Chronicle Book Club celebrates five years of good books and meaningful discussions
Launched in 2021, the Chronicle Book Club has read 43 books and is still going strong
The Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle Book Club held its first meeting on Nov. 3, 2021. The country was still in the midst of the COVID lockdown, and the Chronicle staff thought that hosting a book club on Zoom could offer a sense of camaraderie and connection.
The first book we read was “The Passenger,” a novel written in 1938 by Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz, and re-released in 2021. The book tells the story of a German-Jewish business owner in Berlin, forced to leave his wife and home in the aftermath of Kristallnacht, who must travel on several trains in an attempt to flee Germany. Thirteen people attended that first meeting.
Since then, our group has grown. Our most recent meeting, a discussion of “Returning: A Search for Home Across Three Centuries,” by Nicholas Lemann, drew about two dozen participants, some from as far as California and Israel. The author joined us for the meeting as well.
We have read a variety of books in the last five years, all either with Jewish themes or by Jewish authors. The selections have included fiction and non-fiction, biographies, classics and newly published works. We have read books about Israel, Iran, the Holocaust, antisemitism and Oct. 7, as well as books on Jewish identity.
The discussions are led by Chronicle Editor Toby Tabachnick and Chronicle Senior Staff Writer David Rullo. While there are several participants who join us for most or all of our meetings, each book club session is open to anyone who registers, thereby allowing individuals to choose which books they would like to read and discuss with the group. We have been fortunate that many of the authors have joined us for the meetings.
Our next discussion will be held at 1 p.m. on Zoom on Sunday, Jan. 24. We are reading “Exodus,” by Leon Uris. We welcome new participants. To register, email David Rullo at drullo@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.
November is national Jewish Book Month. If you are looking for a good read, below is a list of the books the Chronicle Book Club has read so far.
“The Passenger,” by Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz
“People Love Dead Jews,” by Dara Horn
“The Lost Shtetl,” by Max Gross
“Plunder,” by Menachem Kaiser
“Squirrel Hill: The Tree of Life Synagogue Shooting and the Soul of a Neighborhood,”
by Mark Oppenheimer
“The Seven Good Years,” by Etgar Keret
“The History of Love,” by Nicole Krauss
“The Finkler Question,” by Howard Jacobson
“Antiquities and Other Stories,” by Cynthia Ozick
“The Escape Artist,” by Jonathan Freedland
“Waking Lions,” by Ayelet Gundar-Goshen
“A Play for the End of the World,” by Jai Chakrabarti
“Nein, Nein, Nein,” by Jerry Stahl
“The Netanyahus,” by Joshua Cohen
“Kosher Soul,” by Michael W. Twitty
“Judaism in a Digital Age,” by Danny Schiff
“The Secret Chord,” by Geraldine Brooks
“The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store,” by James McBride
“Gen X Pittsburgh: The Beehive,” by David Rullo
“Israel: A Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country on Earth,” by Noa Tishby
“Tomorrow, Tomorrow and Tomorrow,” by Gabrielle Zevin
“Golda Meir,” by Deborah Lipstadt
“Call it Sleep,” by Henry Roth
“We Must Not Think of Ourselves,” by Lauren Grodstein
“Goyhood,” by Reuven Fenton
“House of Endless Waters,” by Emuna Elon
“The Singer Sisters,” by Sarah Seltzer
“Target Tehran,” by Yonah Jeremy Bob and Ilan Evyatar
“Long Island Compromise,” by Taffy Brodesser-Akner
“The Immortalists,” by Chloe Benjamin
“10/07: 100 Human stories,” by Lee Yaron
“Jews Don’t Count,” by David Baddiel
“My Father’s Paradise,” by Ariel Sabar
“Jerusalem Drawn and Quartered,” by Sarah Tuttle-Singer
“Sons and Daughters,” by Chaim Grade
“Hostage,” by Eli Sharabi
“Unveiled,” by Jonathan Harounoff
“Snow in August,” by Pete Hamill
“Fagin the Thief,” by Allison Epstein
“Kaplan’s Plot,” by Jason Diamond
“A Guide for the Perplexed,” by Dara Horn
“As a Jew,” by Sarah Hurwitz
“Returning: A Search for Home Across Three Centuries,” by Nicholas Lemann PJC
Toby Tabachnick can be reached at ttabachnick@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.
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