The Five Books: Jewish Authors on the Books That Shaped Them

One Thanksgiving, when Jordan Salama was home from school, he noticed a thick binder in his grandfather's basement labeled “Historia Antigua”, which means ancient history in Spanish. Stuffed with photographs and documents, Jordan found that his grandfather had recorded hundreds of years of their family's history, covering movements and migrations between the Ottoman Empire and Argentina. This discovery sent Jordan on a quest to Argentina to discover the story of his great-grandfather, who had been a traveling salesman in the Andes in the early 20th century. The resulting book, Stranger in the Desert, was a finalist for the 2026 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature. 

In this episode, we discuss Jordan’s process of ‘climbing out of a linguistic hole’ by learning his family’s languages, the interconnected identities of Jews, Christians, and Muslims from the Ottoman Empire in Argentina, and how he teaches others to use the tools of journalism to discover their own family histories. 

Jordan Salama is an author and a contributing writer at The New Yorker. He has written about migration, culture, and the environment in the Americas. His first book, Every Day the River Changes, about a journey down Colombia’s Río Magdalena, and the people who live along its banks, was named one of the best books of 2021 by Kirkus Reviews, and a top new travel book by the New York Times.

Jordan Salama’s Five Books:

1. Even This I Get To Experience by Norman Lear

2. In an Antique Land by Amitav Ghosh

3. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

4. Larga Distancia by Tali Goldman (Spanish Language)

5. Stranger in the Desert by Jordan Salama

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Also Mentioned:

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The Five Books is a podcast that celebrates the role of books in Jewish culture. Through author interviews, we delve into Jewish identity and discover each author’s favorite novels. Join us every week for new Jewish book recommendations! Some of our episodes have included conversations with Rabbi Sharon Brous, Sam Sussman, Rabbi Angela Buchdahl and Allegra Goodman.

⁠⁠⁠Sign up for our newsletter⁠⁠⁠ to get new episode reminders, authors’ five book picks, and more delivered straight to your inbox.

Find us on at  ⁠www.fivebookspod.org, on Instagram ⁠@fivebookspod ⁠or on Facebook at The Five Books Podcast.

For feedback or author recommendations please email us at ⁠[email protected]⁠

The Five Books has the advisory and promotional support of the Jewish Book Council. Jewish Book Council is a nonprofit dedicated to amplifying and celebrating Jewish literature and supporting authors and readers. Stay up to date on the latest in Jewish literature! ⁠https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/events/celebrate⁠

The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity. 

As an Amazon Associate, The Five Books earns from qualifying purchases. Any commissions we receive help support our nonprofit mission and are reinvested in producing the podcast and related programming.

Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt Cohen

Produced by Odelia Rubin

Editorial and website support by Aimee Fogel

Artwork by Elad Lifshitz of the Dov Abramson Studio

Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions

Charming and wry, nonagenarian Francine Klagsbrun reflects on her unlikely Jewish education as a girl in the 1930s and 40s, on the seeds of her feminist activism, and on why she is grateful to have reinvigorated Henrietta Szold’s legacy.  

Francine Klagsbrun has had a tremendous impact on the story of American Jewish women. Born in 1931, she has been a passionate advocate for women in Jewish religious life. Francine is the author of more than a dozen books, including Lioness: Golda Meir and the Nation of Israel, which won the National Jewish Book Award in 2017. 

She has been a columnist for New York Jewish Week and Moment, is a contributing editor to Lilith, and is on the editorial board of Hadassah Magazine. Her writings have appeared in the New York Times, the Boston Globe, Newsweek, Ms.magazine, and other national publications. 

Her latest book, Henrietta Szold: Hadassah and the Zionist Dream, reveals the complex life and work of Henrietta Szold, renowned as the founder of Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America. She later moved to Mandate Palestine to help shape education, health, and social services there. The pinnacle of her career came in her seventies, when she took on the task of directing the Youth Aliyah program, which rescued thousands of young people from the Nazis and resettled them in Palestine.Using Szold’s copious letters, diaries, and essays, along with other archival documents, Francine Klagsbrun reveals Szold as a multi-faceted human being whose impact on women’s lives as well as on education and health systems still resonates. This book is part of the Jewish Lives Series, from Yale University Press. This episode was one of our very first episodes, broadcast initially in December 2024.

Francine Klagsbrun’s Five Books:

Thank you to Francine Klagsbrun and Dr. Sarah Klagsbrun for sharing personal photos which are on our social media pages: @fivebookspod on Instagram and The Five Books on Facebook.

The Five Books is a podcast that celebrates the role of books in Jewish culture. Through author interviews, we delve into Jewish identity and discover each author’s favorite novels. Join us every week for new Jewish book recommendations! Some of our episodes have included conversations with Rabbi Sharon Brous, Sam Sussman, Rabbi Angela Buchdahl and Allegra Goodman.

⁠⁠⁠Sign up for our newsletter⁠⁠⁠ to get new episode reminders, authors’ five book picks, and more delivered straight to your inbox.

For feedback or author recommendations please email us at ⁠[email protected]⁠

The Five Books has the advisory and promotional support of the Jewish Book Council. Jewish Book Council is a nonprofit dedicated to amplifying and celebrating Jewish literature and supporting authors and readers. Stay up to date on the latest in Jewish literature! ⁠https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/events/celebrate⁠

The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity. 

As an Amazon Associate, The Five Books earns from qualifying purchases. Any commissions we receive help support our nonprofit mission and are reinvested in producing the podcast and related programming.

Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt Cohen

Produced by Odelia Rubin

Editorial and website support by Aimee Fogel

Artwork by Elad Lifshitz of the Dov Abramson Studio

Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions

After publishing her essay collection People Love Dead Jews, Dara Horn found her inbox flooded with messages from readers about their own experiences of anti-semitism. She realized that her readers wanted her to come up with an answer to all the problems she had raised. Her response is in her latest book, The Final Solution to the Jewish Question: A Love Story for the Living. In this conversation, Dara explains why reading Yiddish works are critical to understanding the Holocaust. We also discuss the internalized antisemitism that both she and Sarah Hurwitz explore in their latest works, what she’s learned from Natan Sharansky, and how we should teach about Judaism as an anti-tyrannical movement. 

Dara Horn is the award-winning author of seven books, including the novels The World to Come, All Other Nights, the graphic novel One Little Goat and the essay collection People Love Dead Jews: Reports from a Haunted Present. Dara Horn is also the recipient of three National Jewish Book Awards, among many other honors. 

Regular listeners might notice that this is Dara’s second time on the show! We were delighted to talk to Dara about her book One Little Goat  last April. If you haven’t yet heard it, you can go back to Dara’s first episode on the show and hear her talk about Tevye the Dairyman by Sholom Aleichem and Mr. Mani by A B Yehoshua. 

Dara Horn’s Five Books:

1.A book that inspired, informed, or is in conversation with your latest work:

As a Jew by Sarah Hurwitz2. A book you changed your mind about – one you once loved, misunderstood, or now see differently:

See Under: Love by David Grossman 

3. A line or passage from a book that you think about often or that changed your worldview:

From Natan Sharansky's memoir Fear No Evil, "No one else can humiliate me. I can only humiliate myself."

4. The book you're reading now:

Arrow in the Blue by Arthur Koestler

5. Your latest book:

The Final Solution to the Jewish Question: A Love Story for the Living

Other Episodes You Might Enjoy:

Also Mentioned:

The Five Books is a podcast that celebrates the role of books in Jewish culture. Through author interviews, we delve into Jewish identity and discover each author’s favorite novels. Join us every week for new Jewish book recommendations! Some of our episodes have included conversations with Rabbi Sharon Brous, Sam Sussman, Rabbi Angela Buchdahl and Allegra Goodman.

⁠⁠⁠Sign up for our newsletter⁠⁠⁠ to get new episode reminders, authors’ five book picks, and more delivered straight to your inbox.

Find us on at  ⁠www.fivebookspod.org, on Instagram ⁠@fivebookspod ⁠or on Facebook at The Five Books Podcast.

For feedback or author recommendations please email us at ⁠[email protected]⁠

The Five Books has the advisory and promotional support of the Jewish Book Council. Jewish Book Council is a nonprofit dedicated to amplifying and celebrating Jewish literature and supporting authors and readers. Stay up to date on the latest in Jewish literature! ⁠https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/events/celebrate⁠

The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity. 

 As an Amazon Associate, The Five Books earns from qualifying purchases. Any commissions we receive help support our nonprofit mission and are reinvested in producing the podcast and related programming.

Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt Cohen

Produced by Odelia Rubin

Editorial and website support by Aimee Fogel

Artwork by Elad Lifshitz of the Dov Abramson Studio

Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions

With the Jewish holiday season fast approaching, many of us are thinking about holiday hosting. Rebekah Lowin has you covered: a challah recipe, an apple themed tablescape, an etrog mold dupe, and a Yom Kippur break-fast recovery packet for your guests. In this episode, Rebekah tells us about she became the Jewish Martha Stewart, reflecting on both her time working at Martha Stewart Living, and growing up in an artistic Jewish home, where her grandfather built a wooden sukkah that her family still uses and her Broadway actress mother sewed its draperies. She also talks about what it was like growing up without a Jewish community, and the unexpected impact of reading the children’s book Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins.

Rebekah hopes her new book of recipes, rituals, and traditions, A Year of Jewish Joy, will help those living without tight-knit communities feel welcomed back into Judaism.

Rebekah Lowin is a writer and content creator known for her whimsical, design-forward approach to Jewish holiday cooking, décor, craft projects, and storytelling. Since launching her blog in 2019, she's partnered with dozens of national brands including Crate & Barrel, HGTV.com, and Food Network Magazine, bringing Jewish holiday ideas into mainstream media. Combining creative inspiration and cultural depth with a playful editorial sensibility, her work aims to make traditions feel fresh, accessible, and joyful for a new generation of Jewish readers.

Rebekah Lowin’s Five Books:

1. ⁠Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins by Eric Kimmel and Trina Schart Hyman⁠

2. ⁠The Sabbath by Abraham Joshua Heschel ⁠

3. ⁠The Wisdom of Anxiety by Sheryl Paul⁠

4. ⁠A Time to Gather by Bruce Feiler⁠

5. ⁠A Year of Jewish Joy by Rebekah Lowin⁠

Other Episodes You Might Enjoy:

⁠Bruce Feiler on Making Meaning, One Ritual at a Time⁠

⁠Adeena Sussman on Flavor as a Jewish Language⁠

⁠Samantha Ellis on Becoming a Keeper of Her Ancestral Language⁠

⁠Bonny Reichert on Food, Fear, and Finding Beauty⁠

The Five Books is a podcast that celebrates the role of books in Jewish culture. Through author interviews, we delve into Jewish identity and discover each author’s favorite novels. Join us every week for new Jewish book recommendations! Some of our episodes have included conversations with Rabbi Sharon Brous, Sam Sussman, Rabbi Angela Buchdahl and Allegra Goodman.

⁠⁠⁠⁠Sign up for our newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠ to get new episode reminders, authors’ five book picks, and more delivered straight to your inbox.

Find us on at ⁠ ⁠www.fivebookspod.org⁠, on Instagram⁠ ⁠@fivebookspod ⁠⁠or on Facebook at The Five Books Podcast.

For feedback or author recommendations please email us at ⁠[email protected]⁠

The Five Books has the advisory and promotional support of the Jewish Book Council. Jewish Book Council is a nonprofit dedicated to amplifying and celebrating Jewish literature and supporting authors and readers. Stay up to date on the latest in Jewish literature!⁠ ⁠https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/events/celebrate⁠⁠

The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity. 

Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt Cohen

Produced by Odelia Rubin

Editorial and website support by Aimee Fogel

Artwork by Elad Lifshitz of the Dov Abramson Studio

Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions

Bruce Feiler speaks to us about the relationship between storytelling and ritual — and why both are essential tools for navigating change, creating meaning and building connection. We also discuss the moments when life takes a difficult turn (“lifequakes” as Bruce calls them), his journey walking the Bible and how it stems from his “rootedness” as a Southern Jew, and the ongoing tension between innovation and tradition at the heart of Jewish life.

Bruce is the author of seven New York Times bestsellers, including Life Is In The Transitions, The Secrets Of Happy Families, and Council Of Dads. He is also the author of several nonfiction books about the bible, including Abraham, Where God Was Born, America’s Prophet, and The First Love Story. His book Walking the Bible describes his 10,000 mile journey retracing the Five Books of Moses, which spent a year and a half on the New York Times bestseller list and has been translated into fifteen languages. His three TED Talks have been viewed more than five million times; and he teaches the Webby Award-winning TED Course How To Master Life Transitions.

In this episode, we discuss his latest book, A Time To Gather: How Ritual Created the World--and How It Can Save Us.

Bruce Feiler’s Five Books:

1. Lech L’cha, Genesis

2. Understanding Genesis by Nahum Sarna

3. The Storytelling Animal by Jonathan Gottschall

4. When We See You Again by Rachel Goldberg-Polin

5. A Time To Gather: How Ritual Created the World--and How It Can Save Us by Bruce Feiler

Other Episodes You Might Enjoy:

Also Mentioned:

The Five Books is a podcast that celebrates the role of books in Jewish culture. Through author interviews, we delve into Jewish identity and discover each author’s favorite novels. Join us every week for new Jewish book recommendations! Some of our episodes have included conversations with Rabbi Sharon Brous, Sam Sussman, Rabbi Angela Buchdahl and Allegra Goodman.

⁠⁠⁠Sign up for our newsletter⁠⁠⁠ to get new episode reminders, authors’ five book picks, and more delivered straight to your inbox.

Find us on at  ⁠www.fivebookspod.org, on Instagram ⁠@fivebookspod ⁠or on Facebook at The Five Books Podcast.

For feedback or author recommendations please email us at ⁠[email protected]⁠

The Five Books has the advisory and promotional support of the Jewish Book Council. Jewish Book Council is a nonprofit dedicated to amplifying and celebrating Jewish literature and supporting authors and readers. Stay up to date on the latest in Jewish literature! ⁠https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/events/celebrate⁠

The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity. 

Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt Cohen

Produced by Odelia Rubin

Editorial and website support by Aimee Fogel

Artwork by Elad Lifshitz of the Dov Abramson Studio

Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions

As this episode is released in the days before Tisha B'Av, the saddest day on the Jewish calendar, it feels especially fitting to sit with a conversation about grief, faith, and what it means to keep living after unimaginable loss. Tisha B'Av commemorates the destruction of both Temples in ancient Jerusalem, along with many other tragedies throughout Jewish history, and has become a day of collective mourning. Rachel Goldberg-Polin's story reminds us that Jewish grief is painfully present.

Rachel speaks to us about the books that shaped her faith, and the ones that offer reprieve and consolation. We also discuss reading Victor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning after her son Hersh’s death, grief in the poetry of Robert Frost, and Rachel’s hope of finding Shabbat again.

On the morning of October 7th, 2023, Rachel Goldberg-Polin’s beloved twenty-three-year-old son, Hersh, was stolen from a music festival billed as a celebration of unity and love—and, in that moment, her life was forever separated into The Before and The After. Over the next eleven months, she and her husband, Jon, would work tirelessly—in public and behind the scenes—to secure the hostages’ release, to breathe some humanity into the situation while they were experiencing relentless emotional and psychological torment. The power of her raw and fervent pleas soon made her the face of the hostage crisis. And when Hersh and five other captives were executed after surviving 328 days of violence and cruelty, she would also become the face of its ultimate cost.

Rachel’s memoir When We See You Again feels less like a book and more like a soul portal. It is a modern lamentation: it leads us deeper into the holiness of the universe, into its cruelty and its tenderness, into the unbearable weight of love and loss.

Rachel Goldberg-Polin’s Five Books:

Other Episodes You Might Enjoy:

Also Mentioned:

The Five Books is a podcast that celebrates the role of books in Jewish culture. Through author interviews, we delve into Jewish identity and discover each author’s favorite novels. Join us every week for new Jewish book recommendations! Some of our episodes have included conversations with Rabbi Sharon Brous, Sam Sussman, Rabbi Angela Buchdahl and Allegra Goodman.

⁠⁠⁠Sign up for our newsletter⁠⁠⁠ to get new episode reminders, authors’ five book picks, and more delivered straight to your inbox.

Find us on Instagram ⁠@fivebookspod ⁠or on Facebook at The Five Books Podcast.

For feedback or author recommendations please email us at ⁠[email protected]⁠

For transcripts and more find us online at ⁠www.fivebookspod.org ⁠

The Five Books has the advisory and promotional support of the Jewish Book Council. Jewish Book Council is a nonprofit dedicated to amplifying and celebrating Jewish literature and supporting authors and readers. Stay up to date on the latest in Jewish literature! ⁠https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/events/celebrate⁠

The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity. 

Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt Cohen

Produced by Odelia Rubin

Editorial and website support by Amelia Merrill

Artwork by Elad Lifshitz of the Dov Abramson Studio

Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions

Portia Elan tells us about her journey to become a Jew by choice after attending Friday night services and feeling that she had “come home.” We also discuss her fascination with the AIDS quilt as a child, and the beauty in finding queer elders in her synagogue. Portia also reflects on how she understands tikkun olam: rooted in how we care for others and in our responsibility to the balance of entire ecosystems.

Portia Elan studied history at Stanford University and earned an MFA from the University of Victoria before returning to California, where she has worked as a waitress, bookseller, teacher, and public librarian. She is a former Lambda Literary Fellow and lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her wife and an abundance of cats. Homebound, Portia’s debut novel, is a clear-eyed, hopeful work of speculative fiction about humanity’s future and capacity for love. 

Homebound is a GMA Book Club pick and the latest selection for Nu Reads, the curated, bi-monthly book subscription service from Jewish Book Council.

Homebound Portia Elan’s  Five Books:

Surprised by God by Danya Ruttenberg

The History of Love by Nicole Krauss

Cannery Row by John Steinbeck

The Encore by Juliet Izon

HOMEBOUND by Portia Elan

Other Episodes You Might Enjoy:

Alicia Jo Rabins on Composing a Life of Meaning

Yael van der Wouden on Rage, Desire, and Magic

Rabbi Sharon Brous on Finding Her Place in the Jewish Community

Other Books Mentioned:

The Sabbath by Abraham Joshua Heschel 

When the Emperor Was Divine and The Swimmers by Julie Otsuka 

The Five Books is a podcast that celebrates the role of books in Jewish culture. Through author interviews, we delve into Jewish identity and discover each author’s favorite novels. Join us every week for new Jewish book recommendations! Some of our episodes have included conversations with Rabbi Sharon Brous, Sam Sussman, Rabbi Angela Buchdahl and Allegra Goodman.

⁠⁠⁠Sign up for our newsletter⁠⁠⁠ to get new episode reminders, authors’ five book picks, and more delivered straight to your inbox.

Find us on Instagram ⁠@fivebookspod ⁠or on Facebook at The Five Books Podcast.

For feedback or author recommendations please email us at ⁠[email protected]⁠

For transcripts and more find us online at ⁠www.fivebookspod.org ⁠

The Five Books has the advisory and promotional support of the Jewish Book Council. Jewish Book Council is a nonprofit dedicated to amplifying and celebrating Jewish literature and supporting authors and readers. Stay up to date on the latest in Jewish literature! ⁠https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/events/celebrate⁠

The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity. 

Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt Cohen

Produced by Odelia Rubin

Editorial and website support by Amelia Merrill

Artwork by Elad Lifshitz of the Dov Abramson Studio

Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions

In this conversation, Dahlia Adler discusses the emotional and cultural terrain of love, identity, and storytelling within and beyond the Modern Orthodox world. We explore the particular pressures and expectations around romance in a community where shared values, observance, and belief are foundational. Dahlia also reflects on her unexpected journey to understanding her own bisexual identity as a result of writing a sapphic romance. And we explore her deep love of flawed characters - from Biblical women, to her own protagonists and her commitment to rendering them with empathy, context and moral complexity.

Dahlia Adler is an award-winning author of romance novels for both teens and adults, a prolific YA anthologist, and the founder of the website LGBTQReads. Her novels include the Kids' Indie Next picks Cool for the Summer, Home Field Advantage, and Going Bicoastal, a Sydney Taylor Honor book. She lives in the New York City suburbs with her family.  

Dahlia’s latest novel, Soon By You, is a rom-com set in the Modern Orthodox community on the Upper West Side. 

Dahlia Adler’s Five Books:

1. Alan and Naomi by Myron Levoy

2. Playing with Matches by Suri Rosen

3. Biblical Images: Men and Women of the Bible by Adin Steinsaltz

4. Sisters of Fortune by Esther Chehebar

5. Soon By You by Dahlia Adler

Other Media Mentioned:

- LGBTQReads

- Unorthodox Love by Heidi Shertok

Other Episodes You Might Enjoy:

Esther Chehebar on Marriage, Sisterhood, and the Weight of Tradition

Jean Meltzer on ‘Jewitches’ and Jewish Joy

Jessica Elisheva Emerson on Belief, Identity, and Women’s Desire

Jennifer Weiner on “Women’s Fiction”

The Five Books is a podcast that celebrates the role of books in Jewish culture. Through author interviews, we delve into Jewish identity and discover each author’s favorite novels. Join us every week for new Jewish book recommendations! Some of our episodes have included conversations with Rabbi Sharon Brous, Sam Sussman, Rabbi Angela Buchdahl and Allegra Goodman.

⁠⁠⁠Sign up for our newsletter⁠⁠⁠ to get new episode reminders, authors’ five book picks, and more delivered straight to your inbox.

Find us on Instagram ⁠@fivebookspod ⁠or on Facebook at The Five Books Podcast.

For feedback or author recommendations please email us at ⁠[email protected]⁠

For transcripts and more find us online at ⁠www.fivebookspod.org ⁠

The Five Books has the advisory and promotional support of the Jewish Book Council. Jewish Book Council is a nonprofit dedicated to amplifying and celebrating Jewish literature and supporting authors and readers. Stay up to date on the latest in Jewish literature! ⁠https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/events/celebrate⁠

The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity. 

Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt Cohen

Produced by Odelia Rubin

Editorial and website support by Amelia Merrill

Artwork by Elad Lifshitz of the Dov Abramson Studio

Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions

Is two Jews, three opinions a good thing? In this episode, Laurie Frankel discusses the very Jewish capacity of holding space for many different ideas and views, and how this capacity might be exactly what we need in this moment. We’ll also discuss the power and devastation of Cythnia Ozick’s short story “The Shawl,” its contribution to the conversation around trauma, and how a difficult-to-believe premise followed by realism (like that in Naomi Alderman’s The Power) is one of Laurie’s favorite structures for fiction. 

Laurie Frankel is the New York Times bestselling, award-winning author of six novels. Her writing has also appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, The Washington Post, Poets & Writers, Publisher’s Weekly, People Magazine, Lit Hub, The Sydney Morning Herald, and more. She is the recipient of the Washington State Book Award and the Endeavor Award. A proponent of transgender rights, she wrote about her child’s transition in an essay in the New York Times titled, “From He to She in First Grade.” Her novel This Is How It Always Is, also about a transgender child, was a Reese’s Book Club Pick and was listed as one of the best books of 2017 by People Magazine, Bustle, and more.

Laurie’s latest novel is Enormous Wings. At seventy-seven, Pepper Mills is too old to be a stranger in a strange land. She didn’t choose the Vista View Retirement Community of Austin, Texas—that would be her three grown children—but when she grudgingly moves in, she not only makes new friends, she falls in love. Then the exhaustion, vomiting, and confusion start. She fears it’s cancer, dementia, a stroke. But a raft of tests later, the news is even more shocking: She’s pregnant. As word gets out, everyone wants a piece of her: the press and paparazzi, activists and medical researchers, belly-rubbers and rubber-neckers all descending on Vista View while Pepper struggles to determine her next move. Soon she has some hard decisions to make—and some she’s not allowed to make.

Laurie Frankel’s Five Books:

1. The Shawl and Rosa, interconnected short stories by Cynthia Ozick

2. Angels in America, a play by Tony Kushner 

3. The Power by Naomi Alderman

4. The Beheading Game by Rebecca Lehmann 

5. Enormous Wings by Laurie Frankel

Other Episodes You Might Enjoy:

Fran Fabriczki on “Homelooseness” and a Love Letter to Los Angeles

Judith Viorst on Happiness, Agency, and the Art of Aging

Kitty Zeldis on Passing and the Relief of Being “Kitty”

Gayle Forman on the Innate Goodness of Young People

The Five Books is a podcast that celebrates the role of books in Jewish culture. Through author interviews, we delve into Jewish identity and discover each author’s favorite novels. Join us every week for new Jewish book recommendations! Some of our episodes have included conversations with Rabbi Sharon Brous, Sam Sussman, Rabbi Angela Buchdahl and Allegra Goodman.

⁠⁠⁠Sign up for our newsletter⁠⁠⁠ to get new episode reminders, authors’ five book picks, and more delivered straight to your inbox.

Find us on Instagram ⁠@fivebookspod ⁠or on Facebook at The Five Books Podcast.

For feedback or author recommendations please email us at ⁠[email protected]⁠

For transcripts and more find us online at ⁠www.fivebookspod.org ⁠

The Five Books has the advisory and promotional support of the Jewish Book Council. Jewish Book Council is a nonprofit dedicated to amplifying and celebrating Jewish literature and supporting authors and readers. Stay up to date on the latest in Jewish literature! ⁠https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/events/celebrate⁠

The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity. 

Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt Cohen

Produced by Odelia Rubin

Editorial and website support by Amelia Merrill

Artwork by Elad Lifshitz of the Dov Abramson Studio

Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions

In recognition of Jewish Heritage Month, this episode features a conversation with Nicholas Lemann, whose work and life story open up questions about American and Jewish identity. Nicholas discusses his assimilated Louisianan/ German-Jewish upbringing and his lifelong quest for connection with Judaism. What does it mean to be both Jewish and have ancestors who benefitted from slavery? We’ll also discuss what Tolstoy’s Russia has in common with the New Orleans of Nicholas’ childhood, and his appreciation for reading the Torah in all its moral complexity. 

Nicholas was born and raised in New Orleans and has been a magazine writer since he was a teenager. He has worked at the Washington Monthly, Texas Monthly, the Washington Post, The Atlantic Monthly, and has been a staff writer at the New Yorker since 1999. He is a professor and dean emeritus at the Columbia Journalism school, and in 2023 was appointed to Columbia’s Task Force on Antisemitism.

Nicholas is also the author of many books of nonfiction including The Promised Land: The Great Black Migration and How It Changed America, The Big Test: The Secret History of the American Meritocracy, and Transaction Man: The Rise of the Deal and the Decline of the American Dream.  His latest book is Returning: A Search for Home Across Three Centuries. delves deeply into his family’s German-Jewish-Lousianan story. From their arrival in Louisiana in the 1830s as peddlers from Germany, to their becoming plantation owners and department store owners after the Civil War, to their emergence in the aristocratic world of New Orleans, where they could never quite belong. 

Nicholas Lemann’s Five Books:

1. My Son the Nut by Allan Sherman (album)

2. How Judaism Became a Religion by Leora Batnitzky

3. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

4. The Radetzky March by Joseph Roth

5. Returning: A Search for Home Across Three Centuries by Nicholas Lemann

Other Episodes You Might Enjoy:

Rachel Cockerell on the Zionist Dream that Sailed to Galveston

Matti Friedman on the Stories that Built a People

Elizabeth Graver on Lost Worlds and New Doorways

Francine Klagsbrun on Embracing and Reshaping Tradition

The Five Books is a podcast that celebrates the role of books in Jewish culture. Through author interviews, we delve into Jewish identity and discover each author’s favorite novels. Join us every week for new Jewish book recommendations! Some of our episodes have included conversations with Rabbi Sharon Brous, Sam Sussman, Rabbi Angela Buchdahl and Allegra Goodman.

⁠⁠⁠Sign up for our newsletter⁠⁠⁠ to get new episode reminders, authors’ five book picks, and more delivered straight to your inbox.

Find us on Instagram ⁠@fivebookspod ⁠or on Facebook at The Five Books Podcast.

For feedback or author recommendations please email us at ⁠[email protected]⁠

For transcripts and more find us online at ⁠www.fivebookspod.org ⁠

The Five Books has the advisory and promotional support of the Jewish Book Council. Jewish Book Council is a nonprofit dedicated to amplifying and celebrating Jewish literature and supporting authors and readers. Stay up to date on the latest in Jewish literature! ⁠https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/events/celebrate⁠

The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity. 

Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt Cohen

Produced by Odelia Rubin

Editorial and website support by Amelia Merrill

Artwork by Elad Lifshitz of the Dov Abramson Studio

Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions