Monroe Free Library

"When U.S. troops occupy Germany, friends Jakob and Emmanuelle are saved from the terrible fate of so many in the camps. With the help of sponsors, they make their way to New York. In order not to be separated, they allow their friendship to blossom into love and marriage, and start a new life on the Lower East Side, working at grueling, poorly paid jobs. Decades later, through talent, faith, fortune, and relentless hard work, Jakob has achieved success...

The daughter of a Coney Island boardwalk curiosities museum's front man pursues an impassioned love affair with a Russian immigrant photographer who after fleeing his Lower East Side Orthodox community has captured poignant images of the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire.

Lauded as the most profound novel of Jewish life ever written by an American, Call It Sleep seamlessly weaves together the searing pains and subtle joys of immigrant life in New York's Lower East Side. It is the story of David Schearl, a dangerously imaginative little boy who arrives from Eastern Europe in 1907. Shock by shock, he is exposed to the blows-and occasional pleasures-of life in the crowded tenements.

Christy Award-winning author Nancy Moser has garnered critical acclaim for her fictionalized accounts of Martha Washington, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and Jane Austen. Here Moser whisks listeners away to 1895 Newport, Rhode Island-summer playground to the elite of the Gilded Age-for a tale of unexpected romance. As the lives of an immigrant dressmaker, her socialite friend, and their unlikely suitors become entangled in a web of secrets and sacrifice,...

"Happy family" is not just the name of a dish on a Chinese menu--it also refers ironically to the relationships that Hua Wu discovers in her new home, New York City. Originally from Fuzhou, China, Hua Wu spends most of her time missing her homeland and her grandmother before connecting in a West Village park with Jane Templeton and her daughter, Lily, who was adopted from China. Soon, the young Chinese woman leaves her restaurant job to nanny for...

Lorca spends her life poring over cookbooks, making croissants and chocolat chaud, seeking out rare ingredients, all to earn the love of her distracted chef of a mother, who is now packing her off to boarding school. In one last effort to prove herself indispensable, Lorca resolves to track down the recipe for her mother's ideal meal, an obscure Middle Eastern dish called masgouf. Victoria, grappling with her husband's death, has been dreaming of...

"When your dreams finally seem to be coming true, it's hard to trust them. It's been four years since seventeen-year-old Ruth set eyes on her fiance. After surviving near-starvation, revolution and a long trip across the stormy ocean, she can't help but wonder: Will Abraham still love her? Or has America changed him? Nowhere's as full of change as 1909 New York. From moving pictures to daring clothes to the ultra-modern Triangle Shirtwaist Factory...

"1944, Poland. Jacob Stein and Zalman Mendelson meet as boys under terrifying circumstances. They survive by miraculously escaping, but their shared past haunts and shapes their lives forever. Years later, Zalman plows a future on a Minnesota farm. In Brooklyn, Jacob has a new life with his wife, Esther. When Zalman travels to New York City to reconnect, Jacob's hopes for the future are becoming a reality. With Zalman's help, they build a house for...

Recounts the experiences of two young men from Lebanon who move to New York in the early twentieth century.