Miriam's Kitchen
10 best books like Miriam's Kitchen (Elizabeth Ehrlich): Day After Night, Happy Money: The Science of Smarter Spending, Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table, The Riddle of the Labyrinth: The Quest to Crack an Ancient Code, The Worst Witch, Emmeline, Strength to Love, When Bad Things Happen to Good People, Motherland: A Memoir of Love, Loathing, and Longing, Jesus and the Disinherited
| Author | Anita Diamant |
| ISBN | 0743299841 |
Atlit is a holding camp for illegal immigrants in Israel in 1945. There about 270 men and women await their future and try to recover from their past. Diamant with infinite compassion and understanding tells the stories of the women gathered in this place. Shayndel is a Polish Zionist who fought the Germans...
Happy Money: The Science of Smarter Spending
| Author | Elizabeth Dunn |
| ISBN | 1451665067 |
Two professors combine their fascinating and cutting-edge research in behavioral science to explain how money can buy happiness—if you follow five core principles of smart spending.
Most people recognize that they need professional advice on how to earn, save, and invest their money....
Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table
| Author | Ruth Reichl |
| ISBN | 0767903382 |
At an early age, Ruth Reichl discovered that "food could be a way of making sense of the world. . . . If you watched people as they ate, you could find out who they were." Her deliciously crafted memoir, Tender at the Bone, is the story of a life determined, enhanced, and defined in equal measure by a passion...
The Riddle of the Labyrinth: The Quest to Crack an Ancient Code
| Author | Margalit Fox |
| ISBN | 0062228838 |
In the tradition of Simon Winchester and Dava Sobel, The Riddle of the Labyrinth: The Quest to Crack an Ancient Code tells one of the most intriguing stories in the history of language, masterfully blending history, linguistics, and cryptology with an elegantly wrought narrative. When famed archaeologist...
| Author | Jill Murphy |
| ISBN | 0141319623 |
This is the perfect book for young reluctant readers.
It’s engaging, fun, fast-paced and actually a really great story. There’s a magic school, great friendship, antiheroes and a series of unfortunate events.
And let’s not forget the lovely illustrations. This is no Harry...
| Author | Judith Rossner |
| ISBN | 0385333447 |
The story of Emmeline Mosher, who, before her 14th birthday, was sent from her home on a farm in Maine to support her family by working in a cotton mill in Massachusetts. The year was 1839. An extraordinary novel from the "New York Times" bestselling author of "Looking for Mr. Goodbar", the story of a desperate...
| Author | Martin Luther King Jr. |
| ISBN | 0800614410 |
Martin Luther King Jr. may be seen by many people, unfortunately, as a cliche historical figure. Everybody feels as though they know a lot about him, but in reality most people know nothing about him besides the fact that he was a civil rights leader who got assassinated. I personally have always wanted...
When Bad Things Happen to Good People
| Author | Harold S. Kushner |
| ISBN | 1400034728 |
When Harold Kushner’s three-year-old son was diagnosed with a degenerative disease and that he would only live until his early teens, he was faced with one of life’s most difficult questions: Why, God? Years later, Rabbi Kushner wrote this straightforward, elegant contemplation of the doubts...
Motherland: A Memoir of Love, Loathing, and Longing
"I'm reading this book right now and loving it!"--Cheryl Strayed, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Wild
How can a mother and daughter who love (but don't always like) each other coexist without driving each other crazy?
"A wry and moving meditation on aging and the different...
Jesus and the Disinherited
| Author | Howard Thurman |
| ISBN | 0807010294 |
In this classic theological treatise, the acclaimed theologian and religious leader Howard Thurman (1900–81) demonstrates how the gospel may be read as a manual of resistance for the poor and disenfranchised. Jesus is a partner in the pain of the oppressed and the example of His life offers a solution...
Stitches: A Handbook on Meaning, Hope, and Repair
| Author | Anne Lamott |
| ISBN | 1594632588 |
“Lamott’s …most insightful book yet, Stitches offers plenty of her characteristic witty wisdom…this slim, readable volume [is] a lens on life, widening and narrowing, encouraging each reader to reflect on what it is, after all, that really matters.”—People
What do we...
The Bookshop of the Broken Hearted
Tom Hope doesn’t think he’s much of a farmer, but he’s doing his best. He can’t have been much of a husband to Trudy, either, judging by her sudden departure. It’s only when she returns, pregnant to someone else, that he discovers his surprising talent as a father. So when Trudy finds Jesus and...
Raise Your Voice: Why We Stay Silent and How to Speak Up
| Author | Kathy Khang |
| ISBN | 0830845402 |
You have a voice. And you have God's permission to use it.
In some communities, certain voices are amplified and elevated while others are erased and suppressed. It can be hard to speak up, especially in the ugliness of social media. Power dynamics keep us silent and marginalized, especially...
| Author | Tova Mirvis |
| ISBN | 0544520521 |
The memoir of a woman who leaves her faith and her marriage and sets out to navigate the terrifying, liberating terrain of a newly mapless world.
Born and raised in a tight-knit Orthodox Jewish family, Tova Mirvis committed herself to observing the rules and rituals prescribed by this...
| Author | Katherine Collette |
| ISBN | 1925603601 |
Germaine Johnson may not be all that good with people but she’s great with numbers. Unfortunately, as she discovers after the incident at Wallace Insurance, there are very few openings these days for senior mathematicians.
Then her cousin gets her a job at the council. On the Senior Citizens...
| Author | Hwang Sok-yong |
| ISBN | 1925228991 |
Seoul. On the outskirts of South Korea’s glittering metropolis is a place few people know about: a vast landfill site called Flower Island. Home to those driven from the city by poverty, is it here that 13-year-old Bugeye and his mother arrive, following his father’s internment in a government...
| Author | Ali Bryan |
| ISBN | 1988298253 |
Meet the Figgs. June, the family's matriarch, looks forward to a quiet retirement — if only she can get her three adult children to finally, finally, move out of the house. But her dreams are shattered when her son Derek unexpectedly becomes a single father. Now there's a newborn baby at home, and Derek's...
Burnt Bread and Chutney: Growing Up Between Cultures - A Memoir of an Indian Jewish Childhood
| Author | Carmit Delman |
| ISBN | 0345445945 |
“From the outside, no matter what the gradations of my mixed heritage, the shadow of Indian brown in my skin caused others to automatically perceive me as Hindu or Muslim. . . . Still, I trekked through life with the spirit of a Jew, fleshed out by the unique challenges and wonders of a combined brown and...
Because God Loves Stories: An Anthology of Jewish Storytelling
| Author | Steve Zeitlin |
| ISBN | 0684811758 |
An exciting new treasury of Jewish stories and storytellers, from ancient tales and classics re-imagined to contemporary family stories, parables, and humor
"Why were human beings created?" goes a traditional Jewish saying. "Because God loves stories." Storytelling has been part of Jewish...
God Alone Is Enough: A Spirited Journey with Teresa of Avila
| Author | Claudia Mair Burney |
| ISBN | 1557256616 |
No one can teach a Christian to pray, like Teresa can.
This lively little book introduces postmodern readers to one of Christianity’s most endearing prayer warriors, and guides them through her most radical teachings. Here, Teresa of Avila is not a lofty, inaccessible saint; she’s...
Disciplines of the Spirit
| Author | Howard Thurman |
| ISBN | 0913408352 |
Howard Thurman's Disciplines Of The Spirit
I have been reading works by the American religious leader and philosopher-mystic Howard Thurman (1899 -- 1981) including this short, difficult 1963 book, "Disciplines of the Spirit", which is based in part on lectures Thurman gave in 1960 and...
The God Who Sees: Immigrants, the Bible, and the Journey to Belong
Meet people who have fled their homelands.
Hagar. Joseph. Ruth. Jesus.
Here is a riveting story of seeking safety in another land. Here is a gripping journey of loss, alienation, and belonging. In The God Who Sees, immigration advocate Karen Gonzalez recounts her family’s migration...
| Author | Rudolph M. Bell |
| ISBN | 0226042057 |
Is there a resemblance between the contemporary anorexic teenager counting every calorie in her single-minded pursuit of thinness, and an ascetic medieval saint examining her every desire? Rudolph M. Bell suggests that the answer is yes.
"Everyone interested in anorexia nervosa . . . should...
The Earth Is the Lord's: The Inner World of the Jew in Eastern Europe
| Author | Abraham Joshua Heschel |
| ISBN | 1879045427 |
Powerfully and beautifully portrays a bygone Jewish culture.
The story about the life of the Jews in Eastern Europe which has come to an end in our days is what I have tried to tell in this essay. I have not talked about their books, their art or institutions, but about their daily life, about their...
Savage Feast: Three Generations, Two Continents, and a Dinner Table (A Memoir with Recipes)
| Author | Boris Fishman |
| ISBN | 0062867911 |
One of Booklist's Must Read Nonfiction picks of 2019
The acclaimed author of A Replacement Life shifts between heartbreak and humor in this gorgeously told, recipe-filled memoir. A family story, an immigrant story, a love story, and an epic meal, Savage Feast explores the challenges of navigating...
The Reporter's Kitchen: Essays
| Author | Jane Kramer |
| ISBN | 1250074371 |
Jane Kramer started cooking when she started writing. Her first dish, a tinned-tuna curry, was assembled on a tiny stove in her graduate student apartment while she pondered her first writing assignment. From there, whether her travels took her to a tent settlement in the Sahara for an afternoon interview...
Whitebread Protestants: Food and Religion in American Culture
| Author | Daniel Sack |
| ISBN | 0312294425 |
Americans love to eat. They are also deeply religious. So it’s no surprise that food has an important place in the religious lives of Americans.. They eat in worship services. They drink coffeein church basements. They feed neighbors and strangers in the name of their god. For countless American...
とつくにの少女 4 [Totsukuni no shōjo 4]
| Author | Nagabe |
| ISBN | 4800007208 |
Volume 4 of this fantasy/horror series, A Fate Worse than Death, featuring Shiva, Teacher, and Auntie and more backstory about the world and its history are revealed even as we move forward with the story in the present. Back and forth, back and forth. It’s as much a story of gradual uncovering as it...
とつくにの少女 5 [Totsukuni no shōjo 5]
| Author | Nagabe |
| ISBN | 4800007577 |
Each volume opens us up to more information and emotions in this dark yet hopeful fantasy/horror? story of Shiva and Teacher. Shiva finds out about Auntie and confronts Teacher, whom she presumes knew about and could have protected her. Teacher returns to the cottage at one point and finds that Shiva...
The Stranger in My Genes: A Memoir
| Author | Bill Griffeth |
| ISBN | 0880823445 |
Bill Griffeth, longtime genealogy buff, takes a DNA test that has an unexpected outcome: "If the results were correct, it meant that the family tree I had spent years documenting was not my own." Bill undertakes a quest to solve the mystery of his origins, which shakes his sense of identity. As he takes...
