I feel like I’m behind on a billion different things, but the High Holidays are definitely a time for reflection and rejuvenation. I’ll be using the #readsofawe challenge to hopefully catch up on a few books I keep meaning to read but just never have been able to find.
Bonus: Since almost all of these are already published I can gather them in advance.
Endpapers by Jennifer Savran Kelly – Algonquin Feb 2023
Boxes it fulfills for my board: 2023 Release, Non-Holocaust Historical, LGBT Rep, Adult
It’s 2003, and artist Dawn Levit is stuck. A bookbinder who works in conservation at the Met, she spends her free time scouting the city’s street art, hoping something might spark inspiration. Instead, everything looks like a dead end. And art isn’t the only thing that feels wrong: wherever she turns, her gender identity clashes with the rest of her life. Her relationship, once anchored by shared queerness, is falling apart as her boyfriend Lukas increasingly seems to be attracted to Dawn only when she’s at her most masculine. Meanwhile at work, Dawn has to present as female, even on the days when that isn’t true. Either way, her difference feels like a liability.
Then, one day at work, Dawn finds something hidden behind the endpaper of an old book: the torn-off cover of a ‘50s lesbian pulp novel, Turn Her About. On the front is a campy illustration of a woman looking into a handheld mirror and seeing a man’s face. And on the back is a love letter.
Dawn latches onto the coincidence, becoming obsessed with tracking down the note’s author. Her fixation only increases when her best friend Jae is injured in a hate crime, for which Dawn feels responsible. As Dawn searches for the letter’s author, she is also looking for herself. She tries to understand how to live in a world that doesn’t see her as she truly is, how to get unstuck in her gender, and how to rediscover her art, and she can’t shake the feeling that the note’s author might be able to help guide her to the answers.
Find It: Goodreads | Bookshop | Amazon
Season of Love by Helena Greer – Forever, October 2022
Boxes it fulfills on my board: Themes of forgiveness, Romance, LGBT Rep, Adult
Thanks to her thriving art career, Miriam Blum finally has her decoupaged glitter ducks in a row–until devastating news forces her to a very unwanted family reunion. Her beloved great-aunt Cass has passed and left Miriam part-owner of Carrigan’s, her (ironically) Jewish-run Christmas tree farm. But Miriam’s plans to sit shiva, avoid her parents, then put Carrigan’s in her rearview mirror are spoiled when she learns the business is at risk of going under. To have any chance at turning things around, she’ll need to work with the farm’s grumpy manager–as long as the attraction sparking between them doesn’t set all their trees on fire first. Noelle Northwood wants Miriam Blum gone–even if her ingenious ideas and sensitive soul keep showing Noelle there’s more to Cass’s niece than meets the eye. But saving Carrigan’s requires trust, love, and risking it all–for the chance to make their wildest dreams come true.
Find It: Goodreads | Bookshop | Amazon
Mooncakes written by Suzanne Walker, Illustrated by Wendy Xu – Oni Press 2019
Boxes it will fulfill for me – Jews of Color, LGBT Rep, Comic/Graphic Novel
Nova Huang knows more about magic than your average teen witch. She works at her grandmothers’ bookshop, where she helps them loan out spell books and investigate any supernatural occurrences in their New England town.
One fateful night, she follows reports of a white wolf into the woods, and she comes across the unexpected: her childhood crush, Tam Lang, battling a horse demon in the woods. As a werewolf, Tam has been wandering from place to place for years, unable to call any town home.
Pursued by dark forces eager to claim the magic of wolves and out of options, Tam turns to Nova for help. Their latent feelings are rekindled against the backdrop of witchcraft, untested magic, occult rituals, and family ties both new and old in this enchanting tale of self-discovery.
Find It: Goodreads | Bookshop | Amazon
The Literary Murder by Batya Gur translated by Dalya Bilu – Harper Paerback July 2020 but originally published in 1993
Boxes it fulfills for me – Published before 2000, Translation, Adult
In investigating the deaths of a professor of literature and his junior colleague, Superintendent MichaelOhayon raises profound ethical questions about the relationship between the artist and his creation, and between the artist and a moral code. It brings him into contact with the academic elite and reveals the social problems and differing perspectives of Israel’s various classes.
Known as “the Israeli Agatha Christie, Batya Gur’s The Literary Murder is a clever, compelling, and suspenseful mystery that will leave readers entertained up until the final, harrowing conclusion.
Find It: Goodreads | Bookshop | Amazon
We’re Here: The Best Queer Speculative Fiction of 2022, short story “The Chavrutah” by Y.M. Resnik – Neon Hemlock October 2023
Boxes it Fulfills for my Board – short story, LGTB, Frum Rep, YA,
Two Bais Yaakov students atempt to summon Ashmedia King of Sheidim to help with college admissions.
Links coming soon!
Re: by Linda Esptein, self published 2022
Boxes it fulfills for me – Poetry, out of my comfort zone
re: is a short collection of poems by Linda Epstein gleaned from poetry she’s written over the last 40 years. Divided into three parts–air, matter, and motion–this collection includes poems about love and loss, musings about art and god, reflections on the body and being.
Find It: Goodreads
Ana on the Edge by A.J. Sass – Little Brown Books for Young Readers October 2021
Boxes it Fufills for me – Blue cover, Themes of Renewal, Contemporary, LGBT
Twelve-year-old Ana-Marie Jin, the reigning US Juvenile figure skating champion, is not a frilly dress kind of kid. So, when Ana learns that next season’s program will be princess themed, doubt forms fast. Still, Ana tries to focus on training and putting together a stellar routine worthy of national success. Once Ana meets Hayden, a transgender boy new to the rink, thoughts about the princess program and gender identity begin to take center stage. And when Hayden mistakes Ana for a boy, Ana doesn’t correct him and finds comfort in this boyish identity when he’s around. As their friendship develops, Ana realizes that it’s tricky juggling two different identities on one slippery sheet of ice. And with a major competition approaching, Ana must decide whether telling everyone the truth is worth risking years of hard work and sacrifice.
Find It: Goodreads | Bookshop | Amazon
The Mitten String by Jennifer Rosner – Random House Books for Young Readers October 2014
When her family invites a deaf woman and her baby to stay, Ruthie, a talented knitter of mittens, wonders how the mother will know if her child wakes in the night. The surprising answer inspires Ruthie to knit a special gift that offers great comfort to mother and baby—and to Ruthie herself.
With language and imagery reminiscent of stories told long ago, this modern Jewish folktale will resonate with those who love crafts, anyone who’s encountered someone with physical differences—and with everyone who has ever lost a mitten in the depths of winter.
Jewish Magic and Superstition by Joshua Trachtenberg – University of Pennsylvania Press 2004
Boxes it fulfills for me- nonfiction, blue cover
Alongside the formal development of Judaism from the eleventh through the sixteenth centuries, a robust Jewish folk religion flourished–ideas and practices that never met with wholehearted approval by religious leaders yet enjoyed such wide popularity that they could not be altogether excluded from the religion. According to Joshua Trachtenberg, it is not possible truly to understand the experience and history of the Jewish people without attempting to recover their folklife and beliefs from centuries past.
Jewish Magic and Superstition is a masterful and utterly fascinating exploration of religious forms that have all but disappeared yet persist in the imagination. The volume begins with legends of Jewish sorcery and proceeds to discuss beliefs about the evil eye, spirits of the dead, powers of good, the famous legend of the golem, procedures for casting spells, the use of gems and amulets, how to battle spirits, the ritual of circumcision, herbal folk remedies, fortune telling, astrology, and the interpretation of dreams.
First published more than sixty years ago, Trachtenberg’s study remains the foundational scholarship on magical practices in the Jewish world and offers an understanding of folk beliefs that expressed most eloquently the everyday religion of the Jewish people.