Books like Yiddish for Pirates — picked by fans

We often feel alone when we experience change and transitions, but Saunders’s book reminds me that we’re all on the journey of life together.

President Lincoln can’t let go of his young son, Willie, when the boy dies of typhoid fever. Willie, too, is holding on: lingering in the after-death world, he’s convinced his parents are going to come get him. He’s surrounded by people who are also in bardo (the state between death and rebirth), trapped in denial and attachment. When they accept the reality of their situation, the characters are liberated from their suffering.

This book has deepened my understanding of how—both individually and collectively—we struggle against loss, but it’s possible to let go and move forward. 

This book gave me shivers, both from the monsters and the evil that humans are capable of.

This novella from P. Djeli Clark manages to be action-packed while still dealing with heavy topics like racism and slavery. It’s the 1920s, and Maryse Boudreaux is a Black woman living in the deep south of the United States. Maryse and her friends have formed a militia to fight the ‘Ku Kluxes,’ monsters who take the form of Ku Klux Klan members to spread hate further.

There are points in this book where it seems like all is lost, which makes it all the more satisfying when the heroes rally. 

Early in this book, a character uses his kitchen oven to dry out some psychedelic mushrooms harvested from the rooftop garden at his flat in World War II London. Dosing the characters (and somehow the reader) with Amanita Muscaria is an appropriate way to set the tone of this book.

Mushroom experiences are fun and giggly and clever, at times, but they can also open the mind to the evils mankind is capable of and the intricate conspiracies seemingly hiding in plain sight. Which is what I love about Gravity’s Rainbow – Pynchon’s writing is hilarious, but then he’ll hit you with a gut punch so poignant it will linger in your mind for decades. 

When I came across this book, I was on the point of giving up reading modern novels. Everything I had read recently was such a let-down at the end that sometimes I threw the book across the room in reader rage.

At last, in Rushdie, I found someone who did not disappoint. As I approached the end, I became breathless, worrying that the story was going to sink like a soufflé, but it didn’t. It just kept on rising.

Once upon a time in Fairgrounds, there was a contraption called the Hammer and Bell. It was a test of strength to see if you could make the bell ring. Most couldn’t. Most got the marker some way up the calibrated column only to see it hesitate, then begin its descent. Midnight’s Children made it to the top.

What makes a good ending? For me, it is some transcendent statement of… show more.

Among the wonders of medieval Spain is the appearance of the first Hebrew secular poetry since Biblical times. In this masterful and unparalleled set of translations by Peter Cole, we witness the profound, pious, chauvinistic, and indeed, sensual traditions of secular poetry over centuries. A fusion of Arabic and Hebrew traditions, in and of themselves, these poems stand as a metaphor for the Jewish community itself as well as its dynamism and endurance under Muslim and then, Christian rule. 

Krakowski's Coming of Age in Medieval Egypt offers not only offers a sophisticated critique of scholarship on medieval kinship arrangements, but also casts light on the social agency of young women during the few years between the age of their formal maturity and their matrimonial engagement.

Krakowski's wonderful achievement is made possible thanks to her exceptional familiarity with the documents of the Cairo Geniza and her ability to take a step back and observe the broad social picture they reflect.

Focus was the sole novel written by acclaimed playwright Arthur Miller. And while Miller would go on to be known primarily as a dramatist, Focus is an exceptional novel with a timely and engaging premise. 

The protagonist is a somewhat introverted man (Lawrence Newman) who is moderately successful in his field, working in New York City, while residing in Queens. Set in 1945, Focus is set during a particular time of unrest, especially in New York City, where many are resentful of the U.S.’s involvement in WWII. This resentment comes to a head when Lawrence needs to be fitted for glasses due to his developing near-sightedness. 

Yet as a result of how he looks with his glasses, people start to assume that he is Jewish, even though he is not. This misidentification not only leads to him being the unwilling recipient of anti-semitism but also leads to his own resentment… show more.

The team of renowned scholar (Professor Borowitz) and popular educator (Francie Schwartz) have produced a friendly, welcoming guide to living an ethical life, based on traditional Jewish virtues. Topics include trustworthiness, lovingkindness, compassion, humility, and contentedness. This book is really a guide to musar—the practical wisdom that has guided Jewish conduct throughout the centuries. 

Partition—the idea of separating Jews and Arabs along ethnic or national lines—is a legacy at least as old as the Zionist-Palestinian conflict. Challenging the widespread "separatist imagination" behind partition, Gil Hochberg demonstrates the ways in which works of contemporary Jewish and Arab literature reject simple notions of separatism and instead display complex configurations of identity that emphasize the presence of alterity within the self—the Jew within the Arab, and the Arab within the Jew. In Spite of Partition examines Hebrew, Arabic, and French works that are largely unknown to English readers to reveal how, far from being independent, the signifiers "Jew" and "Arab" are inseparable.

I came across this book while JT was still working on it in the early 2000s. I contacted him much much excitement because I had never met any other contemporary artists who were interested in translating traditional Jewish legends and midrash into a visual form. When it was finally published, I was blown away at how visually rich it was and how it incorporated the traditional Hebrew text of the Scroll of Esther. And it’s not for kids! A true telling of the story of Esther deserves an R-rating at least. And JT does not shy away from the grittier elements of the traditional story.