What’s the scoop on pub­lish­ing? What Jew­ish books are agents, edi­tors, and pub­lish­ers look­ing to acquire — and which books are they espe­cial­ly excit­ed for us to read? At JBC, we’ve launched a new series, Book­Watch, to answer these fre­quent­ly asked ques­tions. Each month, a pub­lish­ing insid­er will write an email to intro­duce them­selves, give us a behind-the-scenes look at their work, and tell us about forth­com­ing Jew­ish books they can’t wait to ush­er into the world.

This piece orig­i­nal­ly appeared in a JBC email on Fri­day, August 16. Sign up here for our emails to be one of the first to know the lat­est Jew­ish lit­er­ary news! 

The world has got­ten so loud.

The noise is con­stant, end­less, a jug­ger­naut, a flood. There are actu­al, gen­uine hor­rors unfold­ing all around us, and that is not what I’m talk­ing about. I’m talk­ing about the rest of it — the social media chick­en fights, the polit­i­cal sand­box brawls, the sta­t­ic puls­ing through our lit­tle echo cham­bers, the memes and sound bites gen­er­at­ed to keep our ner­vous sys­tems in over­drive at all times. 

At the risk of sound­ing old-fash­ioned and naïve, I believe that there is an anti­dote to all of this noise, and the anti­dote is books. That most ele­gant of objects, made of (in their ide­al form) sim­ple mate­ri­als like paper and ink but con­tain­ing entire uni­vers­es. Books alone are com­pact enough, mighty enough, sol­id enough, pli­able enough to hold their own against the noise. And as an edi­tor focus­ing on lit­er­ary fic­tion and nar­ra­tive non­fic­tion at a small imprint (Avid Read­er Press) with­in a large pub­lish­ing house (Simon & Schus­ter), those are the books I am look­ing for — ones that are sharp and dis­tinc­tive and have a fight­ing chance of cut­ting through the noise.

Grandiose? Hyper­bol­ic? Wish­ful think­ing? Maybe! But when you’re edit­ing and pub­lish­ing a small list of books, you want each one to feel urgent and impor­tant, you want each book to count. I rarely seek out par­tic­u­lar plots or char­ac­ters or set­tings — any­thing goes, real­ly (though if I’m hon­est, drag­ons have nev­er appealed to me, which is ulti­mate­ly my loss because those are the books that SELL). I look for books where the stakes are high, where you can feel the ten­sion between cre­ative and destruc­tive forces, between the sto­ry and the under­sto­ry, the text and the sub­text. (Books are often like the humans who con­jure and cre­ate them — they have a con­scious and a sub­con­scious, and the del­i­cate bal­ance between them is what keeps things inter­est­ing.) I like sto­ries where there is some sort of reck­on­ing to be had, whether it’s his­tor­i­cal or emo­tion­al or psy­cho­log­i­cal or all of the above … At Avid Read­er, we often say we look for books with teeth.

My goal is always to pub­lish fic­tion and mem­oir for a broad audi­ence (though not near­ly as broad as it would be if there were drag­ons), and I am priv­i­leged to work with a wide range of writ­ers. Because of my back­ground in bib­li­cal lit­er­a­ture and my love for Jew­ish texts and his­to­ry, I also tend to pub­lish more than a few Jew­ish writ­ers, and sev­er­al of the books I’ve worked on recent­ly are in con­ver­sa­tion with clas­si­cal­ly Jew­ish sub­jects and themes. I’m excit­ed to have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to men­tion a few of them now. 

Fer­vor (March 2024) is a debut nov­el by young British nov­el­ist Toby Lloyd, about a close-knit British Jew­ish fam­i­ly pushed to the brink when they sus­pect their daugh­ter is a witch. ​“This is a styl­ish, puz­zling, mys­ti­cal nov­el that offers no easy answers to how its char­ac­ters — or its read­ers — might react in the wake of destruc­tion,” writes the Finan­cial Times review­er, ​“invit­ing dis­cus­sion rather than pro­vid­ing res­o­lu­tion.” (Invit­ing dis­cus­sion rather than pro­vid­ing res­o­lu­tion! Not everyone’s cup of tea, but that’s a qual­i­ty I seek out and admire greatly.)

The Safe­keep by Yael van der Wouden (May 2024) is a debut nov­el by a young Dutch Israeli writer who writes in Eng­lish. (Two fun facts: as of last week, Yael was the first Dutch writer ever to appear on the Book­er Prize longlist, AND the very first piece she pub­lished in the US appeared in Jew­ish Book Council’s very own lit­er­ary jour­nal, Paper Brigade! Yichus!). Set in an old house in the Dutch coun­try­side in 1961, The Safe­keep is — in the words of the New York Times review­er, ​“qui­et­ly remark­able … Van der Wouden’s writ­ing is fine and taut. She lasers in on details, and presents unsen­ti­men­tal and intrin­si­cal­ly pow­er­ful metaphors.” The review­er is very care­ful not to give away any of the many twists and turns, and I will be, too. Just know that this is a tin­der­box nov­el, a nov­el of secrets and obses­sion and the past refus­ing to stay in the past.

Next Stop by Ben­jamin Resnick (Sep­tem­ber 2024), a debut nov­el remark­able not only because it was writ­ten by a pul­pit rab­bi (shoutout to the Pel­ham Jew­ish Cen­ter!), but also for its chill­ing pre­science, its warmth, and its inven­tive­ness. Set in an alter­nate present in which the nation of Israel van­ish­es into a black hole, the book fol­lows a young cou­ple and their son as they attempt to nav­i­gate a dis­turb­ing new world order, where Jews are faced with sus­pi­cion and per­se­cu­tion — or, as I like to say, the sto­ry of a young fam­i­ly is caught in an old sto­ry. In the words of Pub­lish­ers Week­ly, ​“Resnick skill­ful­ly uses the raw mate­ri­als of postapoc­a­lyp­tic fic­tion and speaks lucid­ly to his Jew­ish char­ac­ters’ lega­cy of dis­place­ment.” (No drag­ons in this one, but there are robot dogs aplenty.) 

Come Feb­ru­ary 2025, we will have an unput­down­able new nov­el by the won­der­ful Tova Mirvis. It’s called We Would Nev­er, and it is a riv­et­ing lit­er­ary page-turn­er that chron­i­cles the extremes to which a fam­i­ly will go in order to pro­tect their own. In the midst of a bit­ter divorce, Hai­ley Gelman’s estranged hus­band is found dead, and ques­tions of guilt and account­abil­i­ty and blurred lines come to plague her and sev­er­al mem­bers of her fam­i­ly. This is the best kind of who­dunit, because it impli­cates near­ly every­one, includ­ing the read­er. I love how Eliz­a­beth Graver, author of Kan­ti­ka, puts it: ​“Part mys­tery, part moral puz­zle, We Would Nev­er shines a fierce light on its char­ac­ters, while nev­er los­ing sight of their humanity.”

And one more, which was just announced this week although its pub date is a bit far­ther away: a new book by the bril­liant Dara Horn, whose Peo­ple Love Dead Jews I admired for its audac­i­ty, its clar­i­ty, and its rare blend of deep eru­di­tion, lived expe­ri­ence, and bold voice. All of those ele­ments and qual­i­ties will be woven into Horn’s pas­sion­ate, chal­leng­ing new book, anoth­er demure­ly titled work of non­fic­tion called The Final Solu­tion to the Jew­ish Ques­tion: A Love Sto­ry for the Living.

And with that, dear friends and read­ers, I will leave you to the noise! Or, even bet­ter, I will leave you to pick up a book of your choos­ing, one that will hope­ful­ly hold your atten­tion and com­fort you, chal­lenge you, or maybe both. Maybe one that will teach you some­thing new or remind you of some­thing you’ve for­got­ten. Or one that will staunch the flood of infor­ma­tion com­ing toward you, maybe even divert­ing it and cre­at­ing new lines of think­ing, new lines of connection.

And most impor­tant­ly, though not for me: maybe there will be dragons.

This piece orig­i­nal­ly appeared in a JBC email on Fri­day, August 16. Sign up here for our emails to be one of the first to know the lat­est Jew­ish lit­er­ary news!