Recent Reads - December 2016 Edition

The train pulls away from the station and I pick up my book. This is how I start each day, well, this is how I start the productive part of each day. I read for nearly 40 minutes while traveling to work in the morning. I read for nearly 40 minutes traveling home at the end of the day. And sometimes I read a bit before going to sleep at night. All in all, I do quite a bit of reading.

Included below are short reviews of recent reads. There are a few books that stand out in my memory long after I’ve finished them. Long after I read them on the train. Long after the train pulls into the station and I head home after another productive day. I hope you read and enjoy!

Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult (Ballantine Books, October 2016). Picoult has an undisputed talent for telling stories. What makes her novels special, though, is her focus on today’s most pressing social issues. She does this in ways that keep us thinking long after finishing her books.

Her latest novel deals with racial prejudice in America at a time when racial tensions are a hot issue, having played part of a disputed political process. In her words and through her characters, readers really sense what it’s like growing up Black. How you are treated in the court system. How you are confronted by shopkeepers who immediately suspect you of shoplifting just because of the color of your skin. Picoult’s novels are marked by multiple points of view and, like one of the three that tell this story, you will realize that prejudice also exists among those who believe themselves to be the most liberal advocates of social justice and equality. Thanks to this book, our eyes have opened up a little bit more to this timely issue.

Book review: Judas by Amos Oz

The very first line of Judas, the most recent novel by acclaimed Israeli author Amos Oz, sets the mood for the entire book. “Here is a story from the winter days of the end of 1959 and the beginning of 1960. It is a story of error and desire, of unrequited love, and of a religious question that remains unresolved.”

This is the tale of Shmuel Ash, a young student who has abandoned his academic studies in the wake of a broken relationship. Shmuel shutters himself up in servitude to Gershom Wald, a crippled scholar with a sharp mind and a passion for argument. Settling into a routine of serving tea and companionship, of eating hot, spicy goulash for lunch and dusting his thick beard with fragrant talcum powder, Shmuel finds himself attracted to the other resident of his temporary Jerusalem home, an embittered war widow by the name of Atalia.

Prayer of the Mothers

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Hundreds of women – Israeli and Palestinian, secular and religious, young and old – all marching in white. They marched from Metula on Israel's Lebanese border, from the Arab town of Umm al-Fahm, from Tel Aviv and from Eilat. They marched through the streets of Jerusalem; they marched to the banks of the Jordan River near the Dead Sea.

They marched for peace.