Everything’s a beach read when you bring it to the sandy shores! This sum­mer we’re grab­bing our totes and eager­ly head­ing to the sun­shine with these cap­ti­vat­ing new books. From new­ly trans­lat­ed works of Hebrew, to a page-turn­ing Cold War mys­tery, to a scrump­tious look at Jew­ish Rome’s culi­nary his­to­ry, we have a read­ing rec for you!

The Dis­si­dent by Paul Goldberg

All-Night Phar­ma­cy by Ruth Madievsky 

The Sea Ele­phants by Shas­tri Akella

The Veg­an by Andrew Lipstein

Where I Am by Dana Shem-Ur, trans­lat­ed by Yardenne Greenspan 

Unortho­dox Love by Hei­di Shertok 

Inside Infor­ma­tion by Eshkol Nevo, trans­lat­ed by Son­dra Silverston

The Ascent: A House Can Have Many Secrets by Ste­fan Hert­mans, trans­lat­ed by David McKay

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.