Post­ed by Nao­mi Firestone-Teeter

Jan­u­ary is one of my favorite months at the Jew­ish Book Coun­cil. Not only do we announce the Nation­al Jew­ish Book Award win­ners and final­ists (soon…), but we also get to browse dozens of cat­a­logs and hun­dreds of review copies to pre­pare for our year in Jew­ish books. Our lists are already full of promis­ing soon-to-be-pub­lished titles, so be sure to keep tabs on us for the lat­est in all things Jew­ish lit­er­ary. How do you keep tabs on us, you ask? Good ques­tion. A few ideas:

  • Par­tic­i­pate in our month­ly Twit­ter Book Club with Jew​cy​.com
  • Check out new Vis­it­ing Scribe posts each week, where authors share the back­sto­ry behind their books, items that just did­n’t make the cut, read­ing lists, thoughts on cur­rent events, excerpts, pre­views, Q&As, and more
  • Sign up for our week­ly email and receive rec­om­mend­ed read­ing and updates on the newest JBC reviews
  • Browse our Pin­ter­est boards
  • Check our cal­en­dar for Jew­ish lit­er­ary events in your area
  • Need a theme for you book club this year? Look no fur­ther.
  • For addi­tion­al resources, vis­it here.

Now, to start the year off right…a few titles I’m most look­ing for­ward to this spring (a small sam­pling of what’s to come!):

Search­ing for Zion: The Quest for Home in the African Dias­po­ra, Emi­ly Raboteau (Jan­u­ary 2013, Atlantic Month­ly Press)

The Tin Horse: A Nov­el, Jan­ice Stein­berg (Jan­u­ary 2013, Ran­dom House)

Hand-Dry­ing in Amer­i­ca: And Oth­er Sto­ries, Ben Katchor (Feb­ru­ary 2013, Pantheon)

The Want­i­ng: A Nov­el, Michael Lav­i­gne (Feb­ru­ary 2013, Schock­en Books)

In the Land of the Liv­ing, Austin Rat­ner (March 2013, Rea­gan Arthur Books)

The Ret­ro­spec­tive, A. B. Yehoshua (March 2013, Houghton Mif­flin Harcourt)

Russ & Daugh­ters: Reflec­tions and Recipes from the House That Her­ring Built, Mark Russ Fed­er­man (March 2013, Schock­en Books)

A Near­ly Per­fect Copy: A Nov­el, Alli­son Amend (April 2013, Nan A. Talese)

Moth­ers: A Nov­el, Jen­nifer Gilmore (April 2013, Scribner)

Har­vard Square: A Nov­el, André Aci­man (April 2013, W. W. Nor­ton & Company)

The Golem and the Jin­ni: A Nov­el, Helene Weck­er (April 2013, Harper)

Tomor­row There Will Be Apri­cots, Jes­si­ca Sof­fer (April 2013, Houghton Mif­flin Harcourt)

I Can’t Com­plain: (All Too) Per­son­al Essays, Eli­nor Lit­man (April 2013, Houghton Mif­flin Harcourt)

Hel­ga’s Diary: A Young Girl’s Account of Life in a Con­cen­tra­tion Camp, Hel­ga Weiss; Neil Bermel, trans. (May 2013, W. W. Nor­ton & Company)

A Dual Inher­i­tance: A Nov­el, Joan­na Her­shon (May 2013, Bal­lan­tine Books)


The Short, Strange Life of Her­schel Gryn­sz­pan: A Boy Avenger, a Nazi Diplo­mat, and a Mur­der in Paris
, Jonathan Kirsch (May 2013, Liveright)

Who Will Die Last: Sto­ries of Life in Israel, David Ehrlich (May 2013, Syra­cuse Uni­ver­si­ty Press)

A Sum­mer 2013 Preview:

Clau­dia Sil­ver to the Res­cue, Kathy Ebel (June 2013, Houghton Mif­flin Harcourt)

God in Proof: The Sto­ry of a Search from the Ancients to the Inter­net, Nathan Schnei­der (June 2013, Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia Press)

Paris France, Gertrude Stein (June 2013, Liveright)

A Fall 2013 Preview:

A Guide for the Per­plexed, Dara Horn (Sep­tem­ber 2013, W. W. Nor­ton & Company)

A Bro­ken Hal­lelu­jah: The Life of Leonard Cohen, Liel Lei­bovitz (Fall 2013, W. W. Nor­ton & Com­pa­ny)

The Oath, Mar­tin Fletch­er (Fall 2013, Thomas Dunne Books/St.Martin’s Press)

The Worlds of Sholem Ale­ichem, Jere­my Dauber (Octo­ber 2013, Schock­en Books/​Nextbook Press)

Orig­i­nal­ly from Lan­cast­er, Penn­syl­va­nia, Nao­mi is the CEO of Jew­ish Book Coun­cil. She grad­u­at­ed from Emory Uni­ver­si­ty with degrees in Eng­lish and Art His­to­ry and, in addi­tion, stud­ied at Uni­ver­si­ty Col­lege Lon­don. Pri­or to her role as exec­u­tive direc­tor and now CEO, Nao­mi served as the found­ing edi­tor of the JBC web­site and blog and man­ag­ing edi­tor of Jew­ish Book World. In addi­tion, she has over­seen JBC’s dig­i­tal ini­tia­tives, and also devel­oped the JBC’s Vis­it­ing Scribe series and Unpack­ing the Book: Jew­ish Writ­ers in Conversation.