Books

Review: The Foundling

By Hephzibah Anderson, February 24, 2012

Agnès Desarthe
Faber, £12.99

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Review: Israel and the European Left

By Vernon Bogdanor, February 17, 2012

By Colin Shindler
Continuum, £17.99

In the early 20th century, Eastern European Jews had two love affairs - with Communism and with Zionism. But the Communists betrayed them. The Hungarian intellectual, Arthur Koestler, compared his time as a Communist with the deception practised on Jacob when he slept with the ugly Leah instead of Rachel.

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Review: Pantheon

By Jenni Frazer, February 17, 2012

By Sam Bourne
HarperCollins £12.99

Jonathan Freedland's previous fictional outings in his alter ego of Sam Bourne have been set well into the 21st century. In Pantheon, however, his newest novel, we are firmly in the fervid 1940s, in the days before America entered the Second World War.

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Joseph Roth: A Life In Letters

By David Herman, February 10, 2012

Michael Hofmann (Ed)
Granta, £25

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Review: Hope: A Tragedy

By Alan Montague, February 10, 2012

Shalom Auslander
Picador, £16.99

Shalom Auslander's surname means "foreigner" in German, or "outsider". And that is certainly what he seems - a Jewish outsider alienated even from other Jews.

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Review: Suddenly, A Knock On The Door

By Francesca Segal, February 6, 2012

By Etgar Keret
(Trans: Miriam Shlesinger, Sondra Silverston and Nathan Englander)
Chatto & Windus, £12.99

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Review: What The Grown-ups Were Doing

By Michelen Wandor, February 6, 2012

By Michele Hanson
Simon & Schuster, £14.99

Michele Hanson's Guardian columns are a model of confessional journalism. She consistently entertains with accounts of home life with three generations and a dog living in the same house. A male figure, called Fielding, comes and goes, and a daughter, called "daughter" is a support and friend.

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Review: The Genius In My Basement

By Anne Garvey, January 27, 2012

By Alexander Masters
Fourth Estate, £16.99

Alexander Masters' book is the most original biography I have read in a long time. It is relentlessly amusing, deeply complex, and far superior to its acclaimed precursor, Stuart, a Life Backwards. I am still delving into the pages, randomly selecting chuckle-worthy snatches of prose.

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Whatever Happened To British Jewish Studies?

By Geoffrey Alderman, January 27, 2012

Tony Kushner and Hannah Ewence (Eds)
Vallentine Mitchell, £50

A half-century ago it would have been unthinkable to have embarked on an academic career in British-Jewish studies. Outside of the department of Hebrew at University College, London, virtually the only established university posts in this field were located in departments of theology.

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Review: The New Jew in Film

By Alan Montague, January 13, 2012

By Nathan Abrams
I. B. Tauris, £14.99

Nathan Abrams must have got through an awful lot of popcorn.

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