The Song of Songs, also called the Canticle of Canticles or the Song of Solomon, is an erotic poem, one of the five megillot ('scrolls') in the Ketuvim ('writings'), the last section of the Tanakh. It is unique within the Hebrew Bible: it shows no interest in Law or Covenant or the God of Israel, nor does it teach or explore wisdom, like Proverbs or Ecclesiastes ; instead, it celebrates sexual love, giving "the voices of two lovers, praising each other, yearning for each other, proffering invitations to enjoy.”
Shmuel Yosef Agnon was an Austro-Hungarian-born Israeli novelist, poet, and short-story writer. He was one of the central figures of modern Hebrew literature. In Hebrew, he is known by the acronym Shai Agnon. In English, his works are published under the name S. Y. Agnon.
Amos Oz was an Israeli writer, novelist, journalist, and intellectual. He was also a professor of Hebrew literature at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. From 1967 onwards, Oz was a prominent advocate of a two-state solution to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.
Exodus is a historical novel by American novelist Leon Uris about the founding of the State of Israel beginning with a compressed retelling of the voyages of the 1947 immigration ship Exodus and describing the histories of the various main characters and the ties of their personal lives to the birth of the new Jewish state.
Esperanza Rising is a young adult historical fiction novel written by Mexican-American author Pam Muñoz Ryan and released by Scholastic Publishing on 27 March 2000. The novel focuses on Esperanza, the only daughter of wealthy Mexican parents, and follows the events that occur after her father's murder. Esperanza, her mother, and their former household servants flee to California with no money during the Great Depression, where they find agricultural work that pays very little. The book received multiple positive reviews from critics, who praised Muñoz Ryan's writing and excitedly concluded that it was welcome for classroom discussion.
Nicole Krauss is an American author best known for her four novels Man Walks into a Room (2002), The History of Love (2005), Great House (2010) and Forest Dark (2017), which have been translated into 35 languages. Her fiction has been published in The New Yorker, Harper's, Esquire, and Granta's Best American Novelists Under 40, and has been collected in Best American Short Stories 2003, Best American Short Stories 2008 and Best American Short Stories 2019. In 2011, Nicole Krauss won an award from the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards for Great House. A collection of her short stories, To Be a Man, was published in 2020 and won the Wingate Literary Prize in 2022.
The city of Jerusalem is sacred to many religious traditions, including the Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam which consider it a holy city. Some of the most sacred places for each of these religions are found in Jerusalem, most prominently, the Temple Mount/Haram Al-Sharif.
In Between the Sheets (1978) is the second collection of short stories by British writer Ian McEwan.
Hillel Halkin is an American-born Israeli translator, biographer, literary critic, and novelist who has lived in Israel since 1970.
Dara Horn is an American novelist, essayist, and professor of literature. She has written five novels and in 2021, released a nonfiction essay collection titled People Love Dead Jews, which was a finalist for the 2021 Kirkus Prize in nonfiction. She won the Edward Lewis Wallant Award in 2002, the National Jewish Book Award in 2003 and 2006, and the Harold U. Ribalow Prize in 2007.
P. David Hornik is a writer, translator, copyeditor, and commentator living in Be'er Sheva, Israel.
Alex Hernandez is a Cuban-American science fiction writer based in South Florida. The first of his extensive Cuban family to be born in the United States, Hernandez writes in a genre of his own making, which he calls Transhuman Mambo. According to Hernandez this neologism is based on the popular coupling of a scientific term with a musical form, which accurately describes the combination of his love of science fiction with the Cuban culture of his upbringing. Deeply influenced as a child by the work of Isaac Asimov, Hernandez connected in a personal way to this immigrant whose first language was also not English. Discovering the novels of Octavia E. Butler while in college had an equally profound impact on his writing.
A Tale of Love and Darkness is a memoir by the Israeli author Amos Oz, first published in Hebrew in 2002.
Matti Friedman is a Canadian-Israeli journalist and author. He is an op-ed contributor for the New York Times, and columnist for Tablet magazine.
Us Conductors is a debut novel by Canadian writer Sean Michaels. Published in 2014 by Random House in Canada and Tin House in the United States, the novel is a fictionalized account of the relationship between Léon Theremin, the inventor of the theremin, and Clara Rockmore, the musician regarded as the instrument's first virtuoso player.
The Boy & the Bindi is a 2016 children's picture book by Vivek Shraya and illustrated by Rajni Perera. It is about a young boy's obsession with his mother's bindi and his experiences when he wears one.
Catch-67: The Left, the Right, and the Legacy of the Six-Day War is a 2017 book by Israeli philosopher of Jewish thought Micah Goodman on Israeli internal conflict over the West Bank occupation. The English-language translation by journalist Eylon Levy was published by Yale University Press in September 2018.
Salt Houses is a 2017 historical fiction novel by Palestinian-American author Hala Alyan.
Hello Lighthouse is a picture book written and illustrated by Sophie Blackall. The book tells the story of a lighthouse and its last keeper and was well received, winning the 2019 Caldecott Medal for its illustrations. Drawing inspiration from a variety of sources, Blackall worked hard on the design of the book. The writing and illustrations were meant to complement each other noting the change and consistency of the sea.
Michael Omer is an author of crime, thriller, horror and fantasy; born in Israel and currently residing in Ireland. His books were translated to over 14 languages and have sold more than a million copies. He is a New York Times bestseller, The Washington Post bestseller, and was the second most read Kindle book of the year 2018. Omer has received the LiveLib Readers' Choice Award for Detective Fiction, The Russian Detective Prize, and Thomas & Mercer Silver Raven Award.
