Issue link: https://viewer.e-digitaledition.com/i/695583
June 23 • 2016 49 continued on page 50 arts & life books on the cover Dive In ! Our annual compilation of page turners offers more than 60 recent titles — all with a Jewish connection. FICTION ■ Sara Itzig Levy, the daughter of Frederick the Great's banker, is gifted the manuscript of an anti-Jewish cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach's son, her harp- sichord teacher. In the ruins of 1945 Germany, an American soldier takes the manuscript, a souvenir from a seemingly empty mansion. The soldier's niece, Susanna, finds the manuscript and sets out to find its rightful owner. Author Lauren Belfer (A Fierce Radiance) weaves the stories of Susanna and Sara together in And After the Fire (HarperCollins), which seam- lessly traverses more than 200 years of history, from the glit- tering salons of the 18th century through the Holocaust to today. ■ Anna and the Swallow Man (Alfred A. Knopf ) is a debut novel by Gavriel Savit, who holds a BFA in musical theater from the U-M in Ann Arbor, where he grew up. Savit likens his book to "a fairy tale set in Poland during the 1930s and 1940s that follows a young girl, Anna, as she strug- gles to grow up and stay safe in a world at war. Left without her parents at a very vulnerable age, Anna meets the Swallow Man, a skilled deceiver with very long fingers and very deep eyes who teaches her the ways of the dan- gerous world. Together they do their best to survive unharmed." Billed for ages 12 and up, Anna will haunt readers of all ages. ■ A Ukranian exchange student and the coddled son of Russian immigrants become parents to h l k h b k f