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A Journal for Jordan: A Story of Love and Honor

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This is a touching true story of two very different people who were probably not ideal for each other when they met… yet eventually fell in love… planned a family… planned a marriage… planned a life together… with some of these plans being fulfilled… while others… will remain heartbreakingly… unfulfilled for all eternity. The author is New York Times journalist Dana Canedy who shares her innermost thoughts and feelings… that [...]

The Girl from Foreign: A Memoir

Sadia Shepard

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At the behest of her dying grandmother, Shepard investigated her family’s past in India and Pakistan. Her journey is a combination of revelation and research, with some intellectual discussions about the meaning of religion, family, and nationality, thrown in. Chapters alternate between Shepard’s research and travels and accounts of her grandmother (her mother’s mother,) who grew up a Jew in India and became the third wife of a Muslim businessman [...]

Outwitting History: The Amazing Adventures of a Man Who Rescued a Million Yiddish Books

Aaron Lansky

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I got this book just yesterday and am almost finished with it already — it’s that compelling. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll meet truly unforgettable characters. You might even end up yearning to learn Yiddish! Most of all, you will feel immense gratitude for the hugely important, but at the time undervalued, work started by this young man back in 1980 to rescue the writings, the vital lifeblood, of an [...]

The Works of Philo: Complete and Unabridged, New Updated Edition

of Alexandria Philo

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Philo Judaeus, the great Jewish exegete and philosopher, was a contemporary of Josephus and the Apostles Paul and Peter during the 1st century A.D. This volume of his complete works must be one of the most, if not the most, exhaustive commentaries on the five books of the Old Testament (the Pentateuch) in existence. In true rabbinic fashion, Philo discourses on the letter and spirit of the Pentateuch, from all [...]

The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man

James Weldon Johnson

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Johnson’s novel travels through various African-American societies (New England, Jacksonville, New York City, the Black Belt) in a story of a mulatto caught between two opposing racial identities. The novel is an epic journey (emotionally and physically) of this African-American, who is light enough to "pass" into the white American dominating the turn-of-the century. The Ex-Coloured Man’s personal struggles to reconcile his true private self with his public self in [...]

Black Ice

Lorene Cary

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I’ve read Black Ice atleast 7 times in the past 2 years because with each reading I continue to understand how my experiences at a predominantly white high school have shaped the person I have become. I can not remember the exact phrasing, but there is one passage in Black Ice that sums up how I feel about my high school experience. It goes something like this: If I had [...]

The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano: or Gustavus Vassa, the African, Written by himself

Olaudah Equiano

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As an American who has grown up hearing and learning about slavery and the slave trade in the US, and mainly in the 19th century, I appreciated the insight Equiano’s book gives into the institution from other parts of the world, and in particular how racism evolved within an institution that had been taken for granted for centuries and had not been particularly racist. It is not the narrative of [...]

Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy

Annette Gordon-Reed

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This is a very solid and well researched book. The author makes a very thorough and logical presentation to prove her case. Much in the manner of a courtroom argument. It is effective. I came away from reading the book convinced that Jefferson, in all reasonable liklihood, did father Sally Hemings five mixed race children. Sally Hemings was 1/4 African in descent, 3/4′s European. By all accounts, she was a [...]

The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys : An American Saga

Doris Kearns Goodwin

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Given that the Kennedy family history has been chronicled by hundreds of writers over the years, I was somewhat surprised to find this text remarkably unbiased. Although it was evident that the author had a tremendous respect and admiration for Rose (Fitzgerald) Kennedy, and an equally strong distaste for Joseph Kennedy, the book provided an excellent biographical history of the two families that combined to shape America’s most enduring dynasty. [...]

Nietzsche (Past Masters)

Michael Tanner

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No one can reasonably expect to sum up Nietzche’s views and philosophy in under 100 pages. The reader should not go into this work expecting to come out understanding Nietzsche, but maybe make him a little less obscure or receive a slight bit more context in which to read Nietzsche’s books. For those who have already read some Nietzsche and are left nonplussed, this tiny book may help you out [...]