Books Set in North America, Washington State and New York City

Heart of a Stranger, by Angela Buchdahl (2025)

Heart of a Stranger is a memoir of Rabbi Angela Buchdahl.  She was born in Korea to a  Korean Buddhist mother and an American Jewish father.  When she was five-years-old, her family moved to a small town in Washington State, where she met her father's family and embraced Judaism.  Although she her mother was not Jewish, she was raised in the Jewish religion.  It wasn't until she was a teenager, that she learned that many because her mother was not Jewish, she would not be considered Jewish by all denominations.  This book follows her path to become an ordained Reform rabbi to leading one of the largest Reform synagogues in the United States.  At the end of each chapter, Rabbi Bachdahl provided a brief d'var Torah, a spiritual reflection on the preceding chapter.

The book is well written and explores her path to becoming the first Asian-American Rabbi.

Read: April 6, 2026

5 Stars

Books Set in North America; Washington, D.C.

Dinners with Ruth: A Memoir on the Power of Friendships, by Nina Totenberg (2022)

The title of this book would lead the reader to think that it is about Ruth Bader Ginsburg.  It is, but it is also about Nina Totenberg.  There was far too much about Nina Totenberg and I would have liked more about Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

The book is about friendships of all kinds.  Nina talks about her friendships with her husbands, other reporters, other judges and justices.  With few exceptions, the friendships she discusses are well-known people, name-dropping.

There are many parallels in the lives of Ruth and Nina.  Both women were children of Jewish immigrant parents.  Both women were leaders in their respective fields, both women used their positions to help shape the political discourse of American society.

They were friends for over 50 years.  They first met in the early 1970s when Nina was reporting on the Supreme Court and Ruth was arguing a case before the High Court.  Slowly, over time, they became fast friends.  We only see snippets of Ruth in this book, however.  For this reason, I could only give this book 3 stars.  I wanted more Ruth and less Nina.

Read:  March 27, 2026

3 Stars

Books Set in Asia (Iran) and the North America (California)

The Good Daughter: A Memoir of My Mother's Hidden Life, by Jasmin Darznik (2011)

Read:  December 1, 2025

4 Stars

Books Set in North America, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

How to Share an Egg: A True Story of Hunger, Love and Plenty, by Bonny Reichert (2025)

Read:  June 16, 2026

5 Stars

Books Set in North America; United States, New York

Too Much and Never Enough, by Mary Trump (2020)

An eye-opening look into the Trump family.  Donald Trump was a cruel bully from childhood.88

Read: October 24, 2024

4 Stars

Books Set in South America, Argentina

Stranger in the Desert, by Jordan Salama (2024)

The author, Jordan Salama, seeks to learn more about his family history after finding a notebook his grandfather had compiled called Historia Antigua.  Although living in New York, Jordan’s family roots were Sephardic, Syrian, and Argentinian, which in South American were referred to as turco.  Turco referred to the fact that many people immigrated to South America pre-World War I when much of the middle east was under Ottoman control.

Jordan knew that his father’s family had immigrated to Argentina in the 1920s and that his great-grandfather was a traveling salesman.  Many first-generation immigrants to Argentina during this period became traveling salesmen.  The local population in the more remote areas of Argentina relied on the salesmen to bring them supplies.

So, Jordan traveled to Argentina to search for traces of his family.  His grandfather still had family and a few contacts in Buenos Aires, so Jordan started his trek there.  After spending time with his extended family in Buenos Aires, Jordan set out for the Andes hoping to follow the trail of his great-grandfather.  He meets many people along the way and as he goes, he realized what a melting pot his Sephardic Jewish background blends in, and is influenced by, the surrounding cultures.

I loved reading about Jordan’s travels and the people he met along his search.

Read: July 9, 2024

5 Stars

Books Set in North America: New York, New York

Brazen, by Julia Haart (2022)

Brazen is a whiny memoir about a woman who was born in Moscow, Russia to secular parents.  As a young child, her parents immigrated to America, where they became ultimately joined a large ultra-Orthodox community in New York and were essentially cutoff from the modern world.  Later, as an adult, she left the community to enter the world of fashion and become a shoe designer.

As her family became indoctrinated into the ultra-Orthodox community, Haart was taught to believe that any deviation from the community’s norms would incur the wrath of God.  Because her family was not always religious, her parents were concerned about making a good marriage match.  Although she had some say in her marriage partner, Haart essentially married a young man she had met only 3 times prior to the wedding.  They had little in common and he expected his wife to work and keep the home while he studied Torah.

She described how, at age 19 and with no formal higher education, she taught 17- and 18-year old girls in her community.  The education was limited to religious instruction, as subjects such as math and science were forbidden.  Eventually, her husband gets an outside job and the family moved to an Orthodox community in Atlanta for a few years.

Somehow, the family has money and Haart describes the high-end clothing that she wears, after altering them to conform to the stringencies of the community – long skirts, high necks, long sleeves so no skin is showing.

After Haart left the community, my interest in her life began to wane.  She wanted to be a shoe designer.  Suddenly, everyone she met wanted to both help her and take advantage of her.  She admitted that she was naïve to the outside world, but still …  She also describes in cringy detail her sexual encounters.  Suddenly, everyone wants to have sex with her, and she often seems to have no objection to their wishes.

What she left out, however, is the reaction of the community once she left.  She mentions one instance in which she was invited to a family wedding but was never invited to a family event after that.  She implies that her children have left the community but doesn’t explain what and how that happened.  One daughter married young before Haart had left the community.

The book could have used some better editing.  Some of her accounts of biblical stories seem a bit “off.”

I read the book to the end, but found it very whiny and egocentric.

Read:  March 25, 2023

2.5 Stars

Books Set in Asia: Cambodia

First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers, by Loung Ung (2000)

 

Loung Ung was 5 years old when her world was upended by the Khmer Rouge.  She had been living a care-free childhood in an upper-middle class family in Phnom Penh, Cambodia with her parents and six siblings.  Her father was a government official, but when the Khmer Rouge overthrew the government, his life was in jeopardy if his work status was discovered.  In April 1975, the family had to leave Phnom Penh, hide their identity, and live as peasant farmers.  Eventually, they were captured and sent to forced-labor camps where they were given very little food.

 

This memoir is told through the eyes of Loung Ung, who was a child during this period of Cambodian history.  She describes the horrors of being separated from her family, how the Khmer soldiers can for her father, and he was never seen again.  She describes how starvation and malnutrition stole the life of her younger sister.  She describes how she, as a 7-year-old, was recruited into the Khmer as a child soldier.  She lived through the horrors of the Khmer Rouge regime, and in 1979, was finally able to reunite with what remained of her family.  It is harrowing to imaging young children living through and being exposed to such hatred and horror.

 

Read: January 21, 2023

 

4 Stars

 

 

 

Books Set in North America; the United States

Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted, by Suleika Jaouad (2021)

 

This book is a memoir of a young woman who, at age 22, was diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia.  It started with an uncontrollable and annoying itch.  Shortly after graduating from college, Suleika Jaouad set off for Paris to begin a career as a journalist.  When she collapsed, she soon found herself on a flight back to New York where she was given a 35% chance of survival.

 

While isolated in the hospital, she began to document her treatments, first in a blog, and later in a regular column in the New York Times.  The response to her columns was phenomenal and soon she began receiving letters, emails and beginning correspondences with others who were similarly situated.

 

Shortly before being diagnosed, the author met “Will”.  They instantly fell for each other.  She feared that he would leave her when he learned she was so ill.  He didn’t.  He stuck by her throughout her treatments, stayed with her in the hospital, and ensured that she was getting proper care.  [Spoiler Alert:  When she is nearly in remission, their relationship began to faulter when he needed space for his well-being.  She gave him an ultimatum, and, to her surprise, he left.  Within months, she had found another lover, and when will wanted to reconcile, it was too late.]

 

Once Jaouad was deemed in remission, she learned how to drive and decided to set out on a 100-day solo road trip across the country to experience her new freedom and to meet some of her “pen-pals” who responded to her blog and newspaper columns.  The time alone on the drive allowed her to reflect on her life and her relationships formed during her illness.

 

The book’s title comes from a line in Susan Sontag’s memoir, Illness as a Metaphor, where Sontag noted that everyone is born with dual citizenship in the kingdom of wellness and the kingdom of sickness.  As Jaouad recounts her experience, she realized just how hard it was to adjust in moving from one “kingdom” to the other.

 

Read:  May 11, 2022

 

4 Stars