Book Discussions 2025-2026

We're looking forward to another year of excellent book discussions!

All book discussions will be held on Sundays, from 10 - 11:30 a.m. Most will be held exclusively over Zoom. Our MAY discussion will feature the author ... former Shirat member Marc Nemiroff. We will meet in May IN PERSON (in our regular space). Those who can't attend in person can join us over Zoom.  

Please join us for (some or all of) our book discussions. All are welcome. More details (including titles and dates) are listed below.

For more information, please contact Heidi Coleman at Heidi.L.Coleman@gmail.com. Happy Reading!!

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Sunday, September 7
Your Presence Is Mandatory: A Novel, by Sasha Vasilyuk (Fiction, 336 pages)

WINNER of the 2025 SAMI ROHR PRIZE for JEWISH LITERATURE | GOLD MEDAL WINNER for the 94th ANNUAL CALIFORNIA BOOK AWARDS | LONGLISTED for the CENTER FOR FICTION FIRST NOVEL PRIZE
A riveting debut novel, based on real events, about a World War II veteran with a secret that could land him in the Gulag, and his family who are forced to live in the shadow of all he has not told them.

Ukraine, 2007. Yefim Shulman, husband, grandfather and war veteran, was beloved by his family and his coworkers. But in the days after his death, his widow Nina finds a letter to the KGB in his briefcase. Yefim had a lifelong secret, and his confession forces them to reassess the man they thought they knew and the country he had defended. In 1941, Yefim is a young artillerist on the border between the Soviet Union and Germany, eager to defend his country and his large Jewish family against Hitler's forces. But surviving the war requires sacrifices Yefim never imagined-and even when the war ends, his fight isn't over. He must conceal his choices from the KGB and from his family. Spanning seven decades between World War II and the current Russia-Ukraine conflict, Your Presence Is Mandatory traces the effect Yefim's coverup had on the lives of Nina, their two children and grandchildren. In the process, Sasha Vasilyuk shines a light on one family caught between two totalitarian regimes, and the grace they find in the course of their survival.

Sunday, November 16
The Invisible Wall, by Harry Bernstein (Memoir, 321 pages)
This wonderfully charming memoir, written when the author was 93, vibrantly brings to life an all-but-forgotten time and place. It is a moving tale of working-class life, and of the boundaries that can be overcome by love.

The narrow street where Harry Bernstein grew up, in a small English mill town, was seemingly unremarkable. It was identical to countless other streets in countless other working-class neighborhoods of the early 1900s, except for the “invisible wall” that ran down its center, dividing Jewish families on one side from Christian families on the other. Only a few feet of cobblestones separated Jews from Gentiles, but socially, they were miles apart. On the eve of World War I, Harry’s family struggles to make ends meet. Then Harry’s older sister, Lily, does the unthinkable: She falls in love with Arthur, a Christian boy from across the street.

Sunday, January 11
Norwegian by Night, by Derek Miller (Fiction, 304 pages)
In this winner of the Crime Writers Association John Creasey Dagger Award and the Guardian Best Crime and Thriller of the Year, a former Marine sniper and a newly orphaned boy race across the Norwegian wilderness, fleeing demons both real and imagined.

Sheldon Horowitz--widowed, impatient, impertinent--has grudgingly agreed to leave New York and move in with his granddaughter, Rhea, and her new husband, Lars, in Norway--a country of blue and ice with one thousand Jews, not one of them a former Marine sniper in the Korean War turned watch repairman. Not until now, anyway. Home alone one morning, Sheldon witnesses a dispute between the woman who lives upstairs and an aggressive stranger. When events turn dire, Sheldon seizes and shields the neighbor's young son from the violence, and they flee the scene. As Sheldon and the boy look for a safe haven in an alien world, past and present weave together, forcing them ever forward to a wrenching moment of truth.

Sunday, March 15
The Gifts of the Jews: How a Tribe of Desert Nomads Changed the Way Everyone Thinks and Feels, by Thomas Cahill (Nonfiction, 304 pages)
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
The Gifts of the Jews reveals the critical change that made western civilization possible. Within the matrix of ancient religions and philosophies, life was seen as part of an endless cycle of birth and death; time was like a wheel, spinning ceaselessly. Yet somehow, the ancient Jews began to see time differently. For them, time had a beginning and an end; it was a narrative, whose triumphant conclusion would come in the future. From this insight came a new conception of men and women as individuals with unique destinies. As Thomas Cahill narrates this momentous shift, he also explains the real significance of such Biblical figures as Abraham and Sarah, Moses and the Pharaoh, Joshua, Isaiah, and Jeremiah. Full of compelling stories, insights and humor, The Gifts of the Jews is an irresistible exploration of history; fascinating and fun.

Sunday, May 17 [IN PERSON and over ZOOM] 
Kings Highway: A Novel of the 1960’s, by (former Shirat member) Marc Nemiroff (Fiction, 308 pages)
Sometimes, by serendipity or brute chance, a group of people are of an age or location that becomes a part of history. The five best friends of Kings Highway, a main thoroughfare roughly parallel to Brooklyn’s oceanfront, are such an example. With one exception, without wandering far from their childhood homes, Terry, Janie, Ray, Gary, and Mitch experience the two generations that Baby Boomers are famous for. Their playground bonds tie them together for thirty years of unspoken love, loyalty, and watching each other’s backs.

If you are a Boomer, you’ll recognize much of your own history in this sweeping, panoramic novel of historical events. If you’re not a Boomer, you’ll come to understand the personal experiences of people caught up in World War II, the war in Southeast Asia, and the aftermaths of the Holocaust and Vietnam. The events this self-declared family of friends goes through may be your father’s secret, your boss’s youth, or the reason for a neighbor’s shuttered eyes. A must-read for the stories behind the tumultuous events of the ‘60s and’70s.

Sunday, July 12
Fagin the Thief: A Novel, by Allison Epstein (Fiction, 336 pages)

A thrilling reimagining of the world of Charles Dickens, as seen through the eyes of the infamous Jacob Fagin, London’s most gifted pickpocket, liar, and rogue.

Long before Oliver Twist stumbled onto the scene, Jacob Fagin was scratching out a life for himself in the dark alleys of nineteenth-century London. Born in the Jewish enclave of Stepney shortly after his father was executed as a thief, Jacob's whole world is his open-minded mother, Leah. But Jacob’s prospects are forever altered when a light-fingered pickpocket takes Jacob under his wing and teaches him a trade that pays far better than the neighborhood boys could possibly dream.

Striking out on his own, Jacob familiarizes himself with London's highest value neighborhoods while forging his own path in the shadows. But everything changes when he adopts an aspiring teenage thief named Bill Sikes, whose mercurial temper poses a danger to himself and anyone foolish enough to cross him. Along the way, Jacob’s found family expands to include his closest friend, Nancy, and his greatest protégé, the Artful Dodger. But as Bill’s ambition soars and a major robbery goes awry, Jacob is forced to decide what he really stands for—and what a life is worth. Colorfully written and wickedly funny, Allison Epstein breathes fresh life into the teeming streets of Dickensian London--reclaiming one of Victorian literature’s most notorious villains in an unforgettable new adventure.