Summer Reading

Each summer I try to find a couple of books to share with the congregation. This year the two books we will delve into are The Mathematician’s Shiva, by Stuart Rojstaczer and All Other Nights, by Dara Horn. Get started reading now! Looking forward to a lively discussion.

The Mathematician’s Shiva – Sunday July 2

Amazon book review says the following about the book:

“A comic, bittersweet tale of family evocative of The Yiddish Policemen's Union and Everything Is Illuminated." Alexander "Sasha" Karnokovitch and his family would like to mourn the passing of his mother, Rachela, with modesty and dignity. But Rachela, a famous Polish émigré mathematician and professor at the University of Wisconsin, is rumored to have solved the million-dollar, Navier-Stokes Millennium Prize problem. Rumor also has it that she spitefully took the solution to her grave. To Sasha's chagrin, a ragtag group of socially challenged mathematicians arrives in Madison and crashes the shiva, vowing to do whatever it takes to find the solution--even if it means prying up the floorboards for Rachela's notes. Written by a Ph.D. geophysicist, this hilarious and multi-layered debut novel brims with colorful characters and brilliantly captures humanity's drive not just to survive, but to solve the impossible.”

All Other Nights, Sunday August 6

Amazon book review says the following about the book:

“Slam-bang... superb... masterful... gripping... marvelous.”—Washington Post

“How is tonight different from all other nights? For Jacob Rappaport, a Jewish soldier in the Union Army, it is a question his commanders have answered for him: on Passover, 1862, he is ordered to murder his own uncle, who is plotting to assassinate Abraham Lincoln. After this harrowing mission, Jacob is recruited to pursue another enemy agent—this time not to murder the spy, but to marry her. Based on real historical figures, this eagerly awaited novel from award-winning author Dara Horn delivers multilayered, page-turning storytelling at its best.”