Today I started reading A Line in the Sand: A Novel by Kevin Powers. Listed as one of the books to read this week by The New York Times, which described it as “a stunning novel. Kevin Powers provides what any discerning reader desires the most — complex and flawed characters, precise use of language, succinct description, and believable dialogue.”

One early morning on a Norfolk beach in Virginia, a dead body is discovered by a man taking his daily swim—Arman Bajalan, formerly an interpreter in Iraq. After narrowly surviving an assassination attempt that killed his wife and child, Arman has been given lonely sanctuary in the US as a maintenance worker at the Sea Breeze Motel. Now, convinced that the body is connected to his past, he knows he is still unsafe.

Seasoned detective Catherine Wheel and her newly minted partner have little to go on beyond a bus ticket in the dead man’s pocket. It leads them to Sally Ewell, a local journalist as grief-stricken as Arman is by the Iraq War, investigating a corporation on the cusp of landing a multi-billion-dollar government defense contract.

As victims mount around Arman, taking the team down wrong turns and towards startling evidence, they find themselves in a race committed to unraveling the truth and keeping Arman alive—even if it costs them everything.

The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.

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The City We Became: A Novel by N. K. Jemisin is my first science fiction and urban fantasy novel in quite some time. It is a story of culture, identity, magic, and myths in contemporary New York City. Jan and I had lived in New York City, and the book brought back fond memories.

Every great city has a soul. Some are ancient as myths, and others are as new and destructive as children.

But every City also has a dark side. A roiling, ancient evil stirs beneath the earth, threatening to destroy the City and her five protectors unless they can come together and stop it once and for all.

As Jemisin writes:

A city is never alone, not really — and this city seems less solitary than most. More like a family: many parts, frequently squabbling … but in the end, against enemies, they come together to protect one another. They must, or die.

The challenge is when evil forces threaten the City; the entire community needs to unite, and the City’s avatars for each of the five boroughs.

Initially, this is supposed to be one for each borough and one for the entire City. In the end, one of the avatars for the five boroughs chooses not to unite with the others. Without all six, they stand no chance to defeat the forces of evil.

How do they solve this? By adding the sixth borough – Jersey City.

I recommend this book without reservation.

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I began reading “Girlfriend on Mars: A Novel” by Deborah Willis today. It’s a humorous, touching, and captivating debut novel that satirizes the idea of space travel funded by billionaires and tells a love story that spans across planets. Alic Munro, one of my preferred authors, praised the book’s emotional depth and range, as well as the author’s exceptional clarity and skill in writing.

Amber Kivinen is vying for a chance to join MarsNow and be part of the first human-led mission to Mars. She is one of twenty-three reality TV contestants worldwide, including an attractive Israeli soldier named Adam, a charming Canadian named Pichu, and several science enthusiasts and aspiring influencers. Billionaire Geoff Task is sponsoring the mission; only two seats are available.

Meanwhile, Kevin, Amber’s boyfriend of fourteen years, is left behind as Amber pursues her dream. He spends his days caring for their hydroponic weed business in their expensive basement apartment in Vancouver while wondering why the woman he loves is so determined to leave the planet with someone else.

In a reality TV show similar to Survivor and Star Trek, Amber participates in challenges in various parts of the world. She seems to develop feelings for Adam, but it’s unclear whether it’s genuine or a strategy to avoid getting eliminated. Furthermore, given that the technology to return to Earth from Mars is not yet available, would Amber be willing to abandon everything to become a billionaire’s experimental subject on the red planet? Even though the rainforest is currently ablaze, Geoff Task has purchased New Zealand, and Kevin may be struggling with depression, is there any chance for a brighter future on Earth?

Girlfriend on Mars is an impressive first work from a brilliant and unique writer, as described by Molly Antopol. It presents a satirical critique of our societal desire for fame and fortune amid environmental turmoil. At the same time, it delves into humanity’s fundamental yearning and eternal cliché: love.

The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.

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In 1934, a young José Revueltas traveled to Tamaulipas to support the cotton workers’ strike in Estación Camarón, which would later serve as the foundation for his landmark novel, Human Mourning. In her groundbreaking novel Autobiography of Cotton, Cristina Rivera Garza recounts her grandparents’ journey from mining towns to those same cotton fields. Her narrative intersects with Revueltas’s life and offers a vivid and evocative account of the history of cotton cultivation along the Mexico-U.S. border.

Through archival research and personal narrative, Rivera Garza explores how cotton transformed the borderlands by recounting the story of the cotton workers’ strike. She reveals how cycles of deprivation and environmental destruction continue to affect generations. Rivera Garza skillfully creates a new kind of border novel that illustrates how a fragile landscape drastically changed her grandparents’ lives and the territories they helped to develop. In this intimate fictionalization, Autobiography of Cotton offers a rich social history that encompasses agricultural colonization, labor activism, environmental degradation, and cross-border migration.

I recommend “Autobiography of Cotton,” but readers should be patient as the book shifts back and forth in time. Everything becomes clear as you continue reading.

Cristina Rivera Garza is the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Liliana’s Invincible Summer. A MacArthur Fellow, she is the Hugh Roy and Lillie Cranz Cullen Distinguished Chair and founder of the University of Houston’s PhD in Creative Writing in Spanish.

Christina MacSweeney is the award-winning literary translator of works by Julián Herbert, Valeria Luiselli, and Elvira Navarro. She received the 2024 Sundial Literary Translation Award for her translation of Verónica Gerber Bicecci‘s The Company.

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I started reading “Absolution: A Novel” by Alice McDermott today. The opening line immediately grabbed my attention: “You have no idea what it was like. For us. The women, I mean.” In most literature about the Vietnam War, American women, particularly wives, have been minor characters. However, in “Absolution,” they take center stage.

The book follows the story of two women, Tricia, a shy newlywed, and Charlene, a practiced corporate spouse and mother of three. They both found themselves in Saigon in 1963, forming a wary alliance. They balance the era’s mandate to be “helpmeets” to their ambitious husbands with their inchoate impulse to “do good” for the people of Vietnam.

Sixty years later, Charlene’s daughter reaches out to Tricia after encountering an aging Vietnam vet. Together, they look back at their time in Saigon, carefully considering that pivotal year and Charlene’s altruistic machinations. They discover how their lives as women on the periphery have been shaped and burdened by the same unintended consequences that followed America’s tragic interference in Southeast Asia.

This virtuosic new novel from Alice McDermott, one of our most observant and affecting writers, explores themes of folly and grace, obligation, sacrifice, and, finally, the quest for absolution in a broken world.

The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.

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Sharon Brous, a prominent American rabbi, argues in The Amen Effect: Ancient Wisdom to Heal Our Hearts and Mend Our Broken World that the essential spiritual work of our time—though instinctual and often countercultural—focuses on connecting through celebration, sorrow, and solidarity. We must support one another in times of joy and pain, embracing vulnerability and possibility, nurturing relationships with shared purposes, and creating communities centered on care.

From one of our country’s most prominent rabbis comes this inspiring book about the power of community, based on one of her most impactful sermons. What will it take to mend our broken hearts and rebuild our society in a time of loneliness, isolation, social rupture, and alienation?

Brous contends that honoring our most basic human instinct—the yearning for authentic connection—is the way to reawaken our shared humanity and begin the healing process. This kind of sacred presence is captured by the word amen, a powerful ancient idea that we affirm the fullness of one another’s experience by demonstrating, in body and word: “I see you. You are not alone.”

An acclaimed preacher and storyteller, Brous pairs heart-driven anecdotes from her experience building and pastoring to a leading-edge faith community over the past two decades with ancient Jewish wisdom and contemporary science. The result is a clarion call: the sense of belonging engendered by our genuine presence is both a social and biological need, as well as a moral and spiritual necessity.

With original insights and practical tools, The Amen Effect translates foundational ideas into simple practices that connect us to our better angels, offering a blueprint for a more meaningful life and a more connected and caring world.

As she writes in the preface, after listing the joys and pains of life, weddings, births, and death,

It’s in these times that I feel the weight of the work, the privilege of being alive, the blessing of being so close to such raw beauty and pain. It’s there that I have learned the power of saying ‘Amen‘ to one another’s grief and joy, sorrow and celebration with our very presence. Of bearing witness to profound suffering and protesting injustice with our very presence. Of comforting and consoling, surviving and thriving with our very presence. What I’ve learned, during the years, is the meaning of sacred companionship. I have seen, in ways subtle and pronounced, a longing to connect with others who can help hold the pain, a need to share what we’ve learned in the trenches, and a desire to give, even when we ourselves have barely caught our breath. And I have seen how knowing that we’re not alone can both heighten our joy and help us endure unimaginable hardship.

Click here to read about my experience listening to Rabbi Brous at the Kol Tzedek Speakers Series at Temple Emanu-El in Westfield.

Sharon Brous is the senior and founding rabbi of IKAR, a leading-edge Jewish community based in Los Angeles, and the author of The Amen Effect: Ancient Wisdom to Heal Our Hearts and Mend Our Broken World, a national bestseller.

In 2013, Brous blessed President Obama and Vice President Biden at the Inaugural National Prayer Service, and in 2021, returned to bless President Biden and Vice President Harris and then led the White House Passover Seder 2021 and the Hanukkah candle lighting with the Vice President and Second Gentleman in 2023. She was ranked as the number one most influential Rabbi in America by Newsweek/The Daily Beast. She has also been recognized by The Forward and the Jerusalem Post as one of the most influential Jews alive today. Her work has appeared in prominent publications, including The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and The Washington Post. Additionally, her TED talk, “Reclaiming Religion,” has been viewed by over 1.5 million people.

Brous is part of the inaugural cohort of Auburn Seminary’s Senior Fellows program, which brings together top faith leaders working on the frontlines for justice. She sits on the faculty of REBOOT and serves on the International Council of the New Israel Fund, as well as the national steering committee for the Poor People’s Campaign.

A Columbia University graduate (holding both undergraduate and M.A. degrees in Human Rights), she was ordained by the Jewish Theological Seminary and resides in Los Angeles with her husband and children.

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