An award-winning novel of love, betrayal, and Arab Israeli identity by the author of Dancing Arabs—"one of the most important contemporary Hebrew writers" ( Haaretz).A successful Arab criminal attorney and a social worker-turned-artist find their lives intersecting under the most curious of circumstances. The lawyer has a thriving practice in Jerusalem, a large house, and a Mercedes. He speaks both Arabic and Hebrew, and lives with his wife and tw...

Imagine your own home surrounded by roadblocks and tanks, your water turned off and the cashpoints empty. What would you do next?A young journalist, recently married with a new baby, is seeking a quieter life away from the city and has bought a large new house in his parent's hometown, an Arab village in Israel. Nothing is as they remember: everything is smaller, the people petty and provincial and the villagers divided between sympathy for the Palestinian...

In Jerusalem, two Arabs are on the hunt for the same identity. The first is a wealthy lawyer with a thriving practice, a large house, a Mercedes and a beautiful family. With a sophisticated image to uphold, he decides one evening to buy a second-hand Tolstoy novel recommended by his wife – but inside it he finds a love letter, in Arabic, undeniably in her handwriting. Consumed with jealous rage, the lawyer vows to take his revenge on the book’s previous owner.Elsewhere in the city,...

Sayed Kashua has been lauded by the New York Times as "a master of subtle nuance in dealing with both Arab and Jewish society." A Palestinian-Israeli who lived in Jerusalem for most of his life, Kashua started writing with the hope of creating one story that both sides could relate to. He devoted his novels and his satirical column in Haaretz to exploring the contradictions of modern Israel while also capturing the nuances of everyday family life in all its tenderness and chaos. Over the l...

In this " slyly subversive, semi-autobiographical" novel "of Arab Israeli life," a Palestinian man struggles against the strict confines of identity ( Publishers Weekly).In Sayed Kashua's debut novel, a nameless anti-hero contends with the legacy of a grandfather who died fighting the Zionists in 1948, and a father who was jailed for blowing up a school cafeteria in the name of freedom. When the narrator is granted a scholarship to an elit...

NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY CHICAGO TRIBUNE AND ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • NPR • Los Angeles Times • The Boston Globe • The Seattle Times • The IndependentIn such acclaimed novels as Let the Great World Spin and TransAtlantic, National Book Award–winning author Colum McCann has transfixed readers with his precision, tenderness, and authority. Now, in his first...

"[An] intense, multilayered story." —Jami Attenberg, New York Times Book ReviewSoftware prodigy Josie Ashkenazi has invented an application that records everything its users do. When she visits the Library of Alexandria as a tech consultant, she is abducted in Egypt's postrevolutionary chaos with only a copy of the philosopher Maimonides' famous work to anchor her—leaving her jealous sister Judith free to take over her life. A century earlier, Cambridge pr...

A multigenerational family saga about the long-lasting reverberations of one tragic summer by "a wonderful talent [who] should be read widely" (Edward P. Jones).In 1948, a small stretch of the Woodmont, Connecticut shoreline, affectionately named "Bagel Beach," has long been a summer destination for Jewish families. Here sisters Ada, Vivie, and Bec assemble at their beloved family cottage, with children in tow and weekend-only husbands who arrive each Friday in time...

Winner of the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish LiteratureConfident, original and humane, the stories in The Best Place on Earth are peopled with characters at the crossroads of nationalities, religions and communities: expatriates, travellers, immigrants and locals.In the powerfully affecting opening story, “Tikkun,” a chance meeting between a man and his former lover carries them through near tragedy and into unexpected peace. In “Casualties,” Tsabari t...

A woman finds her true self by reclaiming her family's lost Jewish identity in this "poignant and powerful memoir of family, religion, love, and healing" ( Kirkus ).Growing up in a tight-knit Christian family, Alison Pick went to church regularly. But as a teenager, she discovered a remarkable family secret: her paternal grandparents fled from the Czech Republic at the start of WWII because they were Jewish. Tragically, ot...

A spellbinding new novel of contraband masterpieces, tragic love, and the unexpected legacies of forgotten crimes, Ayelet Waldman’s Love and Treasure weaves a tale around the fascinating, true history of the Hungarian Gold Train in the Second World War.In 1945 on the outskirts of Salzburg, victorious American soldiers capture a train filled with unspeakable riches: piles of fine gold watches; mountains of fur coats; crates filled with wedding rings, silver picture frames, ...

National Bestseller • A New York Times Notable BookNamed Best Book of the Year by Esquire, Times Literary Supplement, Elle Magazine, LitHub, Publishers Weekly, Financial Times, Guardian, Refinery29, PopSugar, and Globe and Mail"A brilliant novel. I am full of admiration." —Philip Roth"One of America’s most important novelists" (New York Times), the award-winning, ...