One opinion – what would you add,
what would you delete?
1. THE DIARY OF A YOUNG GIRL Anne Frank
A record of a
young girl thoughts whilst in hiding from Nazis during the occupation of
Holland.
2. THE TRIAL Franz Kafka
The ultimate
experience of a world that’s now universally understood as ‘Kafkaesque’ – the
story of a man, arrested, prosecuted by a remote authority. A study in
powerlessness.
3. TEVYA THE DAIRYMAN Shalom
Aleichem
Amidst our
collective suffering and angst, we need to be reminded to laugh.
4. A TALE OF LOVE AND
DARKNESS Amos Oz
From Europe to
Palestine, from a childhood in Jerusalem to time in the IDF, his Israeli story
is one that resonates for many.
5. HOWL Allen Ginsberg
A celebrated
poem by one of the leading figures of the Beat generation. It denounces the damaging
forces of conformity and rampant capitalism. “Visions! omens! hallucinations! miracles! ecstacies! gone down the
American river!”
6. FUGITIVE PIECES Anne Michaels
A Jewish child
in Poland escapes the Nazis, and is rescued by a Greek geologist. The narrative
peels back layers of time and change, exploring trauma, loss, memory and
migration in poetic language that successfully straddles the personal and the
scientific.
7. REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST Marcel Proust
The ultimate memoir.
8. WHO KILLED DANIEL PEARL? Bernard-Henri Lévy
Through telling
the story of the journalist Daniel Pearl’s murder, Lévy provides a comprehensive overview of the jihadist movement and
the profound affect their violent actions have had on the early 21st
century.
9. GOODBYE, COLUMBUS Philip Roth
Captures the
zeitgeist of the North American Jewish community in the late 1950s, and deals with the problems that have resulted from the successful assimilation into the broader culture.
10. JULY'S PEOPLE Nadine Gordimer
A study of
racism and shifting power in pre- and post-apartheid South Africa.
11. TORAH
Fear of
retribution if we leave the Holy Book out.
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