Rec­om­mend­ed Reading

JBC Book­shelf: Sum­mer 2026

Simona Zaret­sky
May 25, 2026
Back­ground pho­to by Eric Lager­gren on Unsplash

This sum­mer, a pletho­ra of excit­ing Jew­ish books are com­ing out! Here are twelve works pub­lish­ing this sum­mer (June 21 to Sep­tem­ber 22), that you won’t want to miss. From mouth­wa­ter­ing cook­books, vibrant his­tor­i­cal fic­tion, and an engross­ing non­fic­tion account of espi­onage in the Cold War, these titles will keep you cap­ti­vat­ed. (You can see all of our lat­est book reviews here.)

Hav­ing some deci­sion fatigue? We hear you! Sign-up here for JBC’s bimonth­ly book sub­scrip­tion series, Nu Reads, to receive six out­stand­ing vol­umes of new Jew­ish lit­er­a­ture a year!

Long Island GIrls by Gabrielle Korn

Hotel Exile: Paris in the Shad­ow of War by Jane Rogoyska

We Were For­bid­den by Jacque­line Harp­man, trans­lat­ed by Ros Schwartz

The Renoir Girls: A Hid­den His­to­ry of Art, War & Betray­al by Cather­ine Ostler

A Year of Jew­ish Joy: Inspired Recipes, Rit­u­als, and Tra­di­tions for Beau­ti­ful Cel­e­bra­tions by Rebekah Lowin 

The Bar­man of the Ritz by Philippe Collin

The Braid­ed Pre­scrip­tion: Sev­en Prac­tices for Liv­ing Well from the Ancient Rit­u­al of Mak­ing Chal­lah by Beth Ricanati

The Gates of Mid­night: A Nov­el of the Golem and the Jin­ni by Helene Wecker 

The Dessert Table: 100 Joy­ful Jew­ish Sweets by Leah Koenig

The Lamed-Vovniks by Julie R Enszer

Notes of Decep­tion: How a Quar­tet of Amer­i­can Musi­cians Out­wit­ted the KGB by Mer­ryl Gold­berg and Vince Houghton

A Year of Jew­ish Cook­ing: Recipes we can’t live with­out by Mon­day Morn­ing Cook­ing Club, pho­tographs by Alan Benson

Simona is the Jew­ish Book Coun­cil’s man­ag­er of dig­i­tal con­tent strat­e­gy. 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 Lilith, The Nor­mal School, Dig­ging through the Fat, and oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. She holds an MFA in fic­tion from The New School. 

More from Simona Zaret­sky
iden­ti­ty
anti­semitism
fam­i­ly & relationships
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