Books & Biscotti (Book Review) with Cathy Tile
Thursday, April 16, 2026 • 29 Nisan 5786
1:00 PM - 2:30 PMTemple Emanu-El or Online
by John Irving
and online via Zoom.
Registration is required. Please register below.
Free for Temple Members | $15 for guests (online & pre-registration)
$20 cash-only for walk-ins at the door
Pre-registration is not available for walk-ins who wish to pay cash at the door.
Zoom link and password will be emailed after you register. The program will be recorded.
Queen Esther by John Irving
After forty years, John Irving returns to the world of his bestselling classic novel and Academy Award winner The Cider House Rules, revisiting the orphanage in St. Cloud's, Maine, where Dr. Larch takes in Esther, a three-year-old Jew whose life is shaped by anti-Semitism.
Esther Nacht is born in Vienna in 1905. Her father dies on board a ship from Bremerhaven to Portland, Maine, and anti-Semites murder her mother in Portland. In St. Cloud’s, it’s clear to Dr. Larch, the orphanage physician and director, that the abandoned child not only knows she’s Jewish, but she’s familiar with the biblical Queen Esther she was named for. Dr. Larch knows it won’t be easy to find a Jewish family to adopt Esther, he doubts he'll find any family to adopt her.
When Esther is fourteen, soon to become a ward of the state, Dr. Larch meets the Winslows, a philanthropic family with a history of providing for unadopted orphans. The Winslows aren’t Jewish, but they detest anti-Semitism and similar prejudice. Esther’s gratitude to the Winslows is unending. As she retraces her steps to her birth city, Esther keeps loving and protecting the Winslows—even in Vienna.
The final chapter of this historical novel is set in Jerusalem in 1981, when Esther is seventy-six.
From Amazon.ca
For more information on the book and the author, please CLICK HERE to visit the publisher's website (Penguin Random House Canada).
Cathy Tile worked in the Toronto and York Region Boards of Education. She is one of the founders of the Living Lecture Series and is co-author of the book Toronto's Cook's Marketplace. Cathy has worked tirelessly for CAMH, UJA Youth Leadership and initiated the establishment of the Jewish Information Service and Tel Aide.
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