Contract with God by Will Eisner
Fagin, the Jew by Will Eisner.

Contract with God belongs to the genre of graphic stories, the most famous of which is Art Spiegelman/s Maus. Contract with God presents three stories, all of which are set in New York’s immigrant tenements. Like Maus, these stories are presented in “comic-book” format: in illustrated frames with short dialogues or bits of narration. Through the pictures and the text, Eisner draws a poignant picture of the dark side of the immigrant experience. For readers of more conventional literature, this book provides a wonderful opportunity to explore how pictures tell stories and how the “comic” genre can function as a medium for literature.

Eisner has also written another graphic novel, Fagin the Jew which presents the early life and career of Dicken’s character, Fagin, from Oliver Twist. In this novel, Eisner explains how the social and economic pressures on a Jewish immigrant to Victorian London might make him become the leader of a gang of street thieves.

For mystery fans:
There are several mystery series featuring Jewish detectives. The most famous of these are the books by Faye Kellerman which feature the detective Peter Decker and his wife Rina Lazarus (The Ritual Bath, Sacred and Profane, Milk and Honey, Day of Atonement, False Prophet, Grievous Sin, Sanctuary, Justice, Prayers for the Dead, Serpent’s Tooth, Jupiter’s Bones, Stalker). Less well-known, but equally entertaining, are Rochelle Krich’s Jessica Drake mysteries (Blood Money, Fair Game, Angel of Death, Dead Airy, Shadow of Sin). Both these series are popular “page-turner” mysteries that provide interesting examples of the ways in which “Jewishness” functions and is represented in popular fiction.

Isaac Bashevis Singer: Collected Stories
This three volume collection was published in honor of the centennial of Singer’s birth. There is an excellent review essay and questions for discussion in the July 2004 issue of the Jewish Reader which is available on line at http://yiddishbookcenter.org.

A Love Made Out of Nothing and Zohara’s Journey by Barbara Honigmann
These two novellas, which are published together as a single volume, won the 2004 Koret Jewish Book Award for fiction. Originally written in German, the first novella tells the story of two women’s geographical and personal journeys in post-war Europe.

W or the Memory of Childhood by George Perec
This is an experimental novel originally written in French in the 1970s by Georges Perec, a French-Jewish writer whose parents were killed during WWII. In this novel, Perec interweaves his invented memories of his family and wartime experience with a fantasy narrative of a fascist, sports-crazed society on an island in the Tierra del Fuego.

Wandering Stars: An Anthology of Jewish Fantasy and Science Fiction by Jack Dann
In this collection, the authors use the genres of fantasy and science fiction to represent and explore Jewish culture and values from a new perspective. The conventions of time and interplanetary travel give the authors opportunities to explore what Jewishness looks like through truly foreign eyes and allows them to imagine how Jewishness might function when completely removed from its history and cultural contexts.