Post­ed by Nao­mi Firestone-Teeter

In an effort to cre­ate some pre-book award cer­e­mo­ny (tomor­row!!) order in my life, I’ve final­ly gone through some of the spring titles that have come across my desk. Sort­ing through the new­bies, there’s a won­der­ful assort­ment of fic­tion, poet­ry, Israel stud­ies, Passover hag­gadahs, and mem­oirs. A few of the high­lights are below, and stayed tuned for next week’s guest blog­ger Rey­na Sim­ne­gar​‘s posts…a spe­cial pre-Purim treat (Rey­na is the author if the recent­ly pub­lished Per­sian Food from the Non-per­sian Bride: And Oth­er Sephardic Kosher Recipes You Will Love).

Israel

The Road to Fati­ma Gate: The Beirut Spring, the Rise of Hezbol­lah, and the Iran­ian War Against Israel, Michael J. Tot­ten (April 2011, Encounter Books)
Inter­est­ed in the top­ic? Check out last year’s NET­WORK author Thanas­sis Cam­ba­n­is, who recent­ly spoke for us at a Birthright alum­ni event

Peace in the Mak­ing. The Men­achem Begin – Anwar Sadat Per­son­al Cor­re­spon­dence, Har­ry Hur­witz and Yis­rael Medad (Jan­u­ary 2011, Gefen Pub­lish­ing House)

Passover

Cre­at­ing Live­ly Passover Seders: A Source­book of Engag­ing Tales, Texts & Activ­i­ties, David Arnow (March 2011, Jew­ish Lights Pub­lish­ing)
This is the expand­ed edi­tion with new chapters

Hag­gadah in Anoth­er Dimen­sion Cel­e­brat­ing in 3D, Michael Med­i­na, Emi Sfard, Eli Nee­man (Kippod3D)

The Szyk Hag­gadah, Arthur Szyk, Byron L. Sher­win with Irvin Ungar (April 2011, Abrams)

Fic­tion

Tel Aviv Sto­ries, Ash­ley Rinds­berg (2010, Mid­night Oil Publishing)

Fore­play: Han­nah Arendt, the Two Adornos, and Wal­ter Ben­jamin, a play by Carl Djeras­si (April 2011, Uni­ver­si­ty of Wis­con­sin Press)
A new play detailed the pri­vate lives of some of the great­est fig­ures of the 20th cen­tu­ry Ger­man intel­lec­tu­al scene

The Ori­en­tal Wife, Eve­lyn Toyn­ton (July 2011, Oth­er Press)
A tale of love, tragedy, and betray­al among Jew­ish immi­grants caught in the con­flict­ing space between Old World val­ues and Amer­i­can ideals

Jerusalem Maid­en: A Nov­el, Talia Carn­er (May 2011, Harp­er)
The sto­ry of a young woman in ear­ly 20th cen­tu­ry Jerusalem who strug­gles with her faith as her desires pull her away from home

Girl Unwrapped, Gabriel­la Goliger (May 2011, Arse­nal Pulp)
A com­ing-of-age sto­ry set in 1960′s Montreal

Folk­tales of the Jews: Tales from Arab Lands, Dan Ben-Amos with Dov Noy (April 2011, JPS)
The third vol­ume in JPS’s folk­tale series, which selects and pub­lish­es rep­re­sen­ta­tive tales from the major eth­no-lin­guis­tic com­mu­ni­ties in the Jew­ish world. The first vol­ume, Tales from the Sephardic Dis­per­sion won a Nation­al Jew­ish Book Award.