Past Picks

The books from JWA's 2016-2017 Book List.

Many of our recommended books can be purchased at our Bookshop.org shop.

Summer 2024

The Hebrew Teacher by Maya Arad

Across So Many Seas by Ruth Behar

A Winding Line: Three Hebrew Poets by Maya Bejerano, Sharron Hass, and Anat Zecharia

Mazaltob: A Novel by Blanche Bendahan, translated and edited by Yaëlle Azagury and Frances Malino 

Jewcy: Jewish Queer Lesbian Feminisms for the Twenty-First Century by Marla Brettschneider 

The Cost of Free Land: Jews, Lakota, and an American Inheritance by Rebecca Clarren

Green World by Michelle Ephraim 

The Madwoman in the Rabbi's Attic: Rereading the Women of the Talmud by Gila Fine 

City of Laughter by Temim Fruchter 

When We Flew Away: A Novel of Anne Frank Before the Diary by Alice Hoffman 

The Color of Sound by Emily Barth Isler 

unalone by Jessica Jacobs 

Sweet Malida: Memories of a Bene Israel Woman by Zilka Joseph 

Between Two Worlds: Jewish War Brides After the Holocaust  by Robin Judd

Henrietta Szold: Hadassah and the Zionist Dream by Francine Klagsbrun

Places We Left Behind: A Memoir in Miniature by Jennifer Lang 

All-Night Pharmacy by Ruth Madievsky 

As a Burning Flame: The Dream of Regina Jonas by Noa Mishkin 

The Goldie Standard by Simi Monheit 

Rimonim by Aurora Levins Morales

My Life in Recipes by Joan Nathan 

The Singer Sisters by Sarah Seltzer 

We Are Free to Change the World: Hannah Arendt's Lessons in Love and Disobedience by Lyndsey Stonebridge 

The Counterfeit Countess by Elizabeth B. White and Joanna Sliwa 

Tap Dancing on Everest by Mimi Zieman 

2022-2023 Bookshelf

Let There Be Light by Liana Finck

Dinners with Ruth by Nina Totenberg

Atomic Anna by Rachel Barenbaum

Shanda by Letty Cottin Pogrebin

Growing up Jewish in India edited by Ori Soltes

Lady Justice: Women, the Law, and the Battle to Save America by Dahlia Lithwick

On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World by Danya Ruttenberg

Even God Had Bad Parenting Days by Alicia Jo Rabins

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

The Modern Loss Handbook by Rebecca Soffer

She Persisted: Clara Lemlich by Deborah Heiligman

The Great Stewardess Rebellion: How Women Launched a Workplace Revolution at 30,000 Feet by Nell McShane Wulfhart

Dirshuni by Tamar Biala

Pure Colourr by Sheila Heti

Shmutz by Felicia Berliner

Loss of Memory is Only Temporary rby Johanna Kaplan

Shekhinah Speaksr by Joy Ladin

Freefall by Cindy Kaplan

From the Jewish Provinces by Fredl Shtok, translated by Allison Schachter

Her Birth and Later Years New and Collected Poems, 1971-2021 by Irena Klepfisz

Frankly Feminist: Short Stories from Lilith Magazine

Blood Lines by Ann Bookman

The Flying Camel by Loolwa Khazzoom

One Hundred Saturdays: Stella Levi and the Search for a Lost World by Michael Frank

When Rabbis Abuse by Elana Sztokman

The Only Woman in the Room: Golda Meir and Her Path to Power by Pnina Lahav

Love by Maayan Eitan

The Lives of Jessie Sampter by Sarah Imhoff

2021-2022 Bookshelf

Vera Rubin: A Life by Jacqueline Mitton, Simon Mitton

Concealed by Esther Amini

Whistle: A New Gotham City Hero by E. Lockhart

Florence Adler Swims Forever by Rachel Beanland

Hope Valley by Haviva Ner-David

The Rabbi Who Prayed With Fire by Rachel Sharona Davis

Sarahland by Sam Cohen

They'll Never Catch Us by Jessica Goodman

Cheeky: A Head to Toe Memoir by Ariella Elovic

Rebel Daughter by Lori Kaufman

The Hidden Palace: A Novel of the Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker

Asylum: A Memoir of Family Secrets by Judy Bolton-Fasman

Everybody (Else) Is Perfect: How I Survived Hypocrisy, Beauty, Clicks, and Likes by Gabrielle Korn

Golem Girl: A Memoir by Riva Lehrer

Lilyville by Tovah Feldshuh

Black Widow by Leslie Gray Streeter

Praying with Jane Eyre: Reflections on Reading as a Sacred Practice by Vanessa Zoltan

Not Your All-American Girl by Wendy Wan-Long Shang, Madelyn Rosenberg

Recipe for Disaster by Aimee Lucido

From Sarah to Sydney: The Woman Behind All-of-a-Kind Family by June Cummins, Alexandra Dunietz

Mahjong: A Chinese Game and the Making of Modern American Culture by Annelise Heinz

The Daring Life and Dangerous Times of Eve Adams by Jonathan Ned Katz

The Disordered Cosmos: A Journey into Dark Matter, Spacetime, and Dreams Deferred by Chanda Prescod-Weinstein

American Baby: A Mother, a Child, and the Shadow History of Adoption by Gabrielle Glaser

The Light of Days: The Untold Story of Women Resistance Fighters in Hitler's Ghettos by Judy Batalion

Ashkenazi Herbalism: Rediscovering the Herbal Traditions of Eastern European Jews by Deatra Cohen, Adam Siegel

Spilt Milk: Memoirs by Courtney Zoffness

People Love Dead Jews: Reports from a Haunted Present by Dara Horn

The Papercutter (The Split, #1) by Cindy Rizzo

AfterMath by Emily Barth Isler

The Almost Legendary Morris Sisters: A True Story of Family Fiction by Julie Klam

 

2020-2021 Bookshelf

Little & Lion by Brandy Colbert

Red Rosa by Kate Evans

The Color of Love by Marra B. Gad

Songs in Dark Times: Yiddish Poetry of Struggle from Scottsboro to Palestine by Amelia Glaser

Being Heumann: An Unrepentant Memoir of a Disability Rights Activist by Judith Heumann, Kristen Joiner

The Wolf of Baghdad by Carol Isaacs

Nobody Will Tell You This But Me by Bess Kalb

The Genius of Women: From Overlooked to Changing the World by Janice Kaplan

High Risk: Stories of Pregnancy, Birth, and the Unexpected by Dr. Chavi Eve Karkowsky

The Art of the Jewish Family: A History of Women in Early New York in Five Objects by Laura Leibman

What We Will Become: A Mother, a Son, and a Journey of Transformation by Mimi Lemay

A Ceiling Made of Eggshells by Gail Carson Levine

My Life As A Villianess by Laura Lippman

All My Mother's Lovers by Ilana Masad

And the Bride Closed the Door by Ronit Matalon

The Yellow Bird Sings by Jennifer Rosner

Pretty Bitches: On Being Called Crazy, Angry, Bossy, Frumpy, Feisty, and All the Other Words That Are Used to Undermine Women Edited by Lizzie Skurnick

Recollections of My Nonexistence: A Memoir By Rebecca Solnit

The Book of V. By Anna Solomon

The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas By Gertrude Stein, Illustrated by Maira Kalman

Sharing the Work: What My Family and Career Taught Me about Breaking Through (and Holding the Door Open for Others) By Myra Strober

Cosella Wayne: Or, Will and Destiny By Cora Wilburn

 

2019-2020 Bookshelf

A Bend in the Stars by Rachel Barenbaum

Naamah by Sarah Blake

Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume

Fleishman Is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner

Color Me In by Natasha Diaz

Wounds into Wisdom: Healing Intergenerational Jewish Trauma by Tirzah Firestone

I Want You to Know We're Still Here by Esther Foer

The World That We Knew by Alice Hoffman

We Ate Wonder Bread by Nicole Hollander

Here All Along by Sarah Hurwitz

Good Talk by Mira Jacob

Diary of a Lonely Girl, or the Battle Against Free Love by Miriam Karpilove, translated by Jessica Kirzane

I Like to Watch by Emily Nussbaum

Little Weirds by Jenny Slate

Becoming Eve by Abby Stein

Mrs. Everything by Jennifer Weiner

The Woman's Hour by Elaine Weiss

SoundMachine by Rachel Zucker

 

2018-2019 Bookshelf

Jewish Radical Feminism by Joyce Antler

Fruit Geode by Alicia Jo Rabins

Regina Persisted: An Untold Story by Sandy Sasso

Gateway to the Moon by Mary Morris

Never a Native by Alice Shalvi

A River Could be a Tree by Angela Himsel

Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women's Anger by Rebecca Traister

Eternal Life by Dara Horn

I Might Regret This by Abbi Jacobson

The Best Place on Earth by Ayelet Tsabari

The Waiting Room by Leah Kaminsky

America's Jewish Women by Pamela Nadell

Disobedience by Naomi Alderman

If All the Seas Were Ink by Ilana Kurshan

The Three Escapes of Hannah Arendt by Ken Krimstein

Heartburn by Nora Ephron

Forest Dark by Nicole Krauss

 

2017-2018 Bookshelf

My Jewish Year by Abigail Pogrebin (Discussion Questions)

The Book of Separation by Tova Mirvis (Discussion Questions)

He, She, and It by Marge Piercy (Discussion Questions)

Ways to Disappear by Idra Novey (Discussion Questions)

Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy by Sheryl Sandberg (Discussion Questions)

Unscrewed: Women, Sex, Power, and How to Stop Letting the System Screw Us All by Jaclyn Friedman (Discussion Questions)

Ester and Ruzya: How My Grandmothers Survived Hitler's War and Stalin's Peace by Masha Gessen (Discussion Questions)

The Mother of All Questions by Rebecca Solnit (Discussion Questions)

Leaving Lucy Pear by Anna Solomon (Discussion Questions)

The Fortunate Ones by Ellen Umansky (Discussion Questions)

The Weight of Ink by Rachel Kadish (Discussion Questions)

The Best of Everything by Rona Jaffe (Discussion Questions)

 

2016-2017 Bookshelf

You'll Grow Out of It by Jessi Klein (Discussion Questions)

Treyf: My Life as an Unorthodox Outlaw by Elissa Altman (Discussion Questions)

Modern Girls by Jennifer S. Brown (Discussion Questions)

My Own Words by Ruth Bader Ginsburg (Discussion Questions)

A Bintel Brief: Love and Longing in Old New York by Liana Finck (Discussion Questions)

The Imperial Wife by Irina Reyn (Discussion Questions)

All the Single Ladies: Unmarried Women and the Rise of an Independent Nation by Rebecca Traister (Discussion Questions)

The Beautiful Possible by Amy Gottlieb (Discussion Questions)

Mamaleh Knows Best: What Jewish Mothers Do to Raise Successful, Creative, Empathetic, Independent Children by Marjorie Ingall (Discussion Questions)

Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg (Discussion Questions)

All the Rivers by Dorit Rabinyan (Discussion Questions)

How to be a Person in the World: Ask Polly's Guide Through the Paradoxes of Modern Life by Heather Havrilesky (Discussion Questions)

Audacity by Melanie Crowder

Almost a Minyan by Lori S. Kline

 

2015-2016 Bookshelf

Single Jewish Male Seeking Soul Mate by Letty Cottin Pogrebin

My Life on the Road by Gloria Steinem

The Only Woman in the Room: Why Science Is Still a Boys' Club by Eileen Pollack

Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg by Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik

The Marriage of Opposites by Alice Hoffman

Unterzakhn by Leela Corman

Women in Clothes by Sheila Heti

All Our Worldly Goods by Irene Nemirovsky

White Walls: A Memoir About Motherhood, Daughterhood, and the Mess In Between by Judy Batalion

Memoirs of an Ex-Prom Queen by Alix Kates Shulman

I’ll Drink to That by Betty Halbreich and Rebecca Paley

The Little Bride by Anna Solomon

Men Explain Things to Me by Rebecca Solnit

Who Do You Love by Jennifer Weiner

The Hours Count by Jillian Cantor

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How to cite this page

Jewish Women's Archive. "Past Picks." (Viewed on December 2, 2024) <https://jwa.org/programs/bookclub/past-picks>.