Welcome to Litsy!

Asher Lev grows up.

Was finally able to pick these up from the library using curbside pickup for the first time. Needful things is 650+ pages 😱.

Quick, possibly dumb, question: what exactly is #bookspin 🤣?

When rebellious son Larry is asked to pray the Kaddish for 11 months after his father‘s death, he instead logs onto Kaddish.com and signs the prayers away. Bad Jew.

Twenty years later, Larry, now reborn as Reb Shuli, wants the rights as son he carelessly signed away. This takes him to Jerusalem.

While this is kind of satire, I came to appreciate, if not understand, the importance of this to Reb Shuli and the need to turn a wrong, right. 3.5⭐️

#BookReport 04/20

I read and enjoyed Kaddish and The House and its Head. Unforgettable I couldn‘t keep track of what happened in Overthrow and I bailed on that one even though it is short for the #ToB2020.

Jewish law requires to pray Kaddish for the 11 months following a parent‘s death, in order to elevate the deceased‘s soul. That‘s a problem for Larry, the secular son. Fortunately there is Kaddish.com, where you can hire someone else to perform Kaddish for you. Years later, Larry (now Reb Shuli) travels to Israel to meet the man who did Kaddish for him.

To be continued ⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️

#WeeklyForecast 04/20

Lined up for this week are Kaddish.com (almost finished actually), followed by this month‘s #NYRBBookClub choice and the next one for the #ToB.

Let‘s hope this week brings a bit more time to read than last week did 🤞

I love this author‘s writing. I was so happy to find this new book of his at the public library. This book is about a #Jewish guy turned secular who deals with the #death of his religiously observant father.

This book isn‘t exactly what I expected but I really enjoyed it. IMO the blurb is misleading since the crux of the novel is the internal conflict the MC has with his decision once he becomes observant after lapsing from Judaism. Photo was taken near where “Larry” lived when he had strayed from his faith.

My first experience with Nathan Englander, and a good one. Who among us can‘t understand the anxiety that stems from knowing that a wrong has been done and the relief that comes with being able to right a wrong?

This story was easy to get immersed in, especially being Jewish myself. It‘s my first by Englander and I really liked his style, weaving in and out of a Surrealist quality. Between a pick and a so-so for me because it started out so realistic and then felt like it shifted too jarringly. But “realistic” may not have been the goal so much as striking at the core:

What do we owe each other, in this life and the next?

Next up from the library pile....I‘m really intrigued by this one.

Larry raised Orthodox, rebels against his religious family only to find himself later in life returning to all the traditions and practices he had previously shunned. One highly coveted task a male son is “required “ to perform is to recite the daily Kaddish ( a prayer for a deceased parent) that Larry shirked. Now decades later he‘d like to right this wrong. 👇🏼

Such a special opportunity to be able to see Nathan Englander and Jonathan Safran Foer in dialogue about Nathan‘s new book!! I‘m starstruck 🌟 Amidst the horror of Notre Dame burning today, I especially appreciated delving into their humor and sincerity re: their writing process. What does it mean to put your whole self into your art, or rather to let yourself slip away and create connections with your reader that transcend consciousness? ❤️

I appreciated being immersed in another culture so thoroughly. Growing up in New York, I got to know - and know about - a lot of Jews & ways to be Jewish. But being Jewish in America in the modern era poses some specific challenges that I‘m usually unaware of. I‘m grateful for the reminders in this book that there are other ways to be than just the ways I know.
My thanks to Penguin for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I‘ll have it on Friday @BarbaraBB 🤞🏼😉#ImpulseBuy My son Eric is coming for Passover ❣️❣️❣️❣️#GottaLovePrime

This novel is a quick read and not as dense as the last one from this author, but Larry is a likeable fool of a character who is still able to go on a deeper journey of self-examination, in what he owes to his family, how much of his identity comes from being Jewish and what that should ultimately mean for his life.

I‘m beyond excited for the new Nathan Englander book. The story of a secular Jew from an orthodox family who refuses to recite the Kaddish for his dead father. Instead he hires someone through a website to take care of it for the required 11 months. Intrigued? Indeed I am!