Books with Friends
Hosted by: Elaine Prusack and Jon Lipow
The Matchmaker's Gift
Author: Lynda Cohen-Loigman - 320 pages
Named a Best Book of Fall 2022 by Parade • BuzzFeed • New York Post • GMA.com • People
Thursday, September 5, 2024 @ 7:30pm
"Loigman's latest is a gem. A scrappy Jewish teenager newly arrived in 1920s New York struggles to follow her calling as a matchmaker––seventy years later, her cynical divorce-attorney granddaughter realizes she has very inconveniently inherited the family gift for matching soulmates. Both funny and moving, The Matchmaker's Gift made me smile from start to finish." ––Kate Quinn, New York Times bestselling author of The Rose Code
Is finding true love a calling or a curse?
Even as a child in 1910, Sara Glikman knows her gift: she is a maker of matches and a seeker of soulmates. But among the pushcart-crowded streets of New York’s Lower East Side, Sara’s vocation is dominated by devout older men - men who see a talented female matchmaker as a dangerous threat to their traditions and livelihood. After making matches in secret for more than a decade, Sara must fight to take her rightful place among her peers, and to demand the recognition she deserves.
Two generations later, Sara’s granddaughter, Abby, is a successful Manhattan divorce attorney, representing the city’s wealthiest clients. When her beloved Grandma Sara dies, Abby inherits her collection of handwritten journals recording the details of Sara’s matches. But among the faded volumes, Abby finds more questions than answers. Why did Abby’s grandmother leave this library to her and what did she hope Abby would discover within its pages? Why does the work Abby once found so compelling suddenly feel inconsequential and flawed? Is Abby willing to sacrifice the career she’s worked so hard for in order to keep her grandmother’s mysterious promise to a stranger? And is there really such a thing as love at first sight?
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A Soul Beneath the Earth: A Holocaust Memoir of Faith and Resilience
Author: Freda Perelmuter Schipper with Sandy Schipper Wolberg - 273 pages
Thursday, November 7, 2024 @ 7:30pm
***As an added bonus, Sandy Schipper Wolberg will be our guest speaker.
Having broken her arm in a labor camp accident, 19-year-old Freda Perelmuter was convinced she would die at the hands of the Nazis unless she made a daring escape. The only people she could trust were Matewka and Katya Budniewski, a Ukrainian farmer and his wife, who were close family friends in her hometown of Horodlo, Poland. Miraculously, Matewka had dug a pit in his barn after Freda’s mother appeared to Katya in a dream, beseeching her to save the last surviving child in the Perelmuter family. When Freda arrived at their house during a stormy night following her escape from the labor camp, the Budniewskis ushered her into the pit. It was there that Freda would hide from the Nazis and their collaborators, unable to speak, stand, or see the sky for twenty-one months.
A Soul Beneath the Earth is a gripping story of resilience and faith, poignantly describing the quick thinking and sheer determination of a young woman to survive the Holocaust against all odds. Written with Freda’s daughter, Sandy Schipper Wolberg, the book meticulously documents Freda’s life and presents an inspiring account of the human spirit and the triumph of faith and hope over despair and evil.
To purchase this book from any of the retailers below just click the name.
- Barnes & Noble - not available
- Amazon
- Audiobook - not available
Bee Season: A Novel
Author: Myla Goldberg - 275 pages
Thursday, December 5, 2024 @ 7:30pm
Eliza Naumann, a seemingly unremarkable nine-year-old, expects never to fit into her gifted family: her autodidact father, Saul, absorbed in his study of Jewish mysticism; her brother, Aaron, the vessel of his father's spiritual ambitions; and her brilliant but distant lawyer-mom, Miriam. But when Eliza sweeps her school and district spelling bees in quick succession, Saul takes it as a sign that she is destined for greatness. In this altered reality, Saul inducts her into his hallowed study and lavishes upon her the attention previously reserved for Aaron, who in his displacement embarks upon a lone quest for spiritual fulfillment. When Miriam's secret life triggers a familial explosion, it is Eliza who must order the chaos.
Myla Goldberg's keen eye for detail brings Eliza's journey to three-dimensional life. As she rises from classroom obscurity to the blinding lights and outsized expectations of the National Bee, Eliza's small pains and large joys are finely wrought and deeply felt.
Not merely a coming-of-age story, Goldberg's first novel delicately examines the unraveling fabric of one family. The outcome of this tale is as startling and unconventional as her prose, which wields its metaphors sharply and rings with maturity. The work of a lyrical and gifted storyteller, Bee Season marks the arrival of an extraordinarily talented new writer.
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Love You A Latke
Author: Amanda Elliot - 368 pages
Love comes home for the challah-days in this sparkling romance.
Thursday, January 16, 2025 @ 7:30pm
Snow is falling, holiday lights are twinkling, and Abby Cohen is pissed. For one thing, her most annoying customer, Seth, has been coming into her café every morning with his sunshiny attitude, determined to break down her carefully constructed emotional walls. And, as the only Jew on the tourism board of her Vermont town, Abby's been charged with planning their fledgling Hanukkah festival. Unfortunately, the local vendors don’t understand that the story of Hanukkah cannot be told with light-up plastic figures from the Nativity scene, even if the Three Wise Men wear yarmulkes.
Desperate for support, Abby puts out a call for help online and discovers she was wrong about being the only Jew within a hundred miles. There's one other: Seth.
As it turns out, Seth’s parents have been badgering him to bring a Nice Jewish Girlfriend home to New York City for Hanukkah, and if Abby can survive his incessant, irritatingly handsome smiles, he’ll introduce her to all the vendors she needs to make the festival a success. But over latkes, doughnuts, and winter adventures in Manhattan, Abby begins to realize that her fake boyfriend and his family might just be igniting a flame in her own guarded heart.
To purchase this book from any of the retailers below just click the name.
The Sisters Weiss
Author: Naomi Ragen - 416 pages
Thursday, February 20, 2025 @ 7:30pm
In 1950's Brooklyn, sisters Rose and Pearl Weiss grow up in a loving but strict ultra-Orthodox family, never dreaming of defying their parents or their community's unbending and intrusive demands. Then, a chance meeting with a young French immigrant turns Rose's world upside down, its once bearable strictures suddenly tightening like a noose around her neck. In rebellion, she begins to live a secret life – a life that shocks her parents when it is discovered. With nowhere else to turn, and an overwhelming desire to be reconciled with those she loves, Rose tries to bow to her parents' demands that she agree to an arranged marriage. But pushed to the edge, she commits an act so unforgivable, it will exile her forever from her innocent young sister, her family, and all she has ever known.
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- Barnes & Noble
- Amazon
- Audiobooks - not available
Rachel's Promise
Author: Shelly Sanders - 250 pages
Thursday, March 20, 2025 @ 7:30pm
*** As an added bonus, Shelly Sanders will be our guest speaker.
It is 1904, and Rachel and her family are leaving Russia to escape the continuing riots against Jews. They take the Trans-Siberian Railway across the country and board a ship to Shanghai. Life is difficult and strange in this new city, but Rachel's luck changes when she finds a job writing for a newspaper. Meanwhile, Sergei finds that working in a factory in St. Petersburg is not only miserable but dangerous, and he soon joins the rebelling socialist workers. Through letters, Rachel and Sergei share their dream of moving to America to find a better life. The story that began in Rachel’s Secret continues in this, the second novel in the Rachel Trilogy.
To purchase this book from any of the retailers below just click the name.
- Barnes & Noble
- Amazon
- Audiobooks - not available
The Chosen: A Novel
Author: Chaim Potok - 304 pages
Thursday, May 15, 2025 @ 7:30pm
A coming-of-age classic about two Jewish boys growing up in Brooklyn in the 1940s, this “profound and universal” (The Wall Street Journal) story of faith, family, tradition, and assimilation remains deeply pertinent today.
“Works of this caliber should be an occasion for singing in the streets and shouting from the rooftops.” —Chicago Tribune
It’s the spring of 1944 and fifteen-year-olds Reuven Malter and Danny Saunders have lived five blocks apart all their lives. But they’ve never met, not until the day an accident at a softball game sparks an unlikely friendship. Soon these two boys - one expected to become a Hasidic rebbe, the other at ease with secular America - are drawn into one another’s worlds despite a father’s strong opposition.
Set against the backdrop of World War II and the creation of the state of Israel, The Chosen is a poignant novel about transformation and tradition, growing up and growing wise, and finding yourself - even if it might mean disappointing the ones we love.
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The Dressmaker's Secret
Author: Lorna Cooke - 378 pages
Thursday, June 26, 2025 @ 7:30pm
The Dressmaker’s Secret: Shortlisted for Best Historical Romance Novel Awards 2023 ‘Extraordinary… Brought history alive on the page… Tense and emotional… Sensitive yet brutal…With the most unexpected end that left me breathless. Wow, just wow… Incredible’ NetGalley Review,
1941, Nazi-occupied Paris: In the glamorous Ritz hotel there is a woman with a dangerous secret…
As Coco Chanel’s assistant, Adèle lives side by side with German officers in the splendor of The Ritz hotel. But Adèle has a secret. She is working for the resistance, right under the Germans’ noses. As occupied Paris becomes more and more dangerous, Adèle will have to decide if she can risk everything to save innocent lives and protect the man she loves… Present day: Chloé’s grandmother has never spoken about the war and avoids questions about the legendary designer she once worked for. Now Chloé has come to Paris, to uncover the truth about Adèle’s life. But is she prepared for what she will find? And for the power of her grandmother’s secrets to change her family forever… An absolutely gripping and heartbreaking wartime story of the enduring power of love, for fans of The Lost Girls of Paris and The Nightingale.
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Summer of '69
Author: Elin Hiderbrand - 432 pages
Thursday, August 21, 2025 @ 7:30pm
Four siblings experience the drama, intrigue, and upheaval of the '60s summer when everything changed in Elin Hildebrand’s #1 New York Times bestselling historical novel. Welcome to the most tumultuous summer of the twentieth century. It's 1969, and for the Levin family, the times they are a-changing. Every year the children have looked forward to spending the summer at their grandmother's historic home in downtown Nantucket. But like so much else in America, nothing is the same: Blair, the oldest sister, is marooned in Boston, pregnant with twins and unable to travel. Middle sister Kirby, caught up in the thrilling vortex of civil rights protests and determined to be independent, takes a summer job on Martha's Vineyard. Only-son Tiger is an infantry soldier, recently deployed to Vietnam. And thirteen-year-old Jessie suddenly feels like an only child, marooned in the house with her out-of-touch grandmother and her worried mother, while each of them hides a troubling secret.
As the summer heats up, Ted Kennedy sinks a car in Chappaquiddick, man flies to the moon, and Jessie and her family experience their own dramatic upheavals along with the rest of the country. In her first historical novel, rich with the details of an era that shaped both a nation and an island thirty miles out to sea, Elin Hilderbrand once again earns her title as queen of the summer novel.
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If you have a library card, you can get books for free through Hoopla - the Nassau county book lending service.
In our hopes to offer something for everyone, we want to share a free audiobook resource, Libby by OverDrive. Libby allows you to digitally download books to various devices including iPhone, Android and a tablet. Given your busy and hectic schedules, we believe an audio option may be beneficial to you. This option is also useful for people who struggle with fine print. The website https://www.
Sun, November 24 2024
23 Cheshvan 5785
