“We all need—we all deserve—this vibrant, love-affirming novel that bounds over any difference that claims to separate us.” —Ron Charles, The Washington Post

Join fellow seniors (and future seniors) to discuss this powerhouse mystery, called “charming, smart, heart-blistering, and heart-healing” by The New York Times Book Review.

Named a Must Best Books of the Year by NPR/Fresh Air and winner of the 2024 Jewish Fiction Award, The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store is a novel about small-town secrets and the people who keep them. Set in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, James McBride’s 2023 bestseller unearths secrets held by the longtime residents of Chicken Hill, a dilapidated neighborhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side and shared ambitions and sorrows. Here, on the margins of white, Christian America, community members do what they must to survive. 

EJC Reads — our monthly book club for seniors — meets on the 2nd Tuesday of every month from 11am-noon at EJC. Free. No RSVP required. Snacks & drinks provided.