Dara Horn Book order

A startling and profound exploration of how Jewish history is exploited to comfort the living

A New York Times Book Review Notable Book of 2018, Booklist Editors’ Choice Book (January 2019), and Chicago Public Library Best Book of 2018 What would it really mean to live forever? Rachel’s current troubles—a middle-aged son mining digital currency in her basement, a scientist granddaughter trying to peek into her genes—are only the latest in a litany spanning dozens of countries, scores of marriages, hundreds of children, and 2,000 years, going back to Roman-occupied Jerusalem. Only one person shares her immortality: an illicit lover who pursues her through the ages. But when her children develop technologies that could change her fate, Rachel must find a way out. From ancient religion to the scientific frontier, Dara Horn pits our efforts to make life last against the deeper challenge of making life worth living.

The Forward, established in 1897, is celebrated as the leading Yiddish newspaper globally. It served as a vital resource for immigrants in the United States, offering news from Europe and the Middle East while enriching their lives with entertainment like comic strips and practical comforts such as noodle kugel recipes.

The story follows software prodigy Josie Ashkenazi, who creates an application that captures users' actions. Invited to Egypt as a consultant, she is abducted amidst the country's turmoil. Meanwhile, her envious sister Judith seizes the opportunity to assume Josie's life, including her family. As Josie navigates her captivity, her unique ability to preserve memories becomes a crucial test of her empathy and a potential pathway to freedom.

Jacob Rappaport, a Jewish soldier in the Union army, struggles with difficult moral questions when he is ordered to murder his own uncle, who has been plotting an assassination attempt against President Lincoln, a situation that becomes more challenging when Jacob is subsequently directed to marry a suspected spy. Reprint.

A million-dollar Chagall is stolen from a museum during a singles' cocktail hour. The unlikely thief, former child prodigy Benjamin Ziskind, is convinced that the painting once hung in his parents' living room. This work of art opens a door through which we discover his family's startling history--from an orphanage in Soviet Russia where Chagall taught to suburban New Jersey and the jungles of Vietnam.

A million-dollar Chagall painting is stolen during a singles' event at a New York museum. The painting has an unusual history, and now there is an unlikely thief - Benjamin Ziskind, a lonely former child prodigy who now writes questions for TV shows and who believes the painting once belonged to his family. Benjamin's moment of apparent madness in stealing the painting is just one such moment in a web of riveting stories. For him, for his family and for Chagall, life is a breathtaking collision course of past, present and future, and ‘the world to come' starts right now.

Exploring themes of spirituality and familial connections, the story follows Bill Landsmann, an elderly Jewish refugee in New Jersey, who is dedicated to collecting biblical images from around the world. His encounter with his granddaughter's friend, Leora, intertwines their lives, revealing deep links between their families' histories. This debut novel celebrates the fusion of secular and religious literature, honoring the past while uncovering treasures that can rejuvenate the present. A reading group guide is included for further discussion.