Please join us for this wonderful series of book club discussions where we will be joined by the authors to talk about their creations. All of the events are at 12:30 pm at the MBJCC, unless otherwise noted. The David Sipress event is at 3:00 pm.
Monday, November 28, 3:00 PM: David Sipress - What’s So Funny?
David Sipress will join us in-person.
The New Yorker cartoonist David Sipress endeavors to answer that oft-asked question of how a cartoonist gets his ideas in his memoir What’s So Funny?; he masterfully accomplishes this by showcasing a sampling of his cartoons and their backstories in this entertaining, poignant, and sometimes painful book.
What’s So Funny? is an honest and enjoyable read by a brainy, often self-deprecating, author.
Tuesday, December 20: Lynda Cohen Loigman - The Matchmaker’s Gift
Is finding true love a calling or a curse? Even as a child in 1910, Sara Glikman knows her gift: she is a seeker of soulmates and a maker of matches. 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.
From the author of the bestselling historical novels The Two-Family House and The Wartime Sisters comes this heartfelt and magical story of two extraordinary women from two different eras who defy societal expectations.
Tuesday, January 24: Michael Frank – One Hundred Saturdays
The remarkable story of ninety-nine-year-old Stella Levi whose conversations with the writer Michael Frank over the course of six years brings to life the vibrant world of Jewish Rhodes, the deportation to Auschwitz that extinguished ninety percent of her community, and the resilience and wisdom of the woman who lived to tell the tale.
Tuesday, February 21: David Biro - The Bridge is Love
Every week for 20 years, three friends meet in a leafy enclosure under the Verrazzano Bridge: Gertie, a feisty Norwegian divorcee and former athlete; Maria, a family-obsessed Italian American widow; and Corinna, a book-loving, hash-smoking eccentric. Together they sit and watch the sea as the ships — and the last years of their lives – sail by. On the eve of Gertie’s eightieth birthday, they realize time is running out. Gertie decides she wants to travel the world. Maria secretly plots to reunite Gertie and Corinna with their estranged families. And Corinna falls in love.
And the Bridge is Love invites readers to travel alongside these dynamic women in this inspiring novel about love, family and forgiveness.
March 21: Weina Dai Randall – The Last Rose of Shanghai
In Japanese-occupied Shanghai, two people from different cultures are drawn together by fate and the freedom of music…
1940. Aiyi Shao is a young heiress and the owner of a formerly popular and glamorous Shanghai nightclub. Ernest Reismann is a penniless Jewish refugee driven out of Germany, an outsider searching for shelter in a city wary of strangers. He loses nearly all hope until he crosses paths with Aiyi. When she hires Ernest to play piano at her club, her defiance of custom causes a sensation. His instant fame makes Aiyi’s club once again the hottest spot in Shanghai. Soon they realize they share more than a passion for jazz―but their differences seem insurmountable, and Aiyi is engaged to another man.
From the electrifying jazz clubs to the impoverished streets of a city under siege, The Last Rose of Shanghai is a timeless, sweeping story of love and redemption.