Book Club

The shul’s Book Circle group has chosen to delve into the pages of Hugo Hamilton’s book, The Pages, for the July selection, to be discussed at the meeting on Thursday, July 27, at 3:30 p.m., in the shul’s community room.

The deckle edges of the novel itself suggest the way into the past — Germany under the Nazi regime  — with clues from that history leading to a present day mystery. It is a sweeping narrative of survival, chance, and the joys and struggles of love played against a backdrop of censorship, oppression and violence. It’s a smashingly good story, critics rave, that brings a new audience to an acclaimed writer.

The Book Circle meets monthly to discuss books by Jewish writers and/or topics of Jewish interest. For more information, email ctigreenport@gmail.com with a message for Susan Rosenstreich, leader of the group.

The June meeting of the Book Circle will be held in-person — to the delight of all participants — at the shul on Wednesday, the 28th, at 3 p.m. The selection is title The Marriage Box, a novel by Corie Adjmi, that considers the situation facing a Middle Eastern Jewish teenager, who accompanies her parents from a liberated life in New Orleans to an Orthodox Syrian Jewish community in Brooklyn, where the search for a suitable husband is the primary directive.

Sixteen-year-old Casey Cohen discovers that the marriage box is a real place, a pool deck designated for teenage girls to put themselves on display for potential husbands.

Michael seems the right choice for her, but she begins to question the decision when she is expected to conform to wifely duties that put her own plans aside.  How she navigates opposing worlds is the focus of the book and the book group’s consideration.

The Book Circle explores writing on Jewish issues by Jewish writers. For more information, email ctigreenport@gmail.com with a message for Susan Rosenstreich, coordinator of the group.   

The May meeting of the Book Circle will be held on Thursday, May 18, at 4 p.m., on Zoom, to wrestle with the meaning of the term “terra incognita,” which for the medieval Catalan navigators could mean fear or the thrill of adventure. The characters in Terra Incognita, a novel by award-winning author Libi Astaire, are about to have their peaceful life upended when outsiders threaten to reveal a secret hidden within this village of Spanish Jews, exposing the village and its inhabitants to strangers and their prying eyes. Reviewers have characterized the novel as poignant and comic — a journey of personal discovery that will resonate with anyone who has ever gone on a quest to discover his or her past or, some say, who has ever lain awake at night wondering where in the world they are going.

The Book Circle discusses works by Jewish writers on Jewish themes. For more information, email ctigreenport@gmail.com with a message for Susan Rosenstreich, coordinator of the group.