RABBI STEVEN KRAWITZ

Two medical books grabbed my attention:

In a Different Key by John Donvan and Caren Zucker (Allen Lane) as the story of autism, is the first comprehensive history of this condition. Donvan, who is an award-winning journalist, interviewed not only leading scientists, educators, therapists and politicians, but also families with autistic members, introducing us to an unforgettable cast of children. While this book is pro-science, it looks at all sides of the debates surrounding autism’s causes and treatments.

When Breath becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi (Bodley Head) is the book you will keep hearing about. The heart-breaking, beautiful work was penned by a 37-year old-neurosurgeon who had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. Recounting his life with honesty and life affirming reflections on facing mortality, Kalanithi transcends death with a celebration of life.

The thriller genre offers these must-reads 

Orphan X by Gregg Hurwitz (Michael Joseph) about Evan Smoak, a young man who was taken by the US government into a secret programme for orphans who are trained to carry out the type of operations governments need done and need to deny.

After a career as Orphan X, Smoak is forced off the radar and only takes on jobs that will rebalance injustices. The novel delivers the kind of widescreen cinematic thrills only the best action movies deliver. Movie rights have already been sold, with Bradley Cooper to star.

The Last Days of Jack Spark by Jason Arnopp (Orbit). One of the cleverest and most addictive books for 2016, this is a chilling story of a social media star’s terrifying downfall. Egotistical and cynical, Jack Sparks sets out to discredit a ghostly YouTube video, but then people around him start to die…

The Travellers by Chris Pavone (Faber & Faber) sees Will Rhodes, award-winning correspondent for the Travellers magazine being targeted, but he doesn’t know why or by whom. Chris Pavone is a rising star in thrillers and if you haven’t read him yet, start now and then read his backlist. 

Israeli authoress Ayelet Gundar-Goshen’s second book to be translated into English, Waking Lions, (Pushkin Press) reaffirms her position as one of Israeli’s leading novelists and a rising name in the literary world.

Dr Eitan Green is a good man, he saves lives. One night while speeding along a deserted moonlit road in his SUV, after an exhausting hospital shift, he hits someone. Seeing that the man, an African migrant, is beyond help, he flees. That decision changes everything.

The dead man’s wife knows what happened and when she knocks at Eitan’s door the next day, holding his wallet, he discovers her price is not money. It is something that will shatter his safe existence. Waking Lions is a gripping, suspenseful and morally devastating drama of guilt and survival, shame and desire.

Peter Groge’s The Greatest Escape (Nicholas Brealey) tells the astonishing little-known story of how an entire French village defied the Nazis during the French occupation and saved 5 000 lives. This is a page-turning adventure of heroism, hope and courage.

Banking and the global economy are put under the microscope by Mervyn King the former governor of the Bank of England in The End of Alchemy (Little Brown). In this book he argues for fundamental changes to the financial system to reduce the risk of new crises. This is an urgent topic from one of a handful of people in the world with the necessary knowledge and experience to tackle it.

Shakespeare in Swahiland by Edward Wilson-Lee (Williams & Collins) is one of many books published to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the Bard’s death, but with a difference: Wilson-Lee takes the reader on an unforgettable journey from Zanzibar, through Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Ethiopia and Sudan, to reveal a hidden history and love for Shakespeare across the African continent. How Shakespeare’s 16th century Elizabethan plays have found expression across Africa is an unexpected story and a delightful one too.

Literary fiction readers can look forward to

 Anatomy of a Soldier by Harry Parker (Frater and Frater), a stunning debut about war told with profound humanism from the perspective of objects surrounding British Captain Tom Barnes and two boys on the other side of the conflict. Parker himself did service in Iraq and lost both his feet. This book has an authenticity and honesty that should make it a war classic.

In Stork Mountain, Miroslav Penkov’s mesmerising first novel, an American student returns to Bulgaria, the country of his birth, to track down his grandfather and find out why he suddenly cut off all contact with the family three years before.

Finally, in an investigation behind the headlines of one of the most momentous events of the 21st century, Wolfang Bauer, journalist and photographer, accompanies Syrian refugees attempting to cross the Mediterranean on smugglers boats. Delving beyond the headlines into the stories of individual refugees and other participants in the murky, yet life-saving Syrian exodus, Bauer lives and humanises the greatest refugee and demographic flows since the end of the Second World War.