It's chilly out there! Escape the worst of the winter with Rebecca Taylor's round-up of the latest book releases
This is Not About Us
by Allegra Goodman (Penguin Random House, £21.50)
Allegra Goodman's latest About novel places the modern Us Jewish American clan under the microscope Allegra with her depiction of the Goodman complicated Rubenstein family. When their sister dies, Sylvia and Helen are lost. Then a squabble over an apple cake throws their close relationship off course for a decade. Busy with their own lives divorces, dating, careers, bat mitzvahs and ballet recitals their children do not want to get involved. But familial ties prevail. The pains of growing up and getting old are observed with humour and astuteness in this engaging portrait of family life.
Berlin Shuffle
by Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz (Pushkin Press, £18.99)
The dazzling talent of the German writer Alexander Boschwitz came to light with the publication, in 2021, of his novel The Passenger. Berlin Shuffle is his 1937 debut but shares the The Passenger's characteristics: cinematic shifts take us into the minds of the novel's protagonists downtrodden regulars of the Jolly Huntsman pub in 1920s Berlin before zooming out to evoke a vibrant and often violent city, where fascism looms. In 1942, the author was drowned, aged 27, when the boat he was on en route to England was struck by the Germans.
Daybreak in Gaza: Stories of Palestinian Lives and Culture
edited by Mahmoud Muna and Matthew Teller (Saqi, £14.99)
Jewish journalist Matthew Teller hooks up with Mahmoud Muna, a Palestinian bookseller in Jerusalem, to illuminate Gaza's vast cultural heritage. Through essays, poems and artwork, Palestinian creatives reflect on their lives under Israeli bombardment, as well as on the territory's culture. We learn about tatreez (traditional embroidery) and the theatres, libraries and art galleries that once existed in a world teeming with life and creativity.
By Rebecca Taylor
This article appears in the Winter 2026 issue of JR.