Book Club

Coastside Jewish Community Book Club meets approximately once every two months at members’ homes. We read all kinds of books that are in some way related to Judaism, and generally ensure our books are available through a library. We schmooze, we nosh, we even discuss the book we all read! Most importantly, we get together to enjoy each others’ company. Participants must be members of Coastside Jewish Community.

For more information, contact Vaughn Harrison.

Up Next:

Our next gathering will be Wednesday, June 5th. We will discuss The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride. There’s a long wait list at the library,  but a dozen copies will be available to borrow from Book Club in a BoxContact Vaughn to reserve yours.


Thank you! A wonderful resource for which we are grateful, is the Jewish Community Library. From the “One Bay, One Book” program, to “Book Club in a Box” and borrowing eBooks and audio books for free, they have supported our community sharing of Jew-ish books.

Books we haven’t chosen to read together. Yet.


Book Club Archive

(Years stated in 2020 and earlier are educated guesses)

2024

  • The Lemon Tree, by Sandy Tolan
  • The Boston Girl, by Anita Diamant

2023

  • Kantika, by Elizabeth Graver
  • Dinners with Ruth: A Memoir on the Power of Friendships, by Nina Totenberg
  • The Lost Shtetl, by Max Gross
  • The Paris Architect, by Charles Belfoure
  • How to Find Your way in the Dark, by Derek B. Miller
  • The Man Who Sold Air in the Holy Land, by Omer Friedlander

2022

  • My Russian Grandmother and Her American Vacuum Cleaner, by Meir Shalev
  • Song of the Jade Lily, by Kirsty Manning
  • Last Summer at the Golden Hotel, by Elyse Friedland
  • The Hidden Palace, by Helene Wecker
  • Unorthodox, by Deborah Feldman
  •  Mrs. Everything, by Jennifer Weiner

2021

  • Three Floors Up, by Eshkol Nevo.​
  • Abu Dhabi Bar Mitzvah: Fear and Love in the Modern Middle East, by Adam Valen Levinson.
  • The Storyteller, by Jodi Picoult
  • The Color of Love: A Story of a Mixed-Race Jewish Girl by Marra Gad
  •  The Book of V, by Anna Solomon
  • A Lotus Grows in the Mud, by Goldie Hawn

2020

  • The Last Watchman of Old Cairo, by Michael David Lukas.
  • I Feel Bad About My Neck, by Nora Ephron.
  • The Zookeeper’s Wife, by Diane Ackerman
  • All the Rivers, by Dorit Rabinyan
  • The Seven Good Years, by Etgar Keret
  • On Division, by Goldie Goldbloom

2019

  • The Secret Chord, by Geraldine Brooks
  • Inheritance, by Dani Shapiro,
  • Judas, by Amos Oz
  • The View From Penthouse B, by Elinor Lipman
  • They May Not Mean To, But They Doby Cathleen Schine
  • The Plot Against America by Philip Roth

2018

  • Waking Lions, by Ayelet Gundar-Goshen.
  • The Mathematician’s Shiva, by Stuart Rojstaczer.
  • Stars of David: Prominent Jews Talk About Being Jewish, by Abigail Pogrebin
  • Young Jane Young by Gabrielle Zevin
  • The Septembers of Shiraz,  a novel by Dalia Sofer.
  • To The End Of The Land, by David Grossman

2017

  • The Weight of Ink by Rachel Kadish
  • The Girl From Foreign: A Memoir by Sadia Shepard
  • The Innocents, by Francesca Segal
  • The Golem and the Jinni, by Helene Wecker
  • Moonglow, by Michael Chabon
  • Have a Little Faith, by Mitch Albom

2016

  • The Swans of Fifth Avenue, by Melanie Benjamin
  • The Notorious RBG: The Life & Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, by Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik, 2015
  • Paradise Park, by Allegra Goodman, 2001
  • The UnAmericans, by Molly Antopol, 2014
  • The World to ComeA Novel, by Dara Horn, 2006
  • The Periodic Table, by Primos Levi, 1975

2015

  • The Marriage of Opposites, by Alice Hoffman, 2015
  • A Selection of books about Jewish history in China:
    • Peony, by Pearl S. Buck (1948), a novel about the love between a young Han Chinese bondmaid and the Jewish son of the household she serves
    • Mandarins, Jews and Missionaries: The Jewish Experience in the Chinese Empire, by Michael Pollak (1998), a history of the Jews of Kaifeng by a Jewish writer
    • The Jews of Kaifeng, China: History, Culture, Religion, by Xin Xu (2013), a history by a Chinese historian
  • Henna House, by Nomi Eve, 2014
  • The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak, 2005
  • The Arrival, by Shaun Tan, 2006
  • What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank, by Nathan Englander,

2014

  • Great House: A Novel, by Nicole Krauss, 2010
  • The Dovekeepers, by Alice Hoffman, 2011
  • Outwitting History: The Amazing Adventures of a Man Who Rescued a Million Yiddish Books, by Aaron Lansky, 2004
  • Sholem Aleichem, Tevye the Dairyman and The Railroad Stories
  • Sarah: Women of Genesis, by Orson Scott Card, 2001. (Note: Card has also written Rachel and Leah and Rebekah as part of his series Women of Genesis.
  • The Year of Living Biblically, A.J. Jacobs,

2013

  • The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, by Chabon, Michael, 2007
  • A Guide for the Perplexed, by Dara Horn, 2013
  • The Faith Club: A Muslim, Christian, Jew — Three Women Search for Understanding, by Ranya Idliby, 2006
  • My Father’s Paradise: A Son’s Search for His Jewish Past in Kurdish Iraq, by Ariel Sabar, 2008
  • Bee Season, by Myla Goldberg, 2000
  • People of the Book, by Geraldine Brooks, 2008

2012

  • Heartburn, by Nora Ephron, 1983
  • The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit: A Jewish Family’s Exodus from Old Cairo to the New World, by Lucette Lagnado, 2008
  • The Inn at Lake Devine, by Elinor Lipman
  • The Betrayers, by David Bezmozgis, 2014
  • Rashi’s Daughter: Joheved, by Maggie Anton, 2007
  • Sotah, by Naomi Ragen, 1992