Category: FICTION

July 13, 2010

Pleading Guilty by Scott Turow ** (of 4)

A former Irish copper (really, that’s what Turow calls him, a copper) now an ex-alcoholic flunky in a powerful law firm goes on the hunt...

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July 1, 2010

The Jewel Trader of Pegu by Jeffery Hantover ** (of 4)

A Sixteenth Century Jew from the Venetian ghetto travels to the east Indies to trade for Jewels so we can compare the lives of Jews...

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June 29, 2010

Parrot and Olivier in America *** (of 4)

At the end of the 18th Century, following the French Revolution, Olivier, a French aristocrat modeled on Alexis de Tocqueville arrives in America accompanied by...

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June 22, 2010

The Yiddish Policeman’s Union by Michael Chabon **** (of 4)

Hard to say if this book plays in Peoria, but Chabon prepares a perfect rendition of two genres: 1940s noir detective novels and Yiddish culture....

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June 22, 2010

The World to Come by Dara Horn *** (of 4)

On the plus side I learned a lot about Chagall. Dara Horn writes well. She channels the great Yiddish authors like Peretsky, Singer, Sholom Aleichem,...

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June 22, 2010

A Thread of Grace by Mary Doria Russell ** (of 4)

It chronicles the Italian resistance to the Germans during the last two years of WWII. A very positive review in Publisher’s Weekly, and it was...

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June 22, 2010

The Septembers of Shiraz by Dalia Sofer ** (of 4)

OK, I admit it. I’m tired of reading books about the evils of Islam. It’s enough to make you think there’s a conspiracy of publishers...

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June 22, 2010

QBVII by Leon Uris

About a trial of a libelous author who writes about Nazis, autobiographical. Uris is a class-act story teller making big books go by quickly.

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June 22, 2010

The Plot Against America by Philip Roth *** (of 4)

No writer captures anxiety, apprehension, fear, and hopelessness better than Roth. I cannot think of a happy or fulfilled character in a single one of...

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June 22, 2010

People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks **** (of 4)

An extensively researched fictional account of the survival of the Sarajevo Haggadah, the luminescently illustrated (that alone is unusual for a Jewish book) account of...

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