We’ve spent all day dis­cussing them at work and now we’re shar­ing them with you! Our Tu B’av 5773 JBC staff picks:


Two inter­twined love sto­ries make up Meir Shalev’s nov­el A Pigeon and a Boy, one sto­ry set in mod­ern Israel, the oth­er in 1948, dur­ing Israel’s war of inde­pen­dence. The war-time tale of ten­der, doomed young love is par­tic­u­lar­ly poignant and brings this peri­od to life from an unusu­al per­spec­tive.” —CK

Fugi­tive Pieces by Anne Michaels is more about the love between a father and his adopt­ed son than about roman­tic love, although there’s cer­tain­ly that, too. At times read­ing more like a poem than a nov­el, Fugi­tive Pieces is about how we grow to love the peo­ple dropped on our doorstep, the peo­ple who acci­den­tal­ly enter our lives.” —EM

The His­to­ry of Love renewed my long-aban­doned faith in mag­i­cal real­ism and life­long love sto­ries. A young girl’s search for the author of an obscure, dis­card­ed book and an old man’s strug­gle with utter lone­some­ness cir­cle each oth­er through real­i­ty and breath­tak­ing dis­tor­tion, only to end as you real­ize their sto­ries could end no oth­er way.” —NB



The Mind-Body Prob­lem, Rebec­ca Gold­stein’s clas­sic nov­el pub­lished thir­ty years ago, tells the sto­ry of a young grad­u­ate stu­dent, Renee, nav­i­gat­ing her mar­riage to a leg­endary math­e­mat­i­cal genius at Prince­ton. As Reneee strug­gles with the ten­sion between emo­tion and intel­li­gence, she is forced to exam­ine her mar­riage, love life, and Jew­ish iden­ti­ty.” —NF‑T 

Peter Cole’s exquis­ite trans­la­tions prove that no one wrote love poet­ry like the great (and the obscure) Sepharadic lyri­cists. No one.” —NB

I’ve had If You Awak­en Love on my shelf for years; I always have it around to share with any­one look­ing for a won­der­ful read.” —CH



The Golem and the Jin­ni: mag­i­cal real­ism at its best. Helene Weck­er’s lit­er­ary debut has born two of the most heart­break­ing crea­tures ever writ­ten.” —NB 

Song of Songs: among the most beau­ti­ful and the most des­per­ate expres­sions of love and long­ing in verse.” —NB