Everyone has secrets
“The last thing he said to me” By Laura Dave It is an exciting, fascinating and compassionate thriller. Before Owen Michaels disappears, he leaves a note for his beloved new wife: Protect her. Despite her confusion and fear, Hannah Hall knows exactly who the note is referring to – Owen’s sixteen-year-old daughter, Bailey. Bailey, who tragically lost her mother as a child. Bailey, who really wants nothing to do with her new stepmother. Hannah’s desperate search for Evan fails. The FBI arrests Owen’s boss, and federal agents raid her home in Sausalito unannounced. Hannah realizes that her husband is not who he says he is, and that the key to his true identity may be in Bailey’s hands, as well as the answers to the circumstances of his disappearance. Hanna and Bailey set out together to discover the truth. But as they begin to piece together the pieces of Owen’s past, it soon becomes clear to them that they are also building a new, unpredictable future. (From English: Katia Benovitch, Kinneret Zamora Publishing, 270 pages)
The career world in a new light
Would Leonardo da Vinci have been able to find a job in the 21st century? (Hint – no!) What can we learn from bees? What is the first lesson of learning about ourselves? Connections or skills? What are the signs that your job is in danger of being replaced by a robot or someone cheaper? What is actually more important – smart marketing or the facts? How do you get a promotion and raise? And what do you do when an employee asks for a raise? These are some of the questions you will get answers to in the book “Being plasticine in a world of screws” By Eliav Allof. This is the first guidebook of its kind, which takes the world of careers and presents it to readers in a new light – from the side of the employer and also from the side of the talents who go above and beyond what is required in their position. The first part of the book deals with a global statistic that has been known for years: how is it that about 75% of employees are not really satisfied in their workplace and about a quarter of employees (24%) really suffer? In the second part of the book, you will learn how to build a spectrum of scenarios, instead of betting our lives on a single career path? How can we find focus and build a career path that suits the person we want to be? And what kind of success will suit us really. The third part of the book deals with the practice of self-marketing. The book also has a special chapter on how to get a raise and you will also find two chapters on storytelling – how to tell a story and Storytrigger – how to use people’s stereotypes towards you for self-marketing. (Orion Publishing, 410 pages)
A journey that will change their lives
“What’s funny about Norman Foreman”the debut novel of Juliet Henderson It is a charming, gentle and playful book that teaches us that we should always strive to reach the stars. Twelve-year-old Norman and his best friend, Jax, are a brilliant comedy duo that no one has yet discovered. They have a box full of jokes and a plan to perform at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in five years’ time. But then Jax dies and Norman decides that their brilliant show can’t wait and for the sake of Jax’s memory he must stage it immediately, at the upcoming festival. On that occasion he also decides that he wants to find out who his father is that he never knew. Sadie, Norman’s mother, knows that she will not win the title of ‘Mother of the Year’. She always forgets to do laundry, her son eats too many cheese toasties, and she doesn’t really know who his father is either. But she so wants to see her beloved and lonely son smile again. So she agrees to help him get to the most prestigious comedy festival in the world, and along the way also try to find his father. She recruits for her help Leonard, an eccentric elderly man, a lover of adventure and with wonderful organizational skills, and together they embark on a journey that will change their lives. (From English: Dana Elazar-Halevi, Keter Publishing, 358 pages)
Be careful before you let people into the house!
“The Family Upstairs” It is a dark and complex thriller that she wrote Lisa Joel (from the notebook “And then she disappeared”). At the age of 25, Libby Jones comes home from work and finds a letter: a letter that not only tells her who her biological parents were, but also that she is the sole heir to their abandoned mansion, a house worth millions in London’s Chelsea neighborhood. Libby’s life is about to change from one end to the other, but she has no idea that there are others who are also waiting for this day – and that the collision course between them is inevitable. Twenty-five years earlier, the police were called to 16 Tseini Walk Street following a report of a baby crying. When the police arrived, they found a healthy, smiling, ten-month-old baby in a crib in the bedroom. In the kitchen below were three bodies a few days old, dressed in black, and next to them was a quickly scribbled note. The other four children who lived in Cheney Walk disappeared. (from English: Sion Medar, Kinneret Zamora Publishing, 317 pages)
What is the mystery?
“The Lost Apothecary” by Sarah Fenner is a suspenseful and fascinating historical novel. Caroline wasn’t supposed to be in London alone. Festive travel in honor of a wedding anniversary is supposed to be an event for two, but due to a shocking discovery she arrives alone, shocked and in pain, to the city she has always dreamed of. In an attempt to distract herself, Caroline joins a treasure hunt near the River Thames and finds an old apothecary’s vial with a mysterious engraving on it. More than two hundred years before, at the back of a dark alley in London, Nela waits in her hidden apothecary for a new customer. In the past, Nela was a respected healer, but today she uses the knowledge she gained for another purpose: she sells poisons to women in need to kill the cruel men in their lives. But her new client is different: she is a twelve-year-old girl, and between the two an unexpected friendship develops that creates a sequence of events that will endanger Nela’s world and reveal the many women she has helped. In present-day London, Caroline sets out to investigate the origin of the bottle and realizes that she has found a clue to the mystery that haunted London two centuries earlier. As she continues to investigate, Caroline’s life collides with the lives of Nela and her young protégé in an unexpected and breathtaking sequence of events. (From English: Michal Cohen, Moden Publishing, 347 pages)
Comics and Adventures
3 wonderful books for the beginning of reading: “Determined Snakes” By John Patrick Green It is the third book in the wonderful and funny comic book series for the beginning of reading “The Sewer Detectives”. This time the sewer detectives are chasing a new criminal, but they’re about to face a much bigger threat. Will they be able to stop the approaching danger? (from English: Erez Ashrov, Keter Publishing, 203 pages) // “Sound of Dogs” By Dove Pilkey is the sixth book in the wonderful early reading comic series “The Dog Man”. Is, in fact, the dog man bad to the bone? Why did they arrest the dog man and tell him he was going to the dog jail for a long time? What is the story with the heroic dogs? Read this funny and wonderful book. (from English: Erez Asharov, Kinneret Publishing House, 223 pages) // “The Princess in Black and the Running Scent” It is the seventh book in the wonderful series for early reading that they wrote Shannon Hale and Dean Hale. A strange cloud approaches Princess Magnolia’s palace and smells like a bundle of trouble. She stinks more than used diapers or a garbage can on a hot summer day, and every time the Princess in Black and the Goat Avenger manage to get rid of her, she pops up in another princess’s kingdom. Masked heroines and their loyal friends join in to help, but how do you fight a mysterious stench that nothing moves? (From English: Shoham Smit, Kinneret Publishing, 87 pages, dotted)
Interested in helping yourself?
There is so much pain in the world and change is necessary. Why does it hurt? What will change the personal and social pain? How can you change? How will changing the individual lead to changing society? in the book “The light at the end of the tunnel: the Alexander method in practice” that she wrote Eti Sahar, a description of his research, his insights and the method developed by Friedrich Matthias Alexander – the Alexander method/technique. The book is mainly based on the teachings of Alexander, as described in his books plus the words of the various teachers of the Alexander method in Israel and around the world and the author’s perception after 18 years of studying and teaching the method. In the book, a description and illustration of the processes Alexander went through in his research and through the development of the method. It is not easy to understand these processes – they are explained in the book step by step simply, in clear language and by dividing them into topics. The book is a sort of encyclopedia on the Alexander method. In the first part, the key to the method, its research, discoveries and how it was developed is presented. In the second part, the essence of the method, its uniqueness, what and how to learn, for whom it is suitable and for whom it is not, impressions and reactions of well-known names in the world who have experienced the method, scientific studies from the days of Alexander to the present day that prove the effectiveness of the method for various life situations, the words of critics of the method alongside the professional code of ethics which defines the proper behavior of a teacher according to Alexander’s method. The book is intended for anyone of any age who wants to help himself. (Advance Publishing, 488 pages).
An intergenerational family saga
“The Vanishing Half” By Britt Bennett is an acclaimed intergenerational family saga set in the United States between 1940-1990. At the age of sixteen, the inseparable identical twins Desiree and Stella decide to take their fate into their own hands and run away in the dead of night from their home in the town of Mol Red. Everyone is sure that they will return when they run out of money and audacity. But it doesn’t happen. At the end of a year, their lives diverge, just like the common egg from which they were created: Desiree marries the blackest man she can find, and Stella, who realizes that with cream skin like hers she can successfully pass herself off as white, cuts off all ties with her past and turns to build a life based on pretending to be a new identity. In Mullard, no one married black people, nor did they really leave. The whole idea in establishing this town was that the people who are not accepted in society as white and refuse to be treated as black can live here. Such an intermediate place, in which over time each generation will become brighter than the previous one, like coffee that is constantly diluted with cream. 14 years later Desiree unexpectedly returns to the town and she is holding the hands of a little girl as black as pitch. The girl will grow up, go out into the world and someday try to find out what happened to her aunt Stella who disappeared. (From English: Katia Benovich, Moden Publishing, 334 pages)
The dream vacation turns out to be a nightmare
“Lion’s Den” is a fascinating thriller by Catherine St. John. Belle always thought that money did not make her dizzy, she was immune to the charms of the upper millennium. Still, when her best friend Summer invites her on a vacation from the movies on her billionaire boyfriend’s luxury yacht, she accepts immediately. She needs some air – her acting career is stalled, and her waitressing job is extraordinarily humiliating. But soon the dream vacation turns out to be a nightmare. The handful of friends that Summer has invited discover that they are prisoners, rather than guests, on the luxurious yacht of their obsessive host. In one moment of terror, Belle suddenly realizes – Summer is a dangerous girl. If Belle wants to get out of the yacht alive – she must act wisely and protect well the winning card she hides up her sleeve. (From English: Shaul Levin, Kinneret Zamora Publishing, 384 pages)
More secrets than remembered
“The sweet taste of muscadine grapes” By Pamela Terry It is a novel about family, memory, roots and returning home. Pamela is amazing at describing life in a small southern town, about the difficulties and pain as well as the beauty of it. “The first time mom died I ran away and hid in a sukkah of muscadine vines.” This is how Leila Gisborat opens the plot and tells about a memory from her childhood in a small town in the deep south of the United States. When she and her brother grew up, they chose to escape life in a small and conservative community and live each according to their own way. When their mother, Geneva, dies for the second and final time, the two are forced to return to Georgia and reunite with their sister – the former beauty of the town whose life was cut short in her shining youth – to plan the funeral, and discover that their childhood town is full of more secrets than they remembered. When it turns out that Geneva was found dead in the grape arbor behind the house with an ancient silver spoon in her hand, and when a letter is found that she left for her children in which she specifically instructs her not to have a funeral – an almost scandalous request in the eyes of the local people – the brothers realize that maybe they never really knew their mother. An old bundle of letters sends them on a journey across the ocean in an attempt to shed light on a charged family history. (From English: Dana Elazar-Halevi, Keter Publishing, 300 pages)
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