First Desire, by Nancy Reisman

In First Desire by Nancy Reisman, we are given a set of characters who appear to be constantly yearning for acceptance and love, within the confines of the familial structure.
The Cohen family is composed of a tyrannical widower, Abe Cohen, and his five adult children, who seem to be stuck in a time [...]

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Wandering Star, by J.M.G. Le Clezio

wandering-star1 This year’s Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to French author J.M.G. Le Clezio. The Swedish Academy praised him in their citation, “author of new departures, poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy, explorer of a humanity beyond and below the reigning civilization” The Award will take place in Stockholm, Sweden on December 10, 2008.
I [...]

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Requiem for a Lost Empire, by Andre Makine

Requiem For A Lost Empire, by Andrei Makine is another one of his incredible novels. True to Makine’s magical writing style, writing of war and love, horror and destruction, identity and discovery, pain and loss, he has brought us another momentous novel. This is the second book in a trilogy, and having read [...]

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Hester Among the Ruins, by Binnie Kirshenbaum

Hester Among the Ruins, by Binnie Kirshenbaum is a thought provoking novel.
Kirshenbaum’s writing is filled with insight and depth, and she approaches love, and what defines it, be it lust, intimacy, truth, betrayal, forgiveness, imagination, denial and historical legacy. All of the above attributes are explored in this beautiful and heartfelt novel.
“His hair grows [...]

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Fire in the Blood, by Irene Nemirovsky

Fire in the Blood, by Irene Nemirovsky, translated from the French by Sandra smith  “It was an autumn evening, the whole sky red above the sodden fields of turned earth.” So begins the second sentence of the first page, setting the languid tone for the rest of the book. The novel doesn’t have a [...]

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Exit Ghost by Philip Roth

Exit Ghost, by Philip Roth is seemingly the last novel in the Nathan Zuckerman series, but who knows for certain. What I do know is that Roth has woven a story-within-a-story with brilliance as only he can succeed in, capturing our emotions on many levels.
Roth brings us characters we relate to, beginning with Nathan Zuckerman, [...]

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The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, by Georgio Bassani

The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, by Giorgio Bassani, William Weaver…translator, is exceptional, breathtaking in scope and depth, an intensely, must read novel.
Beautifully written, this is a novel not to be missed for those who like vivid word imagery, emotionally filled novels and story lines of love and loss, that take place through the beginning [...]

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The Boy Who Loved Anne Frank, by Ellen Feldman

The Boy Who Loved Anne Frank: A Novel by Ellen Feldman is an interesting novel of the Holocaust written from a unique perspective.   It is a poignant and compelling story line, which includes haunting remnants of the first love between Anne Frank and Peter van Pels.  The historical novel kept me captured through [...]

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Annie Leibovitz’s New Book

Annie Leibovitz at Work, by Annie Leibovitz, is her new book that will be released on November 18th. I have pre-ordered a copy.
I am passionate about photography, and Leibovitz’s book looks to be not only a wonderful book of portraits and photographs, but also an excellent resource on photography-making. According to the publisher, [...]

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The Black Seasons, by Michal Glowinski

The Black Seasons by Michal Glowinski is a poignant rendering of portions of Glowinski’s childhood memories from the Warsaw Ghetto to his life while hiding from the Nazis, to being rescued by Catholic nuns and becoming a Holocaust Survivor.
“The word drifted into my ears as people around me deliberated: will they lock us in [...]

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