This book chronicled a story of the members of the Ziskind family, told from several points of view, jumping back and forth in time. It started out promising, with a main plot involving twins Ben and Sara and a work of art that once belonged to their family. When it wandered far from this story, which it did, I started to lose interest. The ending was highly anti-climactic, when the most developed protaganists' story is dropped entirely, and an extended story about an as-yet-undeveloped character covers several pages. I can't describe it without spoiling it, so suffice it to say there are some very creative ideas in this section, but it bears little relation to the story that preceded it, except for family relationships. All in all, if my book club hadn't selected this book, I likely would not have finished it. ( )

"The Wold to Come" is about a recently divorced man named Ben Zizkind who write questions for a quiz show. At the prompting of his twin sister, he goes to a singles party at a Jewish museum and low and behold he sees a painting that used to hang in his parents' home...a small Chagall. After everyone leaves to go to another part of the museum for the musical entertainment, he stays behind (he can't hear music as according to Jewish law he is forbidden within the year following a parent's death and his mom recently died). Something comes over him and he steals the painting. Now you might think that alarms go off and the video camera would capture the theft. Wrong...security is focused on preventing terrorists from harming the people inside. So needless to say Ben gets away with the theft until the very attractive museum director puts 2 and 2 together. The rest of the book tells the story of Ben's ancestry and how the painting came into the family (it truly is a Chagall). I have a penchant for novels that jump around in time and are also narrated from different perspectives. There is also a bit of history, art, poetry, short stories, and lots of talk about what happens after death. According to Rosalie (Ben's mom who is a children's writer...albeit a very dark children's writer if you ask me), she doesn't believe in reincarnation. What she believes is that there is a world to come where people who have passed teach and guide the future generation when they are in the womb. Definitely an enjoyable read...one that could be enjoyed by men. ( )

Top American novelist. Granta. ( )

Really good. Main question -- What do you do when everything disappears? I really enjoyed. The plot wasn't so tight, but it is literary fiction so that wasn't the point. I loved the scenes from the Old World, mixed in with the modern ones. ( )

http://talesofarampaginglibrarian.blo... ( )