Religious 15 Seder Steps, The

From Ellis Island To JFK

Read by Gloria Morgan

With facts and figures, this book tells the history of all the immigrant groups that have come to the USA since the mid 1800's to the present time.

No. 1509

From Optimism to Hope

Read by Daniel Gee (1 Cd)

Interesting, relevant, thought-provoking, understandable, timely, compassionate, optimistic and hopeful. This collection of very personal thoughts is aimed at a multi-faith audience and will be enjoyed by all. Well worth a read.

No. 1345

Future Tense

Read by Ita Rubin (11 Cds)

For Jews and for Judaism the twentieth century brought unprecedented suffering and incredible achievements - but as a new century gets going, their role in the future is up for grabs.

Future Tense refutes the arguments for isolationism and self- sufficiency that have proven so tempting down through history, instead making the case that Jews and Judaism must renew their sense of hope and purpose to engage positively with the developing global culture. Jonathan Sacks reviews the contribution that the Jewish faith and people have made in the development of modern civilisation, spelling out the ethical and spiritual challenges that now need to be addressed. H argues that Jews, Judaism and the nation of Israel have something uniquely valuable to contribute to the future of the human race.

Read by Simon Cohen

Based on over 300 interviews with everyone from anonymous LAPD foot soldiers to the families and associates of those they pursued, Gangster Squad is a blistering tour-de-force narrative that uncovers the reality of mid-twentieth century LA.

Be aware, this book contains explicit language.

No. 1721

Generations Of Memories

Read by Sylvia Clarke (1 Cd)

In these life stories Jewish women look back at their lives and explore the many ways of experiencing and asserting a Jewish identity. Brought up in London's East End or Glasgow's Gorbals, or coming to Britain as refugee's or survivors of Nazism; each story offers diverse perspectives, and each has a different relationship to Judaism and Jewishness, yet all have experienced directly or indirectly the consequences of anti-Semitism, and persecution.

No. 1514

Get Real

Read by Derina Dinkin (1 Cd)

Get Real is about the power of individuals to spot illusions and about recognising the useful funtion that those illusions perform for us. It's an insider's guide to understanding the present which puts the truth and the power to choose firmly in our hands. Only by telling it like it is can we improve and maybe even save our world for real.

No. 1644

Girl With Two Suitcases, The

Read by Ella Marks (1 Cd)

Myra aged 19 leaves her affluent home in Berlin in 1939 to come on her own to London, leaving her parents behind, and her brother and sister-in-law newly escaped to Denmark. The book goes onto tell the story of the next 10 years in her life. Her struggle to maintain herself in England, her growing love of the country, its people and particularly its language and then her growing Zionism and fear to go on Aliyah. As an attractive intelligent and lonely girl she tells of her emotional development and of the close relationships she formed during those years. This is a story well told, and is probably very similar to other stories of those who were forced to leave one life, and create a new one for themselves in a completely new environment.

No. 1605

God's Gold

Read by Martin Brownstein (1 Cd)

As an archaeologist specialising in Israel, Kingsley traces the journey around the Mediterranean of the Menorah and other treasures from the Temple after they are taken to Rome. He mixes detective work with descriptions of the societies and quotes from original texts. The book is very readable and the story is intriguing. He also makes observations on the significance of the treasures and on some contemporary issues associated with Israel and the Middle East.

No. 1365

Goldberg Variations, The

by Mark Glanville

Read by Clive Roslin
This is a fascinating book. Although it is an autobiography at times it seems almost a novel. Mark Glanville began his life, he says he became a teenage football hooligan and then ended up as an opera singer and hazan. The Jewish Chronical describes it as "an endearing tale, wickedly candid".

No.1747

Goodbye Marianne

Read by Simone Barnett (1 Cd)

Eleven year old Marianne is growing up in a world of uncertainty and increasing danger. She experiences the hardships and restrictions forced upon her and other Jewish people, in Berlin, leading up to the Second World War. She is no longer allowed to attend school or sit on park benches. She has to wear a yellow star and cannot walk along the streets of Berlin, without fear of being noticed. When her family are evicted there is only one real passage to safety for Marianne.

No. 1496

Goodbye Twentieth Century

Read by Anita Boston (1 Cd)

Dannie Abse's 'A Poet in the Family' was widely acclaimed as a remarkably vivid and entertaining memoir of a poet's childhood and youth. In 'Goodbye, Twentieth Century', he revises and expands this early autobiography and, in the second half, brings his life up to the present and the birth of a new century. This is a readable account of a poet's life, lived in the world of medicine and literature but informed by the powerful influences of Welshness and his Jewish heritage.

No. 1512

Good Living Street

by Tim Bonyhady

Read by Diana Toeman
In 'Good Living Street', Tim Bonhady follows the lives of three generations of women in his family in an intimate account of fraught relationships, romance and business highs and lows. They enjoyed a lifestyle of unimaginable luxury and privilege until the rise of Nazism made their existence in Austria untenable. In 1938, as Kristallnacht was raging, his family fled Vienna for a small flat in Australia, taking with them the best private collection of art and design to escape the Nazis. As they remade their lives as refugees, the past was rarely discussed and fifty years passed before Tim discovered the remarkable arc of his family's fortunes.

No. 1755

An intriguing portrayal of the lives of four 19th Century courtisans, their background and how they came to embrace their profession and manage the difficulties that they encountered because of it.

These stories are told as a serious attempt to understand what guided their reactions to the periculous twists and turns their lives took; when their personal safety depended on the whims of their current lovers.

No. 1518