HBC stands for Hadassah Book Club. Charming name, isn’t it? Names aside, this is my book club and I love it. This is the page I built mostly for reference; I’m often asked what our group has read or is reading. Since we focus mostly on Jewish lit, I’m sort of starting to become an expert. Add my love of rock-and-roll fiction and you’ve got a mix as eclectic as everything else about me.
If you’ve read The Meet and Greet for any length of time, you’ll know that I’ve been voted Leader for Life of this awesome book club. This is due in part to my incredible passion for books and in part due to my literary connections, most of which I make up as I go. Still, given how smart and literate this group of women is, it’s an honor to lead them.
Here’s the lowdown, starting with what’s upcoming, and going on to what we’ve already conquered. If you’d like to talk about any of these books, drop me an e-mail.
Next up:
Meeting on 25 March at SHG’s house
Reading The Genizah at the House of Shepher, by Tamar Yellin
Meeting on 29 April at SB’s house (NOTE THE DATE CHANGE)
Reading Three Cups of Tea, by Greg Mortenson
In our queue:
The Midwife’s Song — Brenda Ray
Firefly Lane — Kristin Hannah
The Mascot — Mark Kurzem
The Jewel Trader of Pegu — Jeffrey Hantover
Sarah’s Key — Tatiana de Rosnay
All Other Nights — Dara Horn
Skeletons at the Feast — Chris Bohjalian
The Book Thief — Marcus Zusak
Infidel — Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Rashi’s Daughters III — Maggie Anton
Delilah — India Edghill
The Help — Kathryn Stockett
Our reading history, beginning with our first book:
Gregory Maguire — Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister
Anita Diamant — The Red Tent
Judy Budnitz — If I Told You Once
Fran Dorf — Saving Elijah
Nomi Eve — The Family Orchard
Carole Glickfeld — Swimming Toward the Ocean
Myla Goldberg — Bee Season
Allegra Goodman — Paradise Park
Elinor Lipman — The Ladies’ Man
Barbara Kingsolver — The Poisonwood Bible
Tova Mirvis — The Ladies Auxiliary
Alice Mattison — The Book Borrower
Noah Gordon — The Last Jew
James McBride — The Color of Water
Lilian Nattel — The River Midnight
Nathan Englander — For the Relief of Unbearable Urges
Tracy Chevalier — Girl with a Pearl Earring
Harriet Rochlin — The First Lady of Dos Cacahuates
Jane Yolen — The Devil’s Arithmetic
Anita Diamant — Good Harbor
Rochelle Krich — Blues in the Night
Stephen G. Bloom — Postville
Noah Gordon — The Physician
Michael Pye — The Pieces From Berlin
Rochelle Krich — Dream House
Naomi Ragen — The Ghost of Hannah Mendes
Gina B. Nahai — Cry of the Peacock
Ruhama Veltfort — The Promised Land
Noah Gordon — Shaman
India Edghill — Queenmaker
Ursula Hegi — The Vision of Emma Blau
Naomi Ragen — Chains Around the Grass
Paula Marantz Cohen — Jane Austen in Boca
Richard Zimler — Last Kabbalist of Lisbon
Gail Parent — Sheila Levine is Dead and Living in New York
Laurie Gwen Shapiro — The Matzo Ball Heiress
Marek Halter — Sarah
Lorna Landvik — Angry Housewives Eating Bon-Bons
Khaled Hussein — The Kite Runner
Tova Mirvis — The Outside World
India Edghill — Wisdom’s Daughter
Sena Jeter Naslund — Ahab’s Wife
David Liss — Conspiracy of Paper
Jhumpa Lahiri — The Namesake
Lillian Nattel – The Singing Fire
Sue Monk Kidd – The Mermaid Chair
Rebecca Kohn – The Gilded Chamber
Daniel Silva – The Prince of Fire
Jacqueline Park – The Secret Book of Grazia Dei Rossi
Tobsha Lerner — The Witch of Cologne
Thomas Moran — The Man in the Box
Joshua Braff — The Unthinkable Thoughts of Jacob Green
Jodi Picoult — My Sister’s Keeper
Dara Horn — In the Image
Lily Brett — You Gotta Have Balls
Maggie Anton — Rashi’s Daughters: Book One: Joheved
Nicole Krauss — History of Love
Mary Doria Russell — A Thread of Grace
JD Salinger — Catcher in the Rye
Lisa Pearl Rosenbaum — A Day of Small Beginnings
Rita Lakin — Getting Old is Murder
Naomi Alderman — Disobedience
Maggie Anton: Rashi’s Daughters: Miriam
Rabbi Lawrence Kushner — Kabbalah
Pam Jenoff — The Kommandant’s Girl
Khaled Hosseini — A Thousand Splendid Suns
Anita Diamant — The Last Days of Dogtown
Daniel Mendelssohn — The Lost: the Search for Six of Six Million
Michael Simon — Dirty Sally
Irene Nemirovsky — Suite Francaise
Lisa See — Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
Geraldine Brooks — People of the Book
Jeanette Walls — The Glass Castle
Kerry Greenwood — Raisins and Almonds
Sara Gruen — Water for Elephants
Laura Fitzgerald — Veil of Roses
Harry Bernstein — The Invisible Wall
Pam Jenoff — The Diplomat’s Wife
Jenna Blum — Those Who Save Us
If you see a book on here that makes you think of another that you think I ought to suggest to the rest of the gang, drop me an e-mail. We tend toward books with Jewish themes, but you’ll note that we haven’t boxed ourselves into this entirely. And since my passion is fiction, I make the group lean that way, too (and sometimes, they make me try new things as well!).
If you’re an author, make full use of my e-mail. We’ll consider pretty much anything, although even if you send me a copy, I can’t promise you we’ll take it on. Yes, I know, we may overlook something brilliant. It is not unusual for us to pass books among members even if we don’t discuss it as a group.
Also, if you’re an author, publisher, publicist, or anyone with the power to make the call, if you’d like to me update a buy link to a particular edition, let me know. So long as it’s available at Powell’s, I’ll do so.
disclaimer stuff: the links will take you to my Powells.com affiliate. I’ve had it for years and have yet to earn a penny from it. That’s fine. All I plan to do with any money I earn is give books away to my readers.
