​What We Will Become: A Mother, a Son, and a Journey of TransformationRaised in an ultra-orthodox Jewish family with every aspect of her life dictated by ancient rules, Mimi Lemay’s role as a woman seemed preordained from cradle to grave. What We Will Become is Lemay’s heartfelt memoir of her transgender child's odyssey, and her own journey outside the boundaries of the faith and culture that shaped her life. Dual narratives of faith and motherhood weave together to form a…

​Eat Something: A Wise Sons Cookbook for Jews Who Like Food and Food Lovers Who Like JewsWritten by Rachel Levin, a journalist, and Evan Bloom, accomplished chef, entrepreneur, and founder of Wise Sons Deli in San Francisco, Eat Something is part comedy, part nostalgia, and part cookbook. In scrapbook-style, this book layers food photography illustrations by artist George McCalman, with Jewish cultural memorabilia sourced from Wise Sons customers and the Contemporary Jewish Museum. Stemming from the thesis that Jews eat…

​The Book of V.Anna Solomon is the two-time winner of the Pushcart Prize and author of Leaving Lucy Pear and The Little Bride. Her latest novel, a Good Morning America Book Club pick titled The Book of V., intertwines the lives of a Brooklyn mother in 2016, a senator's wife in 1970s Washington, D.C., and the Bible's Queen Esther, whose stories of sex, power and desire overlap and ultimately converge - revealing how women's roles have, and have not, changed…

​The Last Kings of Shanghai: The Rival Jewish Dynasties That Helped Create Modern ChinaPulitzer Prize-winning reporter and Director of the School of Journalism at Northeastern University, Jonathan Kaufman has written and reported on China for thirty years news outlets including The Boston Globe, The Wall Street Journal, and Bloomberg News. In The Last Kings of Shanghai, Kaufman writes about the Sassoons who, by the 1930s, had been doing business in China for a century, rivaled in wealth and influence by…

Bea will be discussing the following book: The Vanishing Half, by Britt Bennett: A multi-generational family saga that tackles issues of racial identity and bigotry. RSVP to Sara Ewing at sewing@jccns.com for Zoom link.

​Laugh Lines: My Life Helping Funny People Be FunnierAlan Zweibel, an original writer for Saturday Night Live who has won multiple Emmy and Writers Guild of America awards for his work in television, started his comedy career selling jokes for seven dollars apiece to the last of the Borscht Belt stand ups. As one of the first writers at SNL, he penned classic material for Gilda Radner, John Belushi, and all of the original "Not Ready for Prime Time Players."…