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Karin Greenberg

@bookswithkg

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High School Librarian📚LI, NY🌻🐶
Book Reviewer for School Library Journal📚
Blogger for Knowledge Quest, AASL📚
Goodreads | kglibrarian📚

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The title perfectly expresses my emotions while reading this phenomenal work of fiction.
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Gorgeous writing, family dysfunction, mental illness, London, sisters, grief, relationships…an all-consuming, character-driven experience.
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Mason has a way of hitting the center of every thought, and going so deep that you feel like you’re beginning to embody the depression, elation, amusement—whatever the MC, Martha, is feeling. The path of Martha and her husband Patrick’s relationship is drawn with the same clarity. We’re there for their first meeting at Martha’s aunt’s house during Christmas, and we follow them as they go through the real-life obstacles that plague their marriage.
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I loved being back in London, where I studied in 1990, and revisiting the neighborhood I lived in, Shepherd’s Bush. Though the whole novel is focused on interiority, the setting comes alive on every page.
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Highly recommend this one for anyone who enjoys heavy literary fiction with intelligent characters and sarcastic humor sprinkled in.📚
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#booksofınstagram #sundayshelfie #librarian #literaryfiction #bookstagram by @bookswithkg

📌September Reads📌 (yup it’s almost Nov)
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#bookstack #septemberbooks #librarian #bookstagram #bookish by @bookswithkg

With her latest masterpiece, Dara Horn secures her spot as one of my most admired Jewish scholars. In this monumental endeavor, she goes back thousands of years to document Judaism’s ancient roots and weaves her way to the present. Her focus throughout the book is “the big lie that is antisemitism” and the fake claim that continues to fuel it: “Jews are destroying what you value the most.”
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This is not only a book about Jewish history and religion. It’s also a master study in how technology and academia have propagated antisemitism in new ways. One chapter outlines artificial intelligence, showing how leaders in despotic regimes have practiced data poisoning to infuse news stories and social media posts with dangerous lies about the Jewish people and Israel. Horn digs deep into the administration at Harvard, highlighting the rot that exists among professors there who have been working for years to rewrite history and spread propaganda about a country that is home to over half of the world’s Jews. Reading Horn’s investigations, it’s not hard to understand how Jew haters were able to promote a dangerous, false narrative that has become the rallying cry for the ignorant. Horn also looks closely at Holocaust education. On the surface, it seems to be a positive approach. But the problem is that people are more comfortable focusing on Jews as vulnerable victims than on the vibrant trailblazers they are. As Horn said on a podcast, “Jews are only presentable to a non Jewish public when they have no power.”
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This book is heavy, yes, but it is also celebratory. It gives validation and motivation to those who have been deeply frustrated, angered, and saddened by what we have seen since the massacre on October 7th. The sad truth is that the ones who need to read this never will. For the rest of us–the ones with moral clarity who denounce murder and the awful actions of groups that would like to eliminate an entire people–this book is a comfort.
#jewishbooks #antisemitism #sundayshelfie #librarian #bookstagram by @bookswithkg

(Unnecessary) purchase of the day—I might bump this one to the top of my stack.📚
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#booksofınstagram #indiebookstores #librarian #bookbuyingproblem #shelfiesunday by @bookswithkg

Many years ago I read Orringer’s The Invisible Bridge. It was a beautiful literary book that has stayed with me all this time. Sadly, I did not feel the same way about this one.
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The author is a gifted writer whose ideas run deep. The execution of this story, though, didn’t work for me. Most of the book is centered on a middle aged man, Barr Pennington, a professor at a midwest college whose wife is suffering from Alzheimer’s. When he finds his wife’s novel written on dozens of yellow legal pads, he takes her work and after edits, claims it as his own. It then goes on to win awards without anyone knowing the secret of its origin.
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Each chapter of the book focuses on another character. There is the wife, Dava; their children Milo and James; a close friend Svetlana; her daughter Naomi; Barr’s research assistant, Evie; and the dog Luna/Phoenix/Queen. The characters each reflect on love, loss, and life.
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The main problem for me was that the writing did not capture my attention. It bored me. The chapters were long and dense—page after page of description, slow-moving action, ideas, underwhelming emotion. I was most annoyed by the fact that the loudest voice coming out of the prose was the husband, Barr. I was irritated by his self-centered, condescending, icky demeanor. He had some redeeming qualities but I did not want to spend any time with him.
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The storyline was disjointed even though there was one plot that was woven through all the perspectives. I enjoy literary writing more than any other but found the writing here to be a bit pretentious. Beautiful at times but more often, too much. And the dog, who was supposed to be the one bringing it all together, was barely in the story.
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I found myself desperate to be done with this book. It was completely different from the heartfelt emotion of The Invisible Bridge. From the many reviews and podcasts praising it, I might be in the minority here but this one did not click for me.
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#unpopularopinion #bookreview #literaryfiction #lbrarian #bookstagram by @bookswithkg

Trees are a symbol of life. In this moving story about birth, family, grief, and nature @amandapetersauthor explores the traditions of the Mi’kmaw women of Nova Scotia and the ways their descendants keep them alive.
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Aliet Paul is raised in a rural town by her grandmother, Kiju, a midwife who helps women bring babies into the world. The roots of a sacred tree near their home has cradled dozens of mothers as they labored.
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For Aliet, though, the tree has a complicated meaning. Her own mother died while giving birth to her there. As she learns how to prepare teas and other aids for birthing mothers, she yearns for a connection to her past.
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After suffering another tragic loss, Aliet continues her search for a matriarch who has always been shrouded in darkness. When authorities crack down on traditional midwifery, Kiju loses her thriving practice and Aliet moves away to pursue a career in modern nursing.
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When she returns to her home years later, Aliet develops a new relationship with the people and the land. She receives crucial information about her history and is able to make peace with her troubled beginnings.
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Thick with natural imagery and Native customs, this novel is a quiet but powerful immersion into a heritage that values the environment, its inhabitants, and the spirituality that connects the two.
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#booksofınstagram #novascotia #bookstagram #librarian #fiction by @bookswithkg

Warm, funny, authentic essays about every area of life—this book was as perfect as I expected it to be.
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If you don’t know @zibbyowens, where have you been? No, seriously, she is the QUEEN of the book world. A writer, podcaster, and bookfluencer extraordinaire, her interviews, articles, and posts cover every possible topic imaginable. Mundane worries, existential panic, slapstick humor, tragic loss…there’s nothing she’s afraid to confront head on.
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As one of the founders of @artistsagainstantisemitism she has been a champion of Jewish causes and a spokesperson for Jews who have been discriminated against both within the literary community and outside of it, especially after the tremendous rise of incidents since October 7th.
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Reading this book is escaping into a cozy space, filled with entertaining, thoughtful, and heartwarming stories. I loved every single page and only wish it had been longer. There’s a reason so many Zibby fans feel as if we’re her close friends—she has a knack for enveloping every reader and follower into her homey embrace.
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I’ll be patiently waiting for Volume 2🙏📚🙏
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#booksofınstagram #essays #nonfictionreads #librarian #bookstagram by @bookswithkg

This book broke my heart while also thrilling me with its stunning writing. A true masterpiece of perfect sentences and impeccable pacing, it’s a literary gem.
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Ruth, an English teacher who raised her daughter alone, is struggling as she watches that daughter give in to her drug addiction. When her daughter has her own child, Lily, Ruth steps in to give her the care she needs. The relationship between grandmother and granddaughter unfolds through the years, a steady rock in a sea of uncertainty.
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This is one of those books that had me reading the same passages again and again to absorb their beauty. The way the author captures the big and small moments of life is astounding. The narrator is humorous, insightful, and has a soothing way about her. Even though I sometimes questioned decisions she makes, or fails to make, regarding her daughter’s addiction, she earned my love from the beginning.
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This book is for readers who enjoy a deeply character driven, atmospheric, melancholy story that gets to the heart of human love and suffering.📚
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#booksofınstagram #sundayshelfie #susieboyt #bookstagram #literaryfiction by @bookswithkg

I loved this beautiful book of essays. The writing is sharp, funny, concise, and poetic.
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Personal narrative is one of my favorite types of creative nonfiction. Fennelly’s essays stand out for their originality not only in content but in style. Some of these micro memoirs are more typical lengths, but others are as short as a single line or one block paragraph. Her words are sparse, even when the topic is heavy.
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To me, reading these essays is a lesson in writing—how to construct meaning without being too sentimental or pretentious.
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#booksofınstagram #memoir #essays #bookstagram #librarian by @bookswithkg

There are not adequate words to describe the kind of heartache experienced on 9/11 and during its aftermath. Yet, somehow, the loved ones of hundreds of the victims managed to put together heartfelt essays to give us a glimpse into a tiny part of their pain and love.
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Reading this book of memories, anecdotes, dreams, and devastations was an honor. For a moment, I got to know these precious lost souls and learned how they lived their lives before they were brutally murdered. I felt the anger, fear, and sadness, but most of all the never ending love and remarkable resilience of the ones who were left to mourn them.
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What a beautiful tribute it is that The Cantor Fitzgerald Relief Fund put together this anthology to help keep alive the memories of those lost. The essays remind us that behind all of the news related to that tragic day are the individual lives of all the people whose plans for the future were destroyed.
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Never Forget💔💙❤️🙏
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#neverforget #booksofinstagram #bookstagram #thecantorfitzgeraldrelieffund #essays by @bookswithkg

🦗August Reads🦗
(See my past posts for full reviews)
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#bookstack #augustreads #booksofınstagram #librarian #summerbreak by @bookswithkg

Added to my list of exquisite YA novels. When @gaepol visited my high school last year to talk to students about The Memory of Things (another great one), she gave me a few of her other books, including this signed copy. It took me over a year to get to it, but it was well worth the wait.
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Fifteen-year-old JL has been friends with Aubrey since childhood, when they vowed to stick together always. Now, after a devastating falling out, JL is looking back on the circumstances that ruined the girls’ bond. As she writes a letter to her estranged friend, JL recounts sleepovers, secrets, intimate moments, and her beloved butterflies that Aubrey watched her care for.
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JL traces the girls’ path from middle school to high school, when something shifted. JL was struggling watching her mentally ill mother and longing for her absent father. Aubrey formed a clique with two other girls. And Max Gordon, the senior with a reputation, entered JL’s world. For JL, she now realizes, it was impossible to make sense of her life without her best friend to share it with.
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Polisner writes beautifully about teenage angst, young desire, insecurities, friendship, and mental health. This is one of those novels that will resonate with teens but will also satisfy adult readers who enjoy intellectual, deep, nostalgic literary stories.
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#booksofınstagram #yalit #librarian #bookrecommendation #bookstagram by @bookswithkg