Book Group

JCC MetroWest Book Group

Book Group discussion and conversation with the author will be available either in person or on Zoom for participants; author will present via Zoom.

Click the button below for the Book Group archives. For more information contact, Katy Strulson, 973-530-3915, [email protected].

 2025-2026 Book Group

Tuesday, September 9: Six Days in Bombay by Alka Joshi

This sweeping novel takes readers from Bombay to Prague, Florence, Paris and London, to uncover the mystery behind a famous painter’s death. Mira Novak, who is partly inspired by the Hungarian Indian artist Amrita Sher-Gil, is a painter with Hungarian Jewish and Indian heritage. The novel explores themes of identity, self-discovery, and friendship, set against the backdrop of colonial India in 1937.

Thursday, October 16: Isola by Allegra Goodman

Heir to a fortune, Marguerite is destined for a life of prosperity and gentility. Then she is orphaned, and her guardian, accusing her of betrayal, brutally punishes and abandons her on a small island. Once a child of privilege, Marguerite finds herself at the mercy of nature. As the weather turns, blanketing the island in ice, she discovers a faith she’d never needed, inspired by the real life of a sixteenth-century heroine.

Thursday, November 13:  A Gorgeous Excitement by Cynthia Weiner

“A Gorgeous Excitement”, Freuds term for cocaine, is central to this 1980’s coming-of-age tale about a Jewish teenager attempting to fit into rarefied Upper East Side society the summer before she leaves for college. She spends her evenings at Flangan’s, the Upper East side bar where she pines for the handsome, preppy, charismatic, and, later, dangerous, Gardner Reed, who is involved in a crime based on the actual “Preppy Murder” case. A chillingly compelling novel.

Tuesday, December 16: Sisters of Fortune by Esther Chehebar

The Cohen sisters-Fortune, the middle sister, preparing for her upcoming arranged marriage; Nina, the 26 year-old eldest, struggling with single life and newfound career opportunities; and Lucy, a high school senior sneaking around with a much older bachelor-are members of the tight-knit Syrian Jewish community in Brooklyn. The novel offers a heartfelt, witty exploration of sisterhood, cultural identity, romantic and personal ambition and the tension between tradition and autonomy.

Thursday, January 15: The Red House by Mary Morris

Laura’s mother, Viola, vanished 30 years ago, leaving behind unsettling paintings of a red house, all containing the phrase, “I will not be here forever” in Italian. At a personal crossroads, Laura returns to her birthplace in Italy on a poignant quest that peels back hidden layers of her mother’s life, including revelations of Viola’s true Jewish heritage and wartime exile under Mussolini’s regime. Laura confronts her family’s concealed past, discovering devastating truths.

Wednesday, February 18: Boy From the North Country by Sam Sussman

When Evan, twenty-six, is called home to the secluded farmhouse where he was raised, he doesn’t yet know his mother is dying. He doesn’t know the identity of his biological father or the elusive story of his mothers creatively intense, emotionally turbulent romance with Bob Dylan, whom Evan revers as an artist and whom strangers have long insisted he resembles. In this moving debut novel, Sussman writes one of the most tender and intimate mother-son relationships of our era.