Post­ed by Nao­mi Firestone-Teeter

Inspired by The Mil­lions’ Great 2014 Book Pre­view, I thought I’d cre­ate a Jew­ish-slant­ed winter/​spring 2014 book pre­view for JBC read­ers (obvi­ous­ly there’s some crossover). But before we begin, a lit­tle ​“hap­py pub day” is in order for the fol­low­ing authors, who all have a Jan­u­ary 7th pub date:

• Gary Sht­eny­gart, whose mem­oir Lit­tle Fail­ure was pub­lished by Ran­dom House
• Lara Vap­n­yar, whose sec­ond nov­el The Scent of Pine was pub­lished by Simon and Schus­ter (plus check out her Vis­it­ing Scribe posts)
• Yascha Mounk, whose per­son­al sto­ry Stranger in My Own Coun­try: A Jew­ish Fam­i­ly in Mod­ern Ger­many was pub­lished by Far­rar, Straus and Giroux
• Olga Grjas­nowa, whose debut nov­el All Rus­sians Love Birch Trees was pub­lished by Oth­er Press
• Edmund de Waal (The Hare with Amber Eyes) on the pub­li­ca­tion of his grand­moth­er’s book The Exiles Return (orig­i­nal­ly writ­ten in the late 1950s) pub­lished by Picador

As if those weren’t enough, the next sev­er­al months bring us a long list of incred­i­ble fic­tion and non­fic­tion by some our favorite estab­lished and emerg­ing writ­ers in the field. So, even if this polar vor­tex (!) forces (many of) us to remain indoors, at least we won’t run out of good reads (not that we were too worried …).

Jan­u­ary (post-7th)

• A High­ly Unlike­ly Sce­nario, or a Neet­sa Piz­za Employ­ee’s Guide to Sav­ing the World: A Nov­el — Rachel Can­tor (Melville House) — next week’s Vis­it­ing Scribe
• Leav­ing the Sea: Sto­ries — Ben Mar­cus (Knopf) — check out our review of his nov­el The Flame Alphabet
• Tri­este: A Nov­el — Dasa Drndic (Houghton Mif­flin Harcourt)
• Cut Me Loose: Cut Me Loose: Sin and Sal­va­tion After My Ultra-Ortho­dox Girl­hood  — Leah Vin­cent (Nan A. Talese) — next week’s Vis­it­ing Scribe
• How to Woo a Jew: The Mod­ern Jew­ish Guide to Dat­ing and Mat­ing  — Tamar Caspi (Seal Press) — Vis­it­ing Scribe the week of Jan­u­ary 20th
• Agnon’s Moon­struck Lovers: The Song of Songs in Israeli Cul­ture — Ilana Pardes (Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton Press)
• Arik: The Life of Ariel Sharon — David Lan­dau (Knopf)
• Lil­lian Hell­man: An Impe­ri­ous Life — Dorothy Gal­lagher (Yale Uni­ver­si­ty Press) — a title in the Jew­ish Lives series

Feb­ru­ary

• The Book of Jon­ah: A Nov­el — Joshua Max Feld­man (Hen­ry Holt and Co.) — Vis­it­ing Scribe the week of Jan­u­ary 28th
• One More Thing: Sto­ries and Oth­er Sto­ries — B.J. Novak (Knopf)
• The Where­with­al: A Nov­el in Verse — Philip Schultz (W. W. Nor­ton & Company)
• Rav Kook: Mys­tic in a Time of Rev­o­lu­tion, Yehu­dah Mirsky — (Yale Uni­ver­si­ty Press) — this title is a part of the Jew­ish Lives series)
• The UnAmer­i­cans: Sto­ries — Mol­ly Antopol (W. W. Nor­ton & Com­pa­ny) — Vis­it­ing Scribe the week of Feb­ru­ary 3rd
• Shlep­ping the Exile: A Nov­el — Michael Wex (St. Mar­t­in’s Press) — Vis­it­ing Scribe the week of Feb­ru­ary 10th
• What’s Impor­tant is Feel­ing: Sto­ries — Adam Wil­son (Harp­er Peren­ni­al) — check out our review of his nov­el Flatscreen
• Two Library of Amer­i­ca edi­tions of Bernard Mala­mud’s works from the 1940s and ​’50s and the 1960s

March

• Falling Out of Time — David Gross­man (Knopf)
• Killing the Sec­ond Dog — Marek Hlasko (New Ves­sel Press)
• Men­achem Begin: The Bat­tle for Israel’s Soul — Daniel Gordis (Next­book Press/​Schocken Books)
• Exo­dus: A Mem­oir — Deb­o­rah Feld­man (Blue Rid­er Press) — check out our review of her mem­oir Unortho­dox
• The Mapmaker’s Daugh­ter: A Nov­el - Lau­rel Coro­na (Source­books) — Vis­it­ing Scribe the week of March 3rd
• City of the Sun — Juliana Maio (Green­leaf)
• Man­nequin Girl: A Nov­el — Ellen Lit­man (W. W. Nor­ton & Com­pa­ny) — Vis­it­ing Scribe the week of March 17th — check out our review of her col­lec­tion of sto­ries The Last Chick­en in America
• Vis­i­ble City: A Nov­el — Tova Mirvis (Houghton Mif­flin Har­court) — Vis­it­ing Scribe the week of March 10th
• The Decem­ber Project: An Extra­or­di­nary Rab­bi and a Skep­ti­cal Seek­er Con­front Life’s Great­est Mys­tery  — Sara David­son (Harper­One) — Vis­it­ing Scribe the week of March 24th

April

• The Train to War­saw: A Nov­el — Gwen Edel­man (Grove Atlantic) — Vis­it­ing Scribe the week of April 21st
• The Mar­ry­ing of Chani Kauf­man — Eve Har­ris (Grove Press, Black Cat) — Vis­it­ing Scribe the week of April 7th)
• A Bro­ken Hal­lelu­jah: Rock and Roll, Redemp­tion, and the Life of Leonard Cohen  — Liel Lei­bovitz (W. W. Nor­ton & Company)
• A Bin­tel Brief: Love and Long­ing in Old New York — Liana Finck (Ecco) — Vis­it­ing Scribe the week of April 14th, plus read her old­er posts for the Vis­it­ing Scribe here
• Love & Trea­sure — Ayelet Wald­man (Knopf) 
• In Par­adise: A Nov­el — Peter Matthiessen (River­head)

May

• Amer­i­can Inno­va­tion: Sto­ries — Riv­ka Galchen (Far­rar, Straus and Giroux)
• Sud­den­ly, Love: A Nov­el — Aharon Appelfeld (Schock­en Books)
• Unlearn­ing with Han­nah Arendt — Marie Luise Knott (Oth­er Press)
• Mus­sar Yoga: Blend­ing an Ancient Jew­ish Spir­i­tu­al Prac­tice with Yoga to Trans­form Body and Soul  — Edith R. Brot­man (Jew­ish Lights Publishing)