On International Women's Day, A History of Lilith. Was She a Demon or the First Feminist We Know?
Each of us has a bit of Lilith in us. A bit of a voice, when silence is expected of us. A bit of a desire for freedom from the conventional fences others erect around us. A bit of a need for equality, when we’ve been taught, as early as when we were children or…
Read MoreLisette's List Walks Readers Through Tumultuous, War-Torn World War II Europe
In her captivating historical novel, Lisette’s List (Random House), Susan Vreeland, The New York Times bestselling author of Girl in Hyacinth Blue, takes readers by the hand and guides them, with assured steps and astute historical knowledge, through the tumultuous, war-torn, years of 1937 to 1948 in Europe, depicting horrific attempts by the Nazis to…
Read MoreAnita Diamant's The Boston Girl: An Immigrant's Tale, Hanging Onto the Old Ways
From the opening of Anita Diamant’s heartwarming novel, The Boston Girl, (Scribner), when Addie Bauman, an 85-year-old grandmother recounts her life story to her granddaughter, I was struck by the similarities between the Jewish cultural beliefs and mores in Boston in 1915, when Addie’s story starts, and in Iran, where I grew up in the…
Read More"The Golem of Hollywood": A Grisly L.A. Mystery
They have a way of scaring you, of chasing sleep away, these psychological thrillers that send your heart thumping. Imagine, then, what you are in for when two masters of the genre decide to collaborate. The result is “The Golem of Hollywood,” (G.P. Putnam’s Sons) by bestselling authors Jonathan Kellerman (The Alex Delaware series) and…
Read MoreAyelet Waldman's New Book Is More Than a Holocaust Novel
I devoured all 331 pages of Ayelet Waldman’s gripping and powerful novel Love and Treasure (Alfred A. Knopf) in one 14-hour marathon on my flight from Los Angeles to Israel. Before the El Al plane made its descent into Ben Gurion Airport, I began this review with Waldman’s interview with Carolyn Kellogg for the Los…
Read MoreThe Goldfinch and the Art of Reading
Ah! The joys and tribulations of being surrounded by stacks of books at my bedside, my husband’s bedside, books tucked into every available nook and cranny, piled high on every tabletop and stacked double on every shelf, making it impossible to navigate around safely without worrying that one of my beloved five-pound books might tumble…
Read MoreDora Levy Mossanen: On Novels and Tapping Into Our Own Emotional Reservoir
Best Chapter: Your novels are all historical novels, set in exotic times and places. Your novel Harem introduces readers to the intriguing world of the Jewish quarter in Persia. In Courtesan, we read about Belle époque France and the closed domain of women in 19th-century Persia. The Last Romanov is set in the royal court…
Read MoreThe SCENT OF BUTTERFLIES International Book Launch is Around the Corner
I’m excited to announce that Barnes and Noble, The Grove, will be hosting the International Book Launch of my highly anticipated novel SCENT OF BUTTERFLIES on Thursday, January 9, 2014 at 7:00 PM. Refreshments will be served, lively conversation will be had, and books will be signed. Don’t forget to add the date to your calendar,…
Read MoreQ&A with Author Mitch Albom
Mitch Albom has succeeded in striking an important chord in all of us — the intrinsic human desire to discover what lies beyond, the need to believe that the way we conduct our lives matters and that “the end is not the end,” after all, but another beginning. These intertwined themes are evident in most…
Read MoreThe Mystery of the Missing Husband
While reviewing The Gallery of Vanished Husbands by Natasha Solomons (Plume Original), the bestselling author of The House at Tyneford, I was also reading Ralph Ellison’s, The Invisible Man, and the thought occurred to me that invisibility can take many forms that might have nothing to do with skin color. Juliet Montague feels invisible in…
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