in New York, Halpert shaped an iden­ti­ty for Amer­i­can art, declar­ing that its thrilling het­ero­gene­ity and demo­c­ra­t­ic val­ues were what most dis­tin­guished it from the Euro­pean avant-garde.” ‑From the publisher

Now for Some­thing Sweet Now for Some­thing Sweet is the result of an inten­sive search to uncov­er, curate and cel­e­brate the very best, most cher­ished sweet recipes from the Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty in Aus­tralia and around the world.” ‑From the publisher

Jew­ish Cui­sine in Hun­gary: A Cul­tur­al His­to­ry with 83 Authen­tic Recipes Beyond the hon­esty and charm, it’s Koerner’s com­mit­ment to defy­ing Nazi destruc­tion, to sav­ing Hun­gar­i­an Jew­ish cul­ture, that makes this book so com­pelling. Jew­ish Cui­sine in Hun­gary is right­eous schol­ar­ship.” ‑Bet­ti­na Berch

Simona is the Jew­ish Book Coun­cil’s man­ag­ing edi­tor of dig­i­tal con­tent and mar­ket­ing. She grad­u­at­ed from Sarah Lawrence Col­lege with a con­cen­tra­tion in Eng­lish and His­to­ry and stud­ied abroad in India and Eng­land. Pri­or to the JBC she worked at Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty Press. Her writ­ing has been fea­tured in LilithThe Nor­mal School, Dig­ging through the Fat, and oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. She holds an MFA in fic­tion from The New School.