The Five Books: Jewish Authors on the Books That Shaped Them copertina

The Five Books: Jewish Authors on the Books That Shaped Them

The Five Books: Jewish Authors on the Books That Shaped Them

Di: Tali Rosenblatt Cohen
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 The Five Books celebrates the role of books in our lives. Each week we’ll talk with a Jewish author about five books in five categories. We’ll hear about: two Jewish books that have impacted the author’s Jewish identity; one book (not necessarily Jewish) that they think everyone should read - a book that changed their worldview. We’ll get a peek into what book they're reading now, and we’ll hear the inside scoop on the new book they’ve just published. The Five Books creates a space for all listeners to explore what it means to live, write, and read as a Jewish American today.Tali Rosenblatt Cohen Arte Giudaismo Spiritualità Storia e critica della letteratura
Episodi
  • Allegra Goodman on “This is Not About Us” (Or So We Tell Ourselves)

    Allegra Goodman on “This is Not About Us” (Or So We Tell Ourselves)
    Feb 17 2026
    Allegra Goodman tells us how This Is Not About Us grew like a family tree from her New Yorker short story “Apple Cake,” as she continued writing about the Rubinstein family for over a decade. We discuss how her perspective - and the world - has changed since she wrote The Family Markowitz in her 20s, and how Keats’ concept of negative capability has shaped her writing. We also hear about a book that she found very dull until a bad cold taught her patience. Allegra Goodman is a writer of extraordinary range and precision. Across novels and stories, she’s written about faith, ambition, family, science, history, and the quiet negotiations of everyday life, always with clarity, wit, and deep compassion for her characters. Allegra’s many books include among them Sam, a Jenna’s Book Club pick, Paradise Park, Kaaterskill Falls (a National Book Award finalist), and Isola (a Reese’s Book Club Pick.) Her latest novel of interconnected short stories, This Is Not About Us, brings all of that together. It follows the Rubinstein family over many years, through moments that feel small until they suddenly don’t. Allegra Goodman’s Five Books: 1. A book that is in conversation with your latest work: The Family Markowitz 2. A Book You Changed Your Mind About: The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James 3. A passage from a book that has stayed with you or has changed how you think about things: A famous passage from one of John Keats' letters about Negative Capability 4. ⁠The Book You’re Reading Now: Dickens the Enchanter: Inside the Explosive Imagination of the Great Storyteller by Peter Conrad 5. The Author’s Latest Work: This Is Not About Us by Allegra Goodman Allegra’s First Appearance on The Five Books can be found here: Allegra Goodman on Making the Exotic Familiar, and Finding the Modern in Ancient Worlds This episode was recorded live in front of an audience in a joint event for subscribers to Nu Reads, a project from Jewish Book Council that brings remarkable Jewish literature straight to your door. This is Not About Us by Allegra Goodman is the Nu Reads pick for February. Learn more at https://www.nureads.org/ The Five Books is a partner organization of Jewish Book Council, a nonprofit dedicated to amplifying and celebrating Jewish literature and supporting authors and readers. The Five Books is a podcast that celebrates the role of books in Jewish culture. Through author interviews, we delve into Jewish identity and discover each author’s favorite novels. Join us every week for new Jewish book recommendations! Some of our episodes have included conversations with Rabbi Sharon Brous (Senior Rabbi at IKAR, and author of The Amen Effect), Yael Van Der Wouden (author of The Safekeep), and Dara Horn (author of People Love Dead Jews.) ⁠⁠⁠Sign up for our newsletter⁠⁠⁠ to get new episode reminders, authors’ five book picks, and more delivered straight to your inbox. Find us on Instagram ⁠@fivebookspod ⁠or on Facebook at The Five Books Podcast. For feedback or author recommendations please email us at ⁠team@fivebookspod.org⁠ For transcripts and more find us online at ⁠www.fivebookspod.org ⁠ Support our work lifting up Jewish books and Jewish authors!Donate Here The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity. Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt Cohen Produced by Odelia Rubin Live Event Production support by the incredible team at Nu Reads/ Jewish Book Council: Jamie Betesh Carter, Evie Saphire-Bernstein, Miri Pomerantz Dauber and Naomi Firestone-Teeter Editorial and website support by Amelia Merrill Artwork by Elad Lifshitz of the Dov Abramson Studio Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions.
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    45 min
  • Jason Diamond on being a (Jewish-)American Author

    Jason Diamond on being a (Jewish-)American Author
    Feb 3 2026
    In this conversation, Jason Diamond unpacks what it means to be an American, Jewish, or Jewish-American author. We also discuss family secrets, Jewish gangsters, the humor and alienation of Franz Kafka, and how Art Spiegelman’s Maus taught Jason to accept his family’s silences. Jason’s debut novel, Kaplan’s Plot, follows Elijah Mendes, who returns to Chicago after his tech business collapses and discovers that his family owns a Jewish cemetery, where a man he’s never heard of — his great-uncle Solomon Kaplan — is buried. As Elijah begins to untangle his family’s past, the novel moves between his present-day relationship with his mother, Eve, who is dying of cancer, and the earlier story of his grandfather, Yitz Kaplan. That past narrative traces Yitz and his brother Sol from a pogrom in Odessa to their arrival in America alone, and follows the brothers’ complicated bond as Yitz rises to become a Jewish gangster in 1920s Chicago. Jason Diamond has written for The New York Times, The New Yorker, Esquire, Harper's Bazaar, The Wall Street Journal, McSweeny's, NPR, and many other outlets. He is the author of The Sprawl, and the memoir, Searching For John Hughes. He is the co-author (with Nicolas Heller) of New York Nico's Guide to NYC. Jason Diamond’s Five Books: 1. Maus by Art Spiegelman 2. Amerika by Franz Kafka 3. Be Here Now by Ram Dass 4. The Gods of New York by Jonathan Mahler and Effingers by Gabriele Tergit 5. Kaplan’s Plot by Jason Diamond Stay tuned at the end of the episode for a bonus book selection by literary insider, Erika Dreifus. ErikaDreifus.com Other Others who Chose Art Spiegelman’s Maus: Benjamin Resnick on the Enduring Precariousness of Jewish Life Georgia Hunter on Discovering her Family’s Jewish History The Five Books is a podcast that celebrates the role of books in Jewish culture. Through author interviews, we delve into Jewish identity and discover each author’s favorite novels. Join us every week for new Jewish book recommendations! Some of our episodes have included conversations with Rabbi Sharon Brous (Senior Rabbi at IKAR, and author of The Amen Effect), Yael Van Der Wouden (author of The Safekeep), and Dara Horn (author of People Love Dead Jews.) ⁠⁠Sign up for our newsletter⁠⁠ to get new episode reminders, authors’ five book picks, and more delivered straight to your inbox. Find us on Instagram @fivebookspod or on Facebook at The Five Books Podcast. For feedback or author recommendations please email us at team@fivebookspod.org For transcripts and more find us online at www.fivebookspod.org The Five Books has the advisory and promotional support of the Jewish Book Council. Jewish Book Council is a nonprofit dedicated to amplifying and celebrating Jewish literature and supporting authors and readers. Stay up to date on the latest in Jewish literature! https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/events/celebrate The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity. Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt Cohen Produced by Odelia Rubin Editorial and website support by Amelia Merrill Artwork by Elad Lifshitz of the Dov Abramson Studio Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions.
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    57 min
  • Sasha Vasilyuk on the Silences of the Soviet-Jewish Past

    Sasha Vasilyuk on the Silences of the Soviet-Jewish Past
    Jan 20 2026
    In this episode, Sasha reflects on her childhood in Russia and Ukraine, including the moment she discovered her family was Jewish at a Purim celebration. Cut off from much of the Soviet Jewish experience under communism, Sasha also shares what she is reading to bridge the gap and learn more about the hidden narratives of Soviet Jews. We discuss what Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing taught her about slavery’s impact on American history and life today, what it means to contribute a “missing puzzle piece” to WWII literature, and how witnessing the present Russia-Ukraine conflict emboldened her to tell her grandfather’s story. Ukraine, 2007. Yefim Shulman, husband, grandfather and war veteran, was beloved by his family and his coworkers. But in the days after his death, his widow Nina finds a letter to the KGB in his briefcase. Yefim had a lifelong secret, and his confession forces them to reassess the man they thought they knew and the country he had defended. In 1941, Yefim is a young artillerist on the border between the Soviet Union and Germany, eager to defend his country and his large Jewish family against Hitler's forces. But surviving the war requires sacrifices Yefim never imagined-and even when the war ends, his fight isn't over. He must conceal his choices from the KGB and from his family. Sasha Vasilyuk is a journalist and author of the debut novel Your Presence Is Mandatory (Bloomsbury, 2024), winner of the California Book Award and the Sami Rohr Prize. Her nonfiction has been published in The New York Times, CNN, Harper’s Bazaar, Time, The Telegraph, USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, and elsewhere. Sasha grew up between Ukraine and Russia before immigrating to the United States at the age of 13. Sasha Vasilyuk’s Five Books:1. "An Airplane Went Flying" by Friedrich Gorenshteyn (in Russian) 2. Life and Fate by Vasiliy Grossman 3. Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi 4. In the Shadow of the Holocaust: Short Fiction by Jewish Writers from the Soviet Union translated by Sasha Senderovich and Harriet Murav 5. Your Presence is Mandatory by Sasha Vasilyuk Other Episodes featuring Unique WWII Perspectives: - Sharon Kurtzman on the Danger that Lingered Post Holocaust - Mary Morris on Hidden Histories and Jewish Identities - Georgia Hunter on Discovering her Family’s Jewish History and Kindness as Resistance - Bonny Reichert on Food, Fear, and Finding Beauty The Five Books is a podcast that celebrates the role of books in Jewish culture. Through author interviews, we delve into Jewish identity and discover each author’s favorite novels. Join us every week for new Jewish book recommendations! Some of our episodes have included conversations with Rabbi Sharon Brous (Senior Rabbi at IKAR, and author of The Amen Effect), Yael Van Der Wouden (author of The Safekeep), and Dara Horn (author of People Love Dead Jews.) ⁠⁠Sign up for our newsletter⁠⁠ to get new episode reminders, authors’ five book picks, and more delivered straight to your inbox. Find us on Instagram @fivebookspod or on Facebook at The Five Books Podcast. For feedback or author recommendations please email us at team@fivebookspod.org For transcripts and more find us online at www.fivebookspod.org The Five Books has the advisory and promotional support of the Jewish Book Council. Jewish Book Council is a nonprofit dedicated to amplifying and celebrating Jewish literature and supporting authors and readers. Stay up to date on the latest in Jewish literature! https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/events/celebrate The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity. Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt Cohen Produced by Odelia Rubin Editorial and website support by Amelia Merrill Artwork by Elad Lifshitz of the Dov Abramson Studio Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions.
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    44 min
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