Sandra Selects

From this award-winning journalist, who has written on topics as diverse as Jewish prostitution, Bodies and Souls: The Tragic Plight of Three Jewish Women Forced into Prostitution in the Americas, to Hitler's Silent Partners: Swiss Banks, Nazi Gold, and the Pursuit of Justice, comes a tender, funny, poignant memoir filled with laughter and delicious food. Edward is a 93-year-old widower when his daughter Valerie asks Isabel to look in on him as she must return to Toronto. Isabel has just moved to New York with her family for a new job as an investigative reporter for the New York Post, but is sadly in the early stages of divorce. Edward was not a snob or insufferable about food as some are; he just decided one day in his 70s that Paula, his wife, had cooked for 52 years and now it was his turn. Edward and Isabel meet weekly and enjoy extraordinary dinners together. Isabel learned to follow Edward's recipes, whether for food or life, with precision. She learned her lesson when she tried to use fresh apricots, not dried, as instructed, in a soufflé. It was bland bland blah. This book is a jewel.

Sharansky was an Israeli cabinet minister and head of the Jewish Agency, but prior to that, in 1977, he was arrested by the KGB for his dissident activism, and spent nine years in prison, often in harsh conditions. His time in jail prepared him for his future public life. Throughout, he was known for his probity and honesty. This memoir, written with Troy, a former Montrealer, American historian, and ardent Zionist, is suffused with Sharansky's passion for the Jewish people as he reflects on his rich and varied contributions to Jewish life both in and outside Israel. The book is even surprisingly funny at times.

In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. But Circe is a strange child -- not powerful, like her father, nor viciously alluring like her mother. Turning to the world of mortals for companionship, she discovers that she does possess power -- the power of witchcraft, which can transform rivals into monsters and menace the gods themselves. Threatened, Zeus banishes her to a deserted island, where she hones her occult craft, and crosses paths with many of the most famous figures in all of mythology, including the Minotaur, Daedalus and his doomed son Icarus, the murderous Medea, and, of course, wily Odysseus. But there is danger, too, for a woman who stands alone, and Circe unwittingly draws the wrath of both men and gods, ultimately finding herself pitted against one of the most terrifying and vengeful of the Olympians.