Though summer is well underway, if you’re an avid reader like me, it’s never too late to get a list of good summer reads. And perhaps like me, you also have a towering stack of titles on your nightstand (or a growing list on your Kindle). But who can resist a clever short story, a love story, or a powerful biography? So, here are a few more must-reads to add to your list.
Recitatif by the late Nobel laureate Toni Morrison is a gem of a book. Morrison wrote 11 novels – but only one short story. This alone means attention must be paid. In a new stand-alone version, with a brilliant introduction and analysis by Zadie Smith, the story cleverly explores race through the friendship of Twyla and Roberta, two women who met as children in a shelter and connect again as adults many years later. In its brisk 43 pages, Morrison never identifies the race of the two women. And so, as we read along, we are forced to consider our own perceptions and assumptions about race. If you choose only one book from my list, I recommend this one. It is a beautifully crafted jewel that was highly recommended by not one, but two, dear friends of AJWS.
In Memoriam by Alice Winn is a love story between two English schoolboys that unfolds during the horrors of World War I. This was another title that came highly recommended by a wonderful friend of AJWS. The story follows Henry Gaunt and Sidney Ellwood, both from well-to-do families, both secretly in love with one another. After an uncle is accused of being a German spy, at his family’s urging (and to escape his verboten feelings for his best friend), Henry enlists. However, Sidney soon does the same. They encounter each other in the trenches, and we experience the hell of war through their young eyes and the beauty and profundity of a love that could not be openly acknowledged. While the book sounds dark and dismal, it made me deeply grateful to be living in 2024 rather than 1914 and reminded me of our ability, as human beings, to find resilience and connection even when the odds are stacked (high) against us.
The Amen Effect: Ancient Wisdom to Mend Our Broken Hearts and World is written by the incomparable Rabbi Sharon Brous, who shares her expansive and wise thought leadership. In her book, Rabbi Brous describes an ancient ritual from around the third century found in the Mishna. The passage describes a ritual when several times a year, hundreds of thousands of Jews would enter the plaza of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem and start circling counterclockwise. Those in mourning or despair, however, would circle clockwise. When those circling counterclockwise encountered someone in pain, they would look them in the eye and inquire about their distress. After the mourner described their troubles, the listener would offer a blessing which included the words: “You are not alone.” Rabbi Brous describes this as “with-nessing.” Showing up and being with someone matters. Asking “what can I do today to help another person” is such a simple yet powerful question, especially in these challenging times. This book is a constant. One to read and reread.
In One Hundred Saturdays: Stella Levi and the Search for a Lost World by Michael Frank, a 99-year-old Holocaust survivor reminisces about growing up in La Juderia, the former Jewish community on the Greek Island of Rhodes. Tragically, the Germans seized the island in 1943, rounded up all 1,700 inhabitants and transported them to Auschwitz. Stella Levi was among the only persons who made it through that hellacious ordeal. Decades later, the author and Levi would meet by chance at a lecture in New York City. Frank spent 100 Saturdays over a six-year period visiting Levi in her Greenwich Village home and listening to her remarkable life story. As we read on, we get to witness the heartwarming friendship that unfolds between the author and the storyteller. Perhaps the most memorable theme of the book is that listening opens up worlds for oneself and others.
Helen Suzman: Bright Star in a Dark Chamber by Robin Renwick delves into the life of someone who inspired me at a young age and taught me that persistence is necessary to achieve social change. A member of the South African parliament for more than three decades, Helen Suzman stood for an anti-racist society in which the apartheid system would end. She had a vision. She was focused. And she was dogged in her pursuit. In looking back at the legislation she introduced, every single one of them would come to pass even though, year after year, her peers pushed back and accused her of being unpatriotic. In one famous exchange, a politician demanded to know why she asked questions that embarrassed South Africa, to which she replied, “It is not my questions that embarrass South Africa, it is your answers.” Helen Suzman was an incredible woman. And I encourage you to pick up this biography to learn more.
My last offering is one that now sits at the very top of my own must-read pile. Practical Radicals: Seven Strategies to Change the World by Deepak Bhargava and Stephanie Luce, recommended by a thoughtful AJWS colleague, delves into the world of how social movements win. It examines the accomplishments of several grassroots movements including the Fight for $15, the Divestment Movement and the New Georgia Project. I am particularly intrigued to read the authors’ perspective on GMHC’s (Gay Men’s Health Crisis) response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic, an organization at which I spent a significant part of my career. As AJWS works to overcome grave injustices across the globe, I welcome any lessons from the past that can help us all fight for a better future. I hope you will take the time to read it too.
As far as summer reads go, some of these recommendations may seem a little heavy. In that case, I give you permission to leave some until the fall! Regardless of when you decide to indulge, it is my hope that you find the titles on this list to be as thought-provoking, moving, and inspirational as I did.
