Up to the 1970s. there was a long and strong history of cooperation and support between Blacks and Jews in the US, especially in Civil Rights, based to a large degree on a shared set of experiences. This forms the background for this book, the experience of people living in the margins of Pottsville PA. McBride writes vivid portraits of real three-dimensional people struggling to live as well as possible under the burdens of systemic and personal discrimination. As a reader, I was invested in the characters, and through them, in this life, and the catharsis that came with the ending.
“A murder mystery locked inside a Great American Novel . . . Charming, smart, heart-blistering, and heart-healing.” —Danez Smith, The New York Times Book Review
“We all need—we all deserve—this vibrant, love-affirming novel that bounds over any difference that claims to separate us.” —Ron Charles, The Washington Post
From James McBride, author of the bestselling Oprah’s Book Club pick Deacon King Kong and the National Book Award–winning The Good Lord Bird, a novel about small-town secrets and the people who keep them
In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for…
A modern book about climate change and respect for the earth that felt like the approachable literary fiction book it is. The characters are unique but recognizable if not identifiable, and complex. This complexity is not intimidating. Rather, it reflects how life is, and how critical issues like climate change and respect for the earth are also not simplistic. A rewarding read.
INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER & NATIONAL INDIE BESTSELLER
“Birnam Wood is terrific. As a multilayered, character-driven thriller, it’s as good as it gets. Ruth Rendell would have loved it. A beautifully textured work―what a treat.” ―Stephen King “A generational cri de coeur . . . A sophisticated page-turner . . . Birnam Wood nearly made me laugh with pleasure. The whole thing crackles . . . Greta Gerwig could film this novel, but so could Quentin Tarantino.” ―Dwight Garner, The New York Times
The Booker Prize–winning author of The Luminaries brings us Birnam Wood, a gripping thriller of high drama and…
What if a magical Golem shows up in modern day Brooklyn? And what if Jerry Seinfeld and Philip Roth somehow end up with it? For example, the Golem learns English by binge-watching Curb Your Enthusiasm. There's a girl, a road trip and lots of anti-semitism, a regular laff-riot. Actually, as propulsive and funny as the book was, it finally lagged when it felt like the author realized that he wanted something more profound and it changed character. It was still thought-provoking. and a quick read. And did your hear the one about the Golem and the mohel? It's a tender topic for this Golem because the guy who formed him out of clay forgot to give him all the parts.
The dazzlingly imaginative, ferociously funny story of an art teacher, a bodega clerk, and a five-thousand-year-old clay crisis monster, from the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Go the F**k to Sleep.
“A devastating romp through history, a bonkers road trip through America, this novel could not be any funnier—or any more important.”—W. Kamau Bell
In Ashkenazi Jewish folklore, a golem is a humanoid being created out of mud or clay and animated through secret prayers. Its sole purpose is to defend the Jewish people against the immediate threat of violence. It is always a rabbi who makes…
Two Jewish brothers plan futures full of achievement and maybe fame. But Warsaw in the summer of 1939 is no place for dreamers.
Ian is thrown west to Paris. There, he unexpectedly falls in love with Alicia, a mysterious Frenchwoman, but then must leave her to race across France to safety in Casablanca. Daniel ends up in the Siberian Gulag, where he faces endless blizzards, starvation, and the often-lethal cruelties of guards and fellow prisoners. He too finds someone, an exiled poet named Nadhya, until he must stay with her or cross all of Russia to return to the future he'd envisioned.
Walk the Earth as Brothers is the story of two pawns in a titanic world war, of bravery, random chance, kindness, betrayal and love, and of what happens to the hopes and dreams of Ian and Daniel.
