The OZ Monthly Book Club welcomes adult readers. Book selections are related to Jewish themes and concepts. Join these casual discussions about the book. To learn more contact Kathryn.

Zoom link for all meetings: https://cvsdvt-org.zoom.us/j/91227420288 (Meeting ID 912 2742 0288, passcode OZBookClub)

March 9, 2022

Our Country Friends by Gary Shteyngart

“It’s March 2020 and a calamity is unfolding. A group of friends and friends-of-friends gathers in a country house to wait out the pandemic. Over the next few months new bonds of friendship and love will take hold, while old betrayals will emerge among this unlikely cast of characters, each richly drawn and achingly human: a Russian-born novelist; his Russian-born psychiatrist wife; their precocious child obsessed with K-pop; a struggling Indian American writer; a wildly successful Korean American app developer; a global dandy with three passports; a young flame-thrower of an essayist, originally from the Carolinas; and a movie star, The Actor, whose arrival upsets the equilibrium of this chosen family”–

April 13, 2022

Apeirogon by Colum McCann

“Bassam Aramin is Palestinian. Rami Elhanan is Israeli. They inhabit a world of intractable conflict that colors every aspect of their daily lives, from the roads they are allowed to take to the schools their daughters, Abir and Smadar, each attend. Theirs is a life in which children from both sides of the wall throw stones at one another. But their worlds shift irreparably when ten-year-old old Abir is killed by a rubber bullet meant to quell unruly crowds, and again when thirteen-year-old Smadar becomes the victim of suicide bombers. When Bassam and Rami learn one another’s stories and the loss that connects them, they become part of a much larger tale that ranges over centuries and continents. Apeirogon is a novel that balances on the knife edge of fiction and nonfiction. Bassam and Rami are real men and their actual words are a part of this narrative, one that builds through thousands of moments and images into one grand, unforgettable crescendo”–

May 11, 2022

Horodno Burning by Michael Freed-Thall (Vermont author)

“In the Russian Empire’s Pale of Settlement, Esther Leving, a brilliant young bibliophile, chafes at male dominance, religious dogma, and antisemitism. Bernard Garfinkle, a religious Jew and the son of a vodka distiller, hides a shameful secret-in a culture that worships books, he can’t read. Despite their differences, they fall in love. Esther teaches Bernard to read and he in turn builds her a bookshop. They start a family, but when ferocious pogroms target Russian Jews, they must confront violent oppression. Exploring the turbulent history which led to the great migration, when one-and-a-half million Jews emigrated to America between 1881 and 1914, Horodno Burning is a love letter to literature, freedom, and Jewish survival”

June 8, 2022

Disengagement by Daniella Levy

“In other times, they would never have met. They come from different corners of Israeli society, rooted in their own beliefs, busy with their own troubles. Farmers and fishermen, skeptics and believers, immigrants and natives, children and grandparents struggle with faith, loss, jealousy, hope — and the turmoil around them only deepens the rifts that divide them. But when the Israeli government orders all Jewish communities in the Gaza Strip destroyed, Neve Adva — the settlement some of them call home — becomes the unlikely crossroads where all their worlds collide and all their lives are changed forever.”

July 13, 2022

The Hare with Amber Eyes by Edmund De Waal

“Traces the parallel stories of nineteenth-century art patron Charles Ephrussi and his unique collection of 360 miniature netsuke Japanese ivory carvings, documenting Ephrussi’s relationship with Marcel Proust and the impact of the Holocaust on his cosmopolitan family.”

August 10, 2022

Hope Valley by Haviva Ner-David

“Hope Valley is the story of two women, one Jewish-Israeli and one Palestinian-Israeli, who come together to form the unlikeliest of friendships. Tikvah and Ruby meet one summer day right before the outbreak of the 2nd intifada, in the Galilean valley that separates the segregated villages in which they live. The valley Ruby’s father had called Hope came to symbolize the political enmity that has defined the history of two nations in this troubled land and which has led to parallel cultures with little meaningful interaction between them.”

September 14, 2022

The Tunnel by A. B. Yehoshua

“From the award-winning, internationally acclaimed Israeli author, a suspenseful and poignant story of a family coping with the sudden mental decline of their beloved husband and father—an engineer who they discover is involved in an ominous secret military project”

October 12, 2022

The Slaughterman’s Daughter by Yaniv Iczkovits

“The townsfolk of Motal, an isolated, godforsaken town in the Pale of Settlement, are shocked when Fanny Keismann – devoted wife, mother of five, and celebrated cheese-maker – leaves her home at two hours past midnight and vanishes into the night.”

November 9, 2022

A Conspiracy of Paper by David Liss

“Benjamin Weaver, a Jew and an ex-boxer, is an outsider in eighteenth-century London, tracking down debtors and felons for aristocratic clients. The son of a wealthy stock trader, he lives estranged from his family—until he is asked to investigate his father’s sudden death. Thus Weaver descends into the deceptive world of the English stock jobbers, gliding between coffee houses and gaming houses, drawing rooms and bordellos. The more Weaver uncovers, the darker the truth becomes, until he realizes that he is following too closely in his father’s footsteps—and they just might lead him to his own grave. An enthralling historical thriller, A Conspiracy of Paper will leave readers wondering just how much has changed in the stock market in the last three hundred years. . . .”

December 14, 2022

The Matzah Ball by Jean Meltzer

“Chron­i­cal­ly-ill Rachel Ruben­stein-Gold­blatt is a “nice Jew­ish girl‚” with a secret: she loves Christ­mas. As the best-sell­ing author of over twen­ty Christ­mas romance nov­els, and four made-for-TV movie spin-offs, she’s kept her stel­lar career secret from her obser­vant Jew­ish fam­i­ly for over a decade. But when Rachel’s pub­lish­ing house tells her they won’t renew her con­tract unless she writes them a Hanukkah romance, she’s des­per­ate for inspi­ra­tion. She finds it in the form of the Matzah Ball, a high-end Jew­ish music cel­e­bra­tion sched­uled for the last night of Hanukkah. There is only one prob­lem: tick­ets are sold out and the only way to get one is direct from the bal­l’s cre­ator, who just hap­pens to be Jacob Green­berg, her sum­mer camp arch enemy.”