Kiddush Book Club

Yonit and Jessica, miles apart geographically but not when it comes to book recs!

Jessica and Yonit reunite after months of reading through our to-be-read piles! We have all the book recs for you. Get ready to add books to your GoodReads, request from the library, and order from wherever you love to buy books, because your own to-be-read pile is about to grow super tall and topple over and crush you and you'll die happy beneath a collapsed pile of lovely wonderful books. L'Chaim!

Yonit and Jessica get a little too fershnikt on DuckFarts and talk about some NSFW (young ears and modest ears, be warned) Chanukah books, recommend fantastic new releases, and forget the rest in a drunken haze of vodka. L'Chaim!

Yonit and Jessica drink caramel cinnamon apple cider because it's fall, discuss recent reads we've loved, which books have gotten us through, and what Midnight Sun could have been vs. what it is. L'Chaim!

Yonit and Jessica drink pineapple sake and talk about death. L'Chaim! Warning: major spoilers in this episode that focuses on character deaths in fiction. If you haven't read Little Women or Harry Potter and are planning to, then maybe wait on this episode.

Jessica and Yonit STILL DON'T HAVE COCKTAILS because, let's face it, drinking alone at home just isn't the same. L'Chaim! We discuss how to open your mind to new genres, new books, and how to explore beyond the bestseller lists and find amazing bestseller-worthy books from diverse voices and cultures.

Jessica and Yonit don't have any drinks! Send l'chaims!!! We discuss our love of book series and go off on our usual tangents, making it extremely difficult to describe the contents of this episode. Enjoy!

Jessica, Yonit, and guest Megan, are having a weird week. L'Chaim! From May the 4th and Murder Hornets to Twilight and a 672-page Edward book, we have to wonder: Are vampires back? And were they ever gone?

In which Jessica's husband makes her a very strong coffee martini then realizes Yonit's children have left her on read without any wine, and rushes over to Yonit's house to leave a coffee martini of mercy on her doorstep. L'Chaim! Oh, and also we talk about writing and books. Extra long episode just for your lockdown pleasure!

Yonit and Jessica reZoom the Kiddush Book Club, but only one of us has a cocktail. L'Chaim! We discuss books we've read during quarantine, artsy books with no story that we can't be bothered with, twitter pitch parties, and Anne Frank. There's a bit of an awkward transition in the middle and we blame everyone in the house using the internet at the same time.

Yonit and Jessica drink hard ciders in isolation. L'Chaim! We are joined by book club friends Megan and Aviva to chat about distraction books, to-be-read piles, and how to choose your next read when you're stuck at home with nowhere to go. If you'd like to join us for more group zoom chats, please email kiddushbookclub@gmail.com. 

...and we're feeling fine, BH. Jessica & Yonit celebrate the end-times with a mudslide. L'Chaim! Follow the mudslide as it meanders from apocalyptic fiction to the post-apocalyptic nature of Love is Blind, and the state of Trader Joe's empty shelves.

Jessica and Yonit drink I Saw The Wine and talk speculative books. L'Chaim! As expected, the wine cocktails take us down winding pathways, but it all comes together in the end. 

Jessica & Yonit talk shidduchim and married love, and this means drinking. Loads of drinking. We made a drink called The Shadchan, in which we randomly put things together to see if they'd work, and they did! Lime vodka, strawberry sugar syrup, and dry white wine. A shidduch! We talk with Lynne Silver, whose story about an empty-nesting married couple made us smile in the Eight Kisses anthology, and Penina Shtauber, whose collection of Shidduch Stories was so real we needed an extra l'chaim. Please leave us voice messages on Anchor of your craziest date stories.

Jessica and Yonit pre-funk/pre-game cocktails and hard apple ciders, and shmooze with prolific local YA author and It's A Whole Spiel contributor Rachel Lynn Solomon about her work, Jewish rep in books, and her upcoming adult debut! Come for the witty conversation, stay for the insider tips for querying writers/aspiring authors. L'Chaim! 

Jessica and Yonit have all the feelings, nothing more than feelings. In fact, Yonit has organized them in a chart. A feelings chart. About all the books that give us the feels. Drink jello shots and the Official Jessica (OJ, vodka, grenadine), and make it a double. L'Chaim!

Jessica and Yonit drink the very strong Just Peachy Peach Ginny and tell you what to buy for Chanukah, from the Newish Jewish Encyclopedia to Chicken Soup Chicken Soup. L'Chaim! Also interviews with Chelm for the Holidays author Valerie Frankel and Hong Kong PJ Library queen Erica Lyons! 

Yonit and Jessica drink an unnamed shot of something blue and work up an appetite talking about food in literature and lots and lots of cookbooks. Yum. Okay, we're hungry. Get hungry with us. Also a preview of upcoming episodes. L'Chaim!

Yonit and Jessica drink daemon mead (hard apple cider + mango syrup) and talk all things Discovery of Witches, from vampire obsession to historical accuracy, and other books that sit next to it on the bookshelf. L'Chaim!

Jessica and Yonit drink Pearsecco (thanks for the potential sponsorship Crispin!), and live-review The Little Mermaid Live! We talk books-to-screen and dream casts. Who's your dream King Triton and who would you want to play YOU in a movie? Leave us your answer in a voice message! L'Chaim!

Jessica and Yonit drink Bartenura (sponsor us already!) and chat with It's A Whole Spiel editors Laura Silverman and Katherine Locke and contributor Adi Alsaid. We will switch to Joyvin if Bartenura doesn't get back to us, we mean it.

Yonit & Jessica talk the macabre and supernatural and go down several side-roads while drinking Witch's Brew: peach whiskey + peach syrup + white wine = delicious orange drink. L'Chaim! For those waiting for more It's A Whole Spiel episodes...coming soon!

In the first of a few episodes dedicated to this anthology, Jessica & Yonit have a l'chaim and talk to It's A Whole Spiel contributing authors Goldy Moldovsky, Dahlia Adler, and Elie Lichtschein. L'Chaim and G'mar V'Chasima Tova!

Jessica and Yonit drink Cosmosas. L'Chaim! Yonit chats with Brian Ballantyne, author of Confessions of a Working Father. We talk about non-fiction, instructive texts, fun guides that don't make our brains work so hard, and Next Level Basic: The Definitive Basic Bitch Handbook by Bravolebrity Stassi Schroeder. Zay gezunt!

Yonit and Jessica drink fire-whiskey in memory of fallen heroes from the Deathly Hallows. L'Chaim! Reminder: we get easily distracted and may have lost track somewhere in the beginning, middle, and end of our synopses. Please don't kill us for remembering Harry Potter wrong. Our opinions are our own, and yours can be shared via voice message, which we will then play on our next episode. Anthony Goldstein says zay gezunt.

Jessica and Yonit enjoy their back-to-school juice pouches of apple juice and vodka. L'Chaim! We talk about your favorite and least favorite assigned books from school. Did you ship Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth in 11th grade? Think of yourself as a Finny or a Gene in 9th? Absolutely despise The Pearl in middle school? Tweet us your faves at #KiddushBookCub, find us on Instagram, or leave us a voice message to play on our next episode.

Jessica and Yonit drink unseasonably early Simchas Torah Specials: hard cider+rum+ginger ale. L'Chaim! We talk about romance novels and, young listeners be warned, it definitely gets Too Hot For Shul. PG-13+. We also talk with Felicia Grossman, author of Appetites & Vices, and Dalliances & Devotion. Zay gezunt and enjoy!

Yonit and Jessica sip strawberry gin-and-tonics through contraband plastic straws and talk about tropes in books and film and how they change and don't change over time. L'Chaim! Also an interview with Empire Records screenwriter Carol Heikkinen! Listener questions are answered, behind-the-scenes facts are revealed, and we cover everything from Rex Manning Day to her writing process. Enjoy and zay gezunt!

Jessica and Yonit are drinking coffee and tea. We shmooze about the 9 Days, and share what we read on a fast day. All music in this episode is acapella. L'Chaim!

Yonit and Jessica enjoy a spritz--or is it a shpritz?--and talk about historical fiction. Does it even matter if it's accurate, as long as there's forbidden love? Also a conversation with Jessica's sister Melinda about her undying love for Outlander and how she'll keep reading until Diana Gabaldon explains the ghost in the kilt! L'Chaim!

Jessica and guest co-host Megan have a l'chaim of birthday-cake-vodka-shots and shmooze about being busy mommies who find time to read. Even though Yonit is on vacation, we still found a way to get easily distracted and follow the challah crumbs to interesting places. Also a fantastic interview with Wasted Pretty author Jamie Beth Cohen. We talk about Mayim Bialik, the 90s, and finding your teenage voice.

L'Chaim! We're drinking Smirnoff grapefruit vodka and talking about Jewish fiction & Jew-ish fiction, favorite Jewish authors, and more, going wherever the challah crumbs lead us. There are so many questions to be asked, and so many questions to be asked about those questions. Also we read reader comments and ask our shaila of the week.

Yonit and Jessica are drinking Sara Bee wine and talking about retellings of fairytales, folklore, bubbemeises, and more. And an interview with The Dollmaker of Krakow author R.M. Romero. L'Chaim!

L'Chaim! We're drinking homemade beet vodka and hot tea, so pick your favorite drink and join us. In this first episode, Yonit and Jessica start by talking about what inspired this podcast, books about books, and get lost down many rabbit-holes. So many. Stick around for what we're reading right now and our GoodReads goals. Yonit is reading The Bookshop of Yesterdays by Amy Meyerson. Jessica is reading Time's Convert by Deborah Harkness.