Steven Steinbock

Wall Street Journal investigative reporter Lucette Lagnado chronicles the story of her family from the early decades of the twentieth century in Cairo, Egypt, to their traumatic emigration to New York in the early 1960s. Along the way, the family must contend with the death of a child, womanizing habits of the patriarch, illness, and a revolution.

The Book Thief is the story of Liesel Meminger, a girl living in Nazi Germany whose foster parents provide refuge for a young Jew, Max Vandenberg, by hiding him in their basement. The novel is narrated by “Death,” characterized not as the usual grim reaper, but a sympathetic guardian of the souls of the deceased. The narrator refers to Liesel as “the book thief” because she steals a handful of books throughout the course of the novel.

The Coffee Trader is a thriller set in 1659 Amsterdam amid the backdrop of the Portuguese Jewish immigrant community, the Amsterdam commodities exchange, and the seedy taverns that line the canals.

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay is a novel about magic, manhood, superheroes, and growing up Jewish in America in the 1930s and 1940s.