Philip K. Jason
A University of Maryland Ph.D., Phil retired to Naples, Florida, in 2001 after a 36-year college teaching career, most of it at the U.S. Naval Academy. Now a freelance book reviewer, Phil’s “Florida Writers” column appears in the various local issues of Florida Weekly. He also writes for Fort Myers Magazine, Southern Literary Review, Jewish Book World, and other print and electronic publications. His 20 books include The Critical Response to Anais Nin; Acts and Shadows: The Vietnam War in American Literary Culture; and Don’t Wave Goodbye: The Children’s Flight from Nazi Persecution to American Freedom. A former officer of the Naples Press Club, Phil chaired the club’s annual Authors and Books Festival for eight years.
68 entries by Philip K. Jason
Citizen 865
By Debbie Cenziper
A Pulitzer-worthy investigation of escaped war criminals.
Mark Twain’s Literary Resources
By Alan Gribben
This astonishing portrait proves the iconic author was a committed bookworm.
Man of My Time: A Novel
By Dalia Sofer
A dazzling tale of a person — and a country — in despair.
Disengagement: A Novel
By Daniella Levy
An Israeli microcosm of the polarization that infects politics across the globe.
The Jewish American Paradox
By Robert Mnookin
Who gets to decide what it means to be a Jew?
The Interpreter: A Novel
By A.J. Sidransky
An unrepentant Nazi harbors key information about the whereabouts of a Holocaust survivor’s long-lost love.
Andrea Simon’s Bashert marks an important addition to the Holocaust canon.
999: The Extraordinary Young Women of the First Official Jewish Transport to Auschwitz
By Heather Dune Macadam
Aided by solid research, the author bears compassionate witness to unspeakable horror.
Citizen 865: The Hunt for Hitler’s Hidden Soldiers in America
By Debbie Cenziper
A Pulitzer-worthy investigation of escaped war criminals.
The Deserter: A Novel
By Nelson DeMille & Alex DeMille
Only avid fans will get through this overly long, dialogue-heavy thriller.
Old Bones: A Novel
By Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child
An historical thriller about skeletons in the snow — and the closet.
The Ventriloquists: A Novel
By E.R. Ramzipoor
A zany crew pulls a fast one on the Third Reich in this surprising tale based on actual events.
The German Midwife: A Novel
By Mandy Robotham
This story, narrated from behind Axis lines, captures the enduring strength of women.
Paris, 7 A.M.: A Novel
By Liza Wieland
A riveting re-imagining of poet Elizabeth Bishop’s WWII-era sojourn in France.
This astonishing portrait proves the iconic author was a committed bookworm.
You Can Stop Humming Now
By Daniela Lamas
The physician-author's tremendous writing skill elevates this winning work.
A Wonderful Stroke of Luck: A Novel
By Ann Beattie
The shadow of 9/11 looms over the lives of an otherwise privileged generation.
The Secret of Clouds: A Novel
By Alyson Richman
An exquisite story about how teachers and pupils enhance one another’s lives.
The Wartime Sisters: A Novel
By Lynda Cohen Loigman
Women bond — and sometimes break apart — in WWII-era New England.
The Jewish American Paradox: Embracing Choice in a Changing World
By Robert Mnookin
Who gets to decide what it means to be a Jew?
Promised Land: A Novel of Israel
By Martin Fletcher
A complex, brilliant family saga that explores the early decades of the Jewish state.
Returning
By Yael Shahar
This dazzling epic about memory, and collective memory, integrates fiction with memoir in deeply original and ambitious ways.
The Chosen Wars: How Judaism Became an American Religion
By Steven R. Weisman
Recounting the ways the ancient faith redefined itself in the 18th- and 19th-century United States.
Patient Care: Death and Life in the Emergency Room
By Paul Seward, MD
This insider account of the ER provides high drama, fascinating detail, and unexpected humor.
Jimmy Buffett
By Ryan White
Chronicling the once-obscure singer’s unlikely rise to mayor of Margaritaville.
The physician-author's tremendous writing skill elevates this winning work.
Sadness Is a White Bird: A Novel
By Moriel Rothman-Zecher
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict comes to life in this devastating tale of friendship and tragedy.
Cut You Down: A Wakeland Novel
By Sam Wiebe
This thrilling second installment of the detective series will leave readers wanting more.
The Hapsburg Variation: A Cold War Thriller
By Bill Rapp
A CIA agent's mettle is tested in this tale of post-WWII intrigue.
The Ruined House: A Novel
By Ruby Namdar; translated by Hillel Halkin
This breathtaking tale of a prominent professor's undoing is expertly woven with biblical passages.
The Cuban Affair: A Novel
By Nelson DeMille
Razor-sharp storytelling from a seasoned pro.
Forest Dark: A Novel
By Nicole Krauss
This ambitious meditation on spiritual transcendence and self-reflection hits all the right notes.
Only the Dead Know Brooklyn: A Novel
By Chris Vola
Does this New York vampire novel have enough bite to deliver?
Jumping Over Shadows: A Memoir
By Annette Gendler
An exquisitely written conversion story which expounds upon personal and collective identity.
Conviction: A Novel
By Julia Dahl
A gripping, worthy addition to the Rebekah Roberts series
Jimmy Buffett: A Good Life All the Way
By Ryan White
Chronicling the once-obscure singer’s unlikely rise to mayor of Margaritaville.
Big Law: A Novel
By Ron Liebman
Corruption reigns inside a high-powered legal establishment.
Oedipus in Brooklyn and Other Stories
By Blume Lempel; translated by Ellen Cassedy and Yermiyahu Ahron Taub
These spare, skillful tales are both introspective and illuminating.
The Education of Dixie Dupree
By Donna Everhart
A harrowing story of domestic trauma with Southern Gothic flair.
Best. State. Ever.: A Florida Man Defends His Homeland
By Dave Barry
A hilarious and insightful tour of the Sunshine State.
Karolina’s Twins: A Novel
By Ronald H. Balson
An emotionally rich Holocaust thriller about long-kept secrets.
The English Teacher
By Yiftach Reicher Atir; translated by Philip Simpson
This psychological thriller probes the damaging uncertainties of life undercover.
Brighton: A Novel
By Michael Harvey
This taut thriller tackles the perils of going home again
So Close to Home: A True Story of an American Family’s Fight for Survival During World War II
By Michael J. Tougias and Alison O’Leary
A lightly fictionalized, little-known tale of disaster at sea
The Bowl with Gold Seams: A Novel
By Ellen Prentiss Campbell
This brilliant tale of loss and redemption spans four decades, from a WWII-era Japanese detention center to the DC suburbs of the 1980s
And Then All Hell Broke Loose: Two Decades in the Middle East
By Richard Engel
"An unexpected, suspenseful page-turner."
The Undoing
By Averil Dean
A close-knit trio of friends comes undone in this dark, suspenseful tale set on Colorado’s slopes.
Young Orson: The Years of Luck and Genius on the Path to Citizen Kane
By Patrick McGilligan
A delightfully readable, masterfully researched biography about one of film's most notable names.
The Sea Beach Line
By Ben Nadler
A young man with an uncertain future seeks answers about his past.
Saving Sophie
By Ronald H. Balson
This fast-paced, globe-spanning thriller takes readers from Hawaii to Hebron.
The Murderer’s Daughter
By Jonathan Kellerman
This taut new thriller features a memorable, series-worthy heroine.
Vixen: A Nameless Detective Novel
By Bill Pronzini
Imagine “La Belle Dame sans Merci” reborn in San Francisco noir.
Run You Down
By Julia Dahl
This page-turner of a mystery, set in an ultra-orthodox Jewish community, brings a mother and daughter together at last.
Goebbels: A Biography
By Peter Longerich; translated by Alan Bance, Jeremy Noakes, and Lesley Sharpe
A stunning, encyclopedic study of Hitler’s propaganda minister.
Losing Faith
By Adam Mitzner
This smart courtroom thriller manages to humanize the law.
Leaving Berlin
By Joseph Kanon
This taut page-turner captures the contradictions and complexities of the post-WWII German capital.
The Glittering World
By Robert Levy
Hauntingly inventive, this debut page-turner of a novel is as creative as it is creepy.
The Reckoning: Death and Intrigue in the Promised Land
By Patrick Bishop
Recounting the hunt for an anti-British terrorist in the closing days of Mandate Palestine.
One to Go
By Mike Pace
Are dreams or demons driving the protagonist of this thriller?
The Man Who Asked to Be Killed
By Gary Garth McCann
Politics, a legal trust, and a dead governor’s sister intersect in this thriller set in the DC metro area.
No Time to Die
By Kira Peikoff
A sharp biomedical thriller asks, what if old age and infirmity were not inevitable?
Mirages: The Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin, 1939-1947
By Anaïs Nin; edited by Paul Herron
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A new, unexpurgated volume of the author's diaries.
The Worlds of Sholem Aleichem: The Remarkable Life and Afterlife of the Man Who Created Tevye
By Jeremy Dauber
A theatrical study of the Yiddish writer whose short stories were the source for “Fiddler on the Roof.”
My Mother’s Wars
Lillian Faderman
In this work of creative nonfiction about the life of a Latvian Jewish immigrant and her experiences in early-20th-century New York City, the author turns voluminous research into flowing action and imagery.
