It’s not technically fall yet, but it sure is starting to feel like it. The leaves are turning, there’s a nice little breeze in the air, at least in my neck of the woods, and I’m starting to think of the High Holidays. I’m also starting to think about cozy nights and quiet afternoons spent cuddling with a book, and wondering if maybe this will be the fall when my children let me read in peace.
If you’re also excited for cozy fall-time reading, here are some delightful, illuminating and important Jewish books that are coming out this late summer and fall. This list is a combination of somber and timely novels, and of distractions full of Jewish joy and love — something for everyone, and every mood.
This book technically came out this summer, but it’s an ode to an incredible Jewish woman who deserves the spotlight — Peggy Guggenheim. Written mostly by the late and wonderful Rebecca Godfrey, and posthumously finished by author Leslie Jamison, it’s a magnificent story of the woman who helped make her Jewish family’s name synonymous with art and brilliance, told from Peggy’s imagined and powerful perspective.
“Rules for Ghosting” by Shelly Jay Shore
Do you ever just read the synopsis of a book and already want to see it as a TV series? This is how I feel about this book, a kind of delightful “Six Feet Under” meets “The Sixth Sense” and “Over Her Dead Body” (with dreamboat Paul Rudd) about the trans and psychic Ezra, who can’t escape his family’s legacy or the ghosts that he literally sees. When his mother runs away with the rabbi’s wife, he agrees to take on his family’s Friedman Family Memorial Chapel and attempt to save it from financial ruin, flanked by his neighbor and crush, Jonathan, and haunted by the ghost of Jonathan’s late husband. Yes, “Rules of Ghosting” came out in August, but it’s the perfect comforting ghostly Jewish romance we need this upcoming spooky season.
“The Whisper Sister” by Jennifer S. Brown
Following her wonderful “Modern Girls,” Jennifer S. Brown is back with more sweeping Jewish historical fiction set in the streets of New York. In this book, we meet Minnie Soffer, who joined the father who left her behind in Ukraine as a child in the Big Apple. It’s Prohibition Era, and Minnie’s father is using his soda shop as a front for a speakeasy. When tragedy strikes, the badass Minnie has to take over the family business — a theme in this list of excellent books, and once again, a book I desperately want to see on my screen.
“Next Stop” by Benjamin Resnick
This book by (Rabbi) Benjamin Resnick, the husband of my colleague, JTA editor Philissa Cramer, is an eerie sci-fi tale of speculative fiction that feels incredibly prescient. Its protagonists live in a Israel, which has been suddenly swallowed by a big black hole, and the lives of Jews become more precarious than ever before. Since this is the work of a rabbi, you can expect a lot of wonderful Jewish specificities and to come out with more questions than answers.
“Songs for the Brokenhearted” by Ayelet Tsabari
We’ve been waiting so long for a new Ayelet Tsabari book following her beautiful memoir, “The Art of Leaving,” and it is finally, finally here. “Songs for the Brokenhearted” (a title that I can’t read without thinking of Bon Jovi) is the story of a Yemeni Jewish family’s secret, and a daughter finding her mother after her death, told in Tsabari’s gorgeous prose.
“Olive Days” by Jessica Elisheva Emerson
Emerson’s debut novel is the tale of a Modern Orthodox Jewish housewife whose monotonous life gets shaken up when she and her husband participate in a wife swap. Rina realizes that dreams she thought she had left behind — of a life filled with art and sensuality — have not really disappeared. As Bonnie Azoulay wrote for Kveller, “Emerson aptly details what it’s like to live a life that was never meant for you — a life molded by traditions and duties over desire.”
“The Old Jewish Men’s Guide to Eating, Sleeping, and Futzing Around” by Noah Rinsky (September 17)
If you’ve always dreamed of being an old Jewish man, and who hasn’t, this book will help you channel your inner kvetcher — your Bernie Sanders or Larry David, if you will. From the creator of the incredible @oldjewishmen Instagram account, this book will teach you “How to Exist in This Fakakta World,” “The Art of the Schmooze” and “How to Live Forever.” I’m here for it.
“Night Owls” by A.R. Vishny (September 17)
I have personally been waiting for this book to come out for forever. A. R. Vishny’s writing about Jewish pop culture on Hey Alma and elsewhere is always wonderful, and this book is a manifestation of her love for Jewish magic, the lived Jewish experience and New York City, all of which it captures with precision and charm. “Night Owls” is the story of Molly and Clara, two Jewish sisters and estries, mythical Jewish vampires, who transform into owls at night and feed on men (are you not obsessed with this book yet just from this description?!). I’m so glad that it, and so many other great Jewish fantasy books, exist for this younger Jewish generation of lovers of mystical creatures.
“The Gates of Gaza” by Amir Tibon (September 24)
This book by journalist Amir Tibon is about how he survived the October 7 attack at his kibbutz of Nahal Oz. The amazing story of Tibon’s survival and his father, a retired general who drove from his home to help rescue his son and his neighbors, is getting turned into a movie by “Fauda” showrunners Lior Raz and Avi Issacharoff.
“Rachel Weiss’s Group Chat” by Lauren Appelbaum (September 24)
This book truly feels like a treat made specifically for me and other millennial Jewish romance lovers, like a great Nora Ephron movie but with more DMs. Rachel Weiss is not where she wants to be on the cusp of turning 30. She doesn’t like her job in tech support, she always falls for the wrong guys, and heck, she’s even considering — GASP — joining JDate. At least she has one lifeline: her funny and intimate group chat with her three best girlfriends. When her Jewish mom (of course) tries to play matchmaker by setting her up with the wealthy tech bro who bought the house next door, Rachel is at first not here for it, but soon discovers there’s more to Christopher than all her initial preconceptions.
“The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern” by Lynda Cohen Loigman (October 8)
What a beautiful spinner of Jewish tales Lynda Cohen Loigman is. This book was recently selected for the Book of the Month Club and for great reason. It has so many elements that other great books in this list also have: it’s about an incredibly independent Jewish woman, a family business — in this case, a pharmacy in Brooklyn — and half of it takes place in the New York borough in the 1920s, with the other half in 1980s Florida at the Rallentando Springs Retirement Center where Augusta Stern, like many Jews, ends up after retiring from her job as a pharmacist and meets the love of her youth, Irving. I love that this book is about a woman in her 80s finding herself again.
“The Sound of a Thousand Stars” by Rachel Robbins (October 8)
A book for all of those who have Barbenheimer-ed, a tale of Jewish love and wartime ethics set in Los Alamos, where young Alice Katz, the daughter of a well-to-do Jewish family, works under Dr. Oppenheimer and meets Caleb Blum — Jewish like her, but from a poor Orthodox family, assigned to the explosives division. The two find themselves drawn to each other in the mysterious and isolated environment of their work.
“Love You a Latke” by Amanda Elliot (October 8)
Never read an Amanda Elliot book hungry!! This enchanting Hanukkah romance from the author of “Sadie on a Plate” and “Best Served Hot” is about a Jewish cafe owner, and it is even more comforting than a PSL. This is the story of Abby Cohen, who is charged with organizing her small and very not Jewish Vermont town’s Hanukkah festival. The key to her success might be her most annoying happy-g0-lucky customer, Seth, who just happens to need a fake girlfriend to join him for his family’s holiday celebration. If you love romance, then you know exactly where this book is going, and you’ll probably be happy to go on the ride.
“Dear Eliza” by Andrea J. Stein (October 8)
We first meet Eliza, the protagonist of Andrea Stein’s sophomore novel, at her father’s shiva, where she gets a letter that will upend her well-adjusted New York life, including a new stable nonprofit job and nice apartment. The letter, from the mother she lost to cancer as a teen a decade earlier, forever changes everything she thought she knew about her family. Eliza finds comfort in an unlikely source, her high school crush and her brother’s best friend, Josh. This is a beautiful book about grief and families, and a lovely tale about learning what it means to love.
“On Being Jewish Now” Edited by Zibby Owens (November 1)
I can’t wait for this incredible anthology full of writing by some of my favorite Jewish authors, many of whom are elsewhere on this list, and edited by the very talented Zibby Owens, CEO of Zibby Media and author of the recent “Blank.” The 75 contributors of this collection of stories about Jewish joy and strife include Mark Feuerstein, Jill Zarin, Steve Leder, Joanna Rakoff, Amy Ephron, Annabelle Gurwitch, Daphne Merkin, Bradley Tusk, Rabbi Sharon Brous, Jenny Mollen and Nicola Krauss.
“Rosenfeld” by Maya Kessler (November 19)
On the cover of the English edition of “Rosenfeld,” we are informed that the book is rated “R.” It is, we are told, “a grown-up love story for grown-ups.” And indeed that is what this Israeli book that took the country by storm is: a grown-up love story, messy and incredibly erotic, about a woman who falls for a much older divorced man. Noa Simon, our heroine, is no Lolita; she’s 36, a gifted filmmaker working in the TV industry and dreaming of telling her own stories. At a wedding, she meets CEO Teddy Rosenfeld, brash, commanding, not exactly traditionally handsome but captivating nevertheless and she knows, right away, that he is what she wants. What ensues is not a romance, but a confidently written, graphic and enthralling book.
“I Made It Out of Clay” by Beth Kander (December 10)
We know all about the fake boyfriend trope, but what about the make-a-golem boyfriend trope? This very anticipated novel, based on Kander’s incredible winning entry for Hey Alma’s Hanukkah Movie Pitch Challenge, is about Eve, who makes a golem to take to her sister’s summer camp wedding. The premise is incredible, and I am simply praying for Paul Mudd — I mean Paul Rudd — to star in its eventual movie adaptation.
