Title: Certain Girls
Author: Jennifer Weiner
Genre: Fiction

I kind of have a love/not so much love relationship with Jennifer Weiner’s books. I really enjoyed Good in Bed, kind of liked In Her Shoes, pretty much hated Goodnight Nobody. I’m having a hard time though figuring out exactly how much I liked Certain Girls. With two narrators the book lacks a cohesive voice and I think it suffered because of it. Of course that may just be because one of the narrators is exceedingly whiny.

I really hate terms like chick lit or fluffy. They’re condescending. We need a better term for books that are, in essence, contemporary fairy tales. Some of the situations and characters in these contemporary fairy tales are too hyper saturated to come off as anything but fiction but they work in the context of the book. Endings are either too happy or too sad or manipulatively bittersweet. But again it works in the context of a contemporary fairy tale. Certain Girls is one of those contemporary fairy tales. I enjoyed parts very much, was quite irritated by parts of it, learned a few things from it and don’t at all wish I hadn’t spent time reading it. That’s pretty good. 

Title: Unaccustomed Earth
Author: Jhumpa Lahiri
Genre: Fiction

I adored Interpreter of Maladies and very much enjoyed The Namesake. Thus it was with great excitement that I awaited the release of Unaccustomed Earth. B and I saw The Savages a couple months ago and the best way we could describe the film was to say “it was bittersweet though far more bitter than sweet.” I think that’s a good description. Saying it was melancholy or sad wouldn’t give the fullness of picture that bittersweet does.

I’ve found Lahiri’s work to also be “bittersweet though far more bitter than sweet” and Unaccustomed Earth is no exception. It is a collection of stories and not one could be described as being a happy one. They read as incredibly nuanced and believable stories that linger with you long after you’re done reading them. Perhaps even more than the stories linger with you though moments from the stories linger with you. I find that it takes an incredibly gifted author to craft passages and individual moments that are strong enough to stay with you instead of just reliving the story as a whole. Lahiri seems to have this ability in bulk.

I love this book and highly recommend it though I can see clearly that it’s not a book to everyone’s taste. There are no tidy, happy endings and no easy answers to any of the character’s problems. In short it’s a lot like life.

Some people have complained that Lahiri’s writing is too narrow in scope. Meaning she writes a great deal about the children of Indian immigrants who live in New England, frequently attend Ivy League schools and deal with issues of being part of and present in two very different cultures. While true that she does focus on Indian-Americans I wouldn’t call the scope narrow or limited at all. As I mentioned before her writing is nuanced and finds differences as well as similarities and common experiences amongst her characters. I enjoy that she has chosen one large topic to be the focus of her writing and explores it in detail.

Title: The Nine Questions People Ask About Judaism
Author: Dennis Prager and Joseph Telushkin
Genre: Non- Fiction

This is the second book that the rabbi I’m working with on my potential conversion encouraged me to read. It was a fascinating book. It really does answer a lot of the questions that non-Jews have about the religion and culture of Jews. If you’re interested in studying Judaism either because you’re on a conversion path or just because you’re interested in religion or history I would definitely recommend this book.

Like the previous book nothing I read in The Nine Questions People Ask About Judaism made me feel uncomfortable or hesitant about my path toward conversion. In fact it made me feel even more strongly that Judaism is the right system of beliefs and actions for me. The Judaism that I know so far feels like the place I should be. That scares me. I’ve always been areligious and now being so compelled toward a religion is making me question a lot things about my own self definition. It’s heavy stuff.

Title: Embracing Judaism
Author: Simcha King, Carl M. Perkins
Genre: Non- Fiction

I’m considering converting to Judaism. I mentioned this a few weeks ago on Twitter of all places but other than that I’ve only spoken about it with B and my stepmother. So this is the first “public” statement on it. To set my feet upon the path to possible conversion I reached out to the rabbi of my local synagogue, a Conservative Jewish congregation. We had a great email discussion and then a very nice meeting. During that meeting he recommended that I read two books and then get back to him with any questions and whether or not I want to move forward. Moving forward doesn’t necessarily mean conversion of course, really moving forward just means learning more.

In any case this was one of the books the rabbi recommended to me. It could accurately be described as “a brief introduction and history of the Jewish faith and people.” It was very well written and really distilled an overwhelming amount of knowledge into a smallish (right at 200 pages) book that gives a strong introduction to Judaism and it lists many resources for further study. I enjoyed reading the book and learned a great deal by reading it. Truthfully a great, great deal of the material in this book made me think quite strongly that yes, the path to conversion is definitely the right path for me to be on. That being said I still have more study, thinking and self reflection to do before I make that firm decision.

Next up a book called The Nine Questions People Ask About Judaism written by, of all people, conservative commentator Dennis Praeger. The rabbi described him as being “not a friend to the gays” but said we should overlook that for the sake of reading this book because the book has a lot of very useful information in it for someone thinking of converting. I really like the rabbi.