Jews book series in reading order

by Bodie & Brock Thoene

by Heather Morris

Elie Wiesel

47 books• 3 series

Elie Wiesel (September 30, 1928 – July 2, 2016), born Eliezer Wiesel in Romania, was an American writer, professor, political activist, Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor. Night (1956), the first title in the catalogue, draws on Wiesel's imprisonment as a Jew at Auschwitz and Buchenwald. Wiesel wrote 57 books, mainly in French and English, and the catalogue lists 47 books, including Dawn (1960), Day (1961), The Town Beyond the Wall (1962) and A Beggar in Jerusalem (1968). Filled with Fire and Light (2021) is the latest. The Holocaust, Judaism and Hasidism are recurring subjects.

Bodie & Brock Thoene write Christian historical fiction, with catalogue subjects covering the Bible, Jesus Christ, Jewish history, the Holocaust, the Second World War and the Israel-Arab War of 1948-1949. The joint catalogue holds 80 books listed between 1979 and 2026, and includes the Zion Chronicles, Zion Covenant, Zion Legacy, A.D. Chronicles, Elijah Chronicles, Galway Chronicles, Shiloh Legacy and Legends of the West sequences, plus non-fiction. Chuck Roberson shares the credit on the 1979 title The Fall Guy: 30 Years as the Duke's Double.

Chaim Potok

17 books• 2 series

Chaim Potok (1929-2002) was an American novelist, playwright, editor and rabbi. The Chosen (1966) opens the catalogue, spent 39 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, sold more than 3.4 million copies by 2002 and reached the screen as a feature film in 1981. Potok wrote two linked sequences, the Reuven Malther books and the Asher Lev novels, which begin with My Name Is Asher Lev (1972). Jewish family life, rabbis, artists, fathers and sons, and New York carry the fiction. Seventeen titles are catalogued, ending at The Collected Plays of Chaim Potok (2018).

Guardians of Ga'Hoole is one of the series by Kathryn Lasky, an American children's writer born June 24, 1944, who writes for adults as Kathryn Lasky Knight and E. L. Swann. Lasky's children's work also includes Dear America and The Royal Diaries books, Wolves of the Beyond, Sugaring Time and The Night Journey, and honours include a Newbery Honor, the National Jewish Book Award and the Anne V. Zarrow Award for Young Readers' Literature. The catalogue holds 159 books from I Have Four Names for My Grandfather (1976) to Sacred Light (2026), including Tugboats Never Sleep (1977), The Weaver's Gift (1980) and Beyond the Divide (1983). Horses Of The Dawn, Bears Of The Ice and Camp Princess are further series, and subjects name owls, wolves, diaries and Jews.

Philip Roth

38 books• 3 series

Philip Roth wrote American fiction about Jewish men, academics and the country they lived in. The Conversion of the Jews (1958) opens the catalogue, Goodbye, Columbus followed in 1959, and Portnoy's Complaint arrived in 1969. Nathan Zuckerman, David Kepesh and the American Trilogy are the recurring structures. Thirty-eight titles are catalogued, ending with Why Write? in 2017.

David Liss

29 books• 5 series

David Liss, born March 16, 1966 in New Jersey, is an American writer of novels, essays, short fiction and comic books. Liss grew up in South Florida and studied at Syracuse University, Georgia State University and Columbia University, then left postgraduate study of 18th-century British literature, dissertation unfinished, to write full-time. The 29 catalogued books start with A Conspiracy of Paper (2000) and include The Coffee Trader (2003) and The Whiskey Rebels (2008). Series are Benjamin Weaver and Randoms. Liss lives in San Antonio, Texas, and The Death and Birth of Iliana Marek (2026) is the newest title.

Naomi Ragen

15 books

Naomi Ragen is an American-Israeli novelist and playwright who lives in Jerusalem and writes in English. Injustice against women in the Haredi community is the recurring theme of her fiction, from Jephte's Daughter (1988) through Sotah (1992) and The Sacrifice of Tamar (1994). Ragen has also been the subject of lawsuits alleging plagiarism. The catalogue holds 15 titles, the most recent being The Enemy Beside Me (2023).

Morris Gleitzman

52 books• 8 series

Morris Gleitzman is an Australian children's and young adult novelist. Two Weeks with the Queen (1990) drew attention to AIDS in children's fiction. Gleitzman co-wrote several series with Paul Jennings, among them Wicked!, which became an animated series in 2000, and he has collected three volumes of his newspaper columns for The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald as books for adults. Earlier still, Gleitzman wrote for the Norman Gunston Show. The subject tags name the Second World War, Jews, stepfamilies and humorous stories, and the catalogue holds 52 titles ending with Always (2021).

Lynne Reid Banks (31 July 1929 to 4 April 2024) was a British author who wrote for both children and adults. The Indian in the Cupboard sold more than 15 million copies and became a film. The L-Shaped Room, the 1960 debut novel, was a best seller, was filmed, and gained two sequels, The Backward Shadow and Two is Lonely. Banks also wrote Dark Quartet, about the Brontë family, and Path to the Silent Country, about Charlotte Brontë. The catalogue lists 50 books from 1960 to The Red Red Dragon (2022), including the Harry the Poisonous Centipede series.

Daniel Kalla is a Canadian physician and novelist who writes medical thrillers and historical fiction. Born in Vancouver in 1966, Kalla studied mathematics and then medicine at the University of British Columbia, took a screenwriting course at Simon Fraser University, and served as director of Emergency Medicine at St. Paul's Hospital in Vancouver. His father and grandfather practised medicine before him, and his grandfather left Czechoslovakia weeks before the Nazi annexation of 1939. Sixteen catalogued books run from Pandemic (2005) to The Deepest Fake (2025), the Adler Family and Dr. Noah Haldane series among them.

Pam Jenoff is an American novelist, lawyer and law professor at Rutgers University who lives in New Jersey. Jenoff writes love stories and historical novels, many of them bestsellers and some nominated for awards. The Second World War, Jews and Poland recur in the subject tags. The catalogue holds 19 books, starting with The Kommandant's Girl (2007) and The Diplomat's Wife (2008). Last Twilight in Paris (2025) is the most recent release, and The Society of Forgotten Wives is scheduled for 2027. Series listed are Kommandant's Girl, Jordan Weiss and Winter Guest, next to titles such as The Other Girl (2014) and The Last Summer at Chelsea Beach (2015).

Jane Yolen

237 books• 22 series

Jane Yolen (Jane Hyatt Yolen, February 11, 1939 to June 11, 2026) was an American author of fantasy, science fiction and children's books. The Devil's Arithmetic, a Holocaust novella, is the best-known Yolen work, and Owl Moon and The Emperor and the Kite are among the others. The short works Sister Emily's Lightship and Lost Girls both won Nebula Awards. The catalogue counts 237 books from The Witch Who Wasn't (1964) to Daddy Plays a Mean Guitar (2026). Series include Commander Toad, How Do Dinosaurs...?, Pit Dragons, the Young Merlin Trilogy, Books of the Great Alta and Tartan Magic. Yolen worked as an editor, collaborated most often with Adam Stemple, and in 2012 became the first woman to give the Andrew Lang lecture.

Howard Fast

90 books• 6 series

Howard Fast (November 11, 1914 - March 12, 2003) was an American author and television writer who also published as E.V. Cunningham, Behn Boruch and Walter Ericson. Across almost seven decades Fast wrote historical novels and noir, along with short stories, poems, plays and non-fiction. Spartacus (1951), April Morning (1961) and The Immigrants (1977) are among the best-known works, and Stanley Kubrick filmed Spartacus in 1960. The catalogue holds 90 books from Two Valleys (1933) to Collected Stories of Fantasy and Science Fiction (2018), with Masao Masuto and Lavette Family as named series.

Anita Diamant

21 books• 1 series

Anita Diamant is an American journalist and author of fiction and nonfiction, born June 27, 1951. The Red Tent (1997) became a best seller and a book club favourite, and The Boston Girl, the most recent of five Diamant novels, reached the New York Times best seller list. Diamant has also written six guides to contemporary Jewish practice, such as Living a Jewish Life, plus the essay collection Pitching My Tent. The catalogue lists 21 books from How to Find and Work with a Literary Agent (1986) to Period. End of Sentence (2021), with tags for Judaism, Jewish weddings and baby names.

Noah Gordon

10 books• 1 series

Ten catalogued books carry Noah Gordon's name, from Night Ward (1960) to The Winemaker (2006). Physicians and healers run through the work in The Death Committee (1969), The Physician (1986) and Shaman (1992), and the Cole Family Trilogy is his one catalogued series. Jewish history supplies the other strand, in The Rabbi (1965), The Jerusalem Diamond (1979) and The Last Jew (1999), with rabbis and the Inquisition among the recorded subjects. Gordon, an American novelist, was born in 1926 and died in 2021.

Judy Blume

30 books• 7 series

Family life, siblings, friendship and growing up are Judy Blume's subjects, written largely for children and for readers around grades 3 to 5. Blume's 30 catalogued books begin with The One in the Middle Is the Green Kangaroo (1969) and end with In the Unlikely Event (2015), the 1970s being the densest decade. The Fudge books, the Pain & The Great One books and the BFF titles form her series, alongside standalone novels, picture books and non-fiction.

Faye Kellerman (Faye Marder Kellerman, born July 31, 1952) is an American author of mystery novels. The Peter Decker and Rina Lazarus series is the centre of the work, and the catalogue opens with The Ritual Bath in 1986. Kellerman also wrote non-series novels, among them The Quality of Mercy (1989). The catalogue contains 37 books through The Hunt (2022). Police procedure, murder investigation and Jewish life appear in the subjects.

Alice Hoffman

52 books• 10 series

Alice Hoffman, born March 16, 1952, is an American novelist who also writes for young adults and children. Practical Magic (1995) became a 1998 film of the same name and grew into a media franchise. Magic realism runs through much of the work, with elements of magic, irony and unconventional romances. The catalogue counts 52 books, starting with Property Of (1977) and The Drowning Season (1979) and reaching The Witches of Cambridge (2026). Series include Practical Magic, Once Upon a Time Bookshop Stories, Water Tales and Green Angel, plus picture books. Subjects include Massachusetts, mothers and daughters, friendship and family life.

Isaac Asimov

553 books• 31 series

Isaac Asimov (c. January 2, 1920 – April 6, 1992) was an American writer who also taught biochemistry at Boston University. Hard science fiction is the core of Asimov's reputation, and the Foundation series about a fallen space empire is the most famous work; Asimov ranked with Robert A. Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke as one of the "Big Three" of the genre. The output also covers mysteries, fantasy and popular science, with non-fiction lines such as How Did We Find Out and the Library of the Universe. Asimov wrote or edited more than 500 books. This catalogue opens with the story Marooned Off Vesta (1939) and names Asimov on 400 of the listed books.

Philip Pullman

51 books• 10 series

Philip Pullman's catalogue covers fantasy and children's adventure, with detective stories, fairy tales and graphic novels alongside. His Dark Materials and The Book of Dust are the sequences it is built around, joined by the Sally Lockhart mysteries, the New Cut Gang, the Canongate Myths and The Adventures of John Blake. Sixty-five catalogued titles run from The Haunted Storm (1972) through The Ruby in the Smoke (1985) to The Rose Field in 2025.

Leon Uris

18 books• 1 series

Leon Uris wrote historical fiction about war and about Jewish history. Battle Cry (1953) opens a catalogue of 18 books that holds Exodus (1958), Mila 18 (1961), Armageddon (1964), Topaz (1967), QB VII (1970) and Trinity (1976). The Marine Corps, the Second World War, emigration and Ireland run through the subjects, and the novels are long at a median 494 pages.

Gilbert Morris produced Christian historical fiction at length: 248 catalogued books between 1977 and 2014. The House of Winslow follows one family across American history; the Appomattox Saga and Bonnets & Bugles take up the Civil War; Cheney Duvall, M.D. follows a woman physician; the Seven Sleepers, Dixie Morris and Too Smart Jones series sit alongside, with children's fiction among the subjects. The catalogue opens with Race Against Time (1977), reaches Raina's Choice, and is listed as likely complete.

The Tattooist of Auschwitz (2018) opens Heather Morris's catalogue of 7 books, which reaches The Piano Teacher of Montparnasse and The Wish in 2026. Morris writes historical and biographical fiction drawn from the Holocaust and the Second World War, with survivors, sisters and prisoners of the Japanese among the subjects. Cilka's Journey (2019), Three Sisters (2021) and Sisters Under the Rising Sun (2023) follow the debut. Morris, born in 1953, is a New Zealand author resident in Australia and still publishing.

Melanie Dobson writes Christian historical fiction and romance, with family secrets, missing persons and the Second World War among the subjects. The catalogue holds 33 books from Together for Good (2006) to The Lost Story of Via Belle (2026). Earlier titles include The Black Cloister (2008), Refuge on Crescent Hill (2010), Where the Trail Ends (2012) and The Courier of Caswell Hall (2013). Legacy of Love and Magic Portal are named series.