Episode 42: Allegra Goodman
on This Is Not About Us (Or So We Tell Ourselves)
Allegra Goodman’s Five Books:
1. A book that is in conversation with your latest work:
The Family Markowitz by Allegra Goodman
2. A book you changed your mind about:
The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
3. A passage from a book that has stayed with you or has changed how you think about things:
A famous passage from one of John Keat’s letters about Negative Capability
4. The book you’re reading now:
Dickens the Enchanter: Inside the Explosive Imagination of the Great Storyteller by Peter Conrad
5. The author’s latest work:
This Is Not About Us by Allegra Goodman
This episode was recorded live in front of an audience in a joint event for subscribers to Nu Reads, a project from Jewish Book Council that brings remarkable Jewish literature straight to your door. This is Not About Us by Allegra Goodman is the Nu Reads pick for February. Learn more at nureads.org.
The Five Books is a podcast that celebrates the role of books in Jewish culture. Through author interviews, we delve into Jewish identity and discover each author’s favorite novels. Join us every week for new Jewish book recommendations! Some of our episodes have included conversations with Rabbi Sharon Brous (Senior Rabbi at IKAR, and author of The Amen Effect), Yael Van Der Wouden (author of The Safekeep), and Dara Horn (author of People Love Dead Jews.)
For feedback or author recommendations please email us at team@fivebookspod.org
The Five Books is a partner organization of Jewish Book Council, a nonprofit dedicated to amplifying and celebrating Jewish literature and supporting authors and readers. In celebration of 100 years of Jewish Book Month, JBC introduces Nu Reads—a bi-monthly subscription delivering the most compelling new Jewish books straight to your door. For more information on Nu Reads, visit NuReads.org. To stay up to date on ways to celebrate Jewish Book Month, visit www.jewishbookcouncil.org/events/jewish-book-month-100.
The Five Books is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501c3 public charity.
Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt Cohen
Produced by Odelia Rubin
Editorial and website support by Amelia Merrill
Artwork by Elad Lifshitz of the Dov Abramson studio
Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions.
Allegra Goodman tells us how This Is Not About Us grew like a family tree from her New Yorker short story “Apple Cake,” as she continued writing about the Rubinstein family for over a decade. We discuss how her perspective - and the world - has changed since she wrote The Family Markowitz in her 20s, and how Keats’ concept of negative capability has shaped her writing. We also hear about a book that she found very dull until a bad cold taught her patience.
Allegra Goodman is a writer of extraordinary range and precision. Across novels and stories, she’s written about faith, ambition, family, science, history, and the quiet negotiations of everyday life, always with clarity, wit, and deep compassion for her characters. Allegra’s many books include Sam (a Jenna’s Book Club pick), Paradise Park, Kaaterskill Falls (a National Book Award finalist), and Isola (a Reese’s Book Club Pick.)
Her latest novel of interconnected short stories, This Is Not About Us, brings all of that together. It follows the Rubinstein family over many years, through moments that feel small until they suddenly don’t.
Allegra’s First Appearance on The Five Books:
- Allegra Goodman on Making the Exotic Familiar, and Finding the Modern in Ancient Words
