My Name is Asher Lev – Chaim Potok

For all the love that I normally give to the farm, Halycon Books in Greenwich, with its current 1£ sale on all its books, might be my new favourite place in the world (and one that I discovered absolutely by chance after a disappointing trip to the Amnesty International book sale in Blackheath). Having had only a few minutes in the shop, I grabbed one of the first books that caught my eye, and man was I pleased.

My Name Is Asher Lev might be the best book I’ve read in 2017. It’s got everything, and a bit more. It’s Jewish (not “just” Philip Roth or Mordechai Richler Jewish – Chaim Potok was a rabbi!), it’s set in New York but with extensive sections in Paris, it’s about art but also about artists, about the perilous balance of an unstable family, and Asher Lev’s life is surrounded by wonderful secondary characters (for me Reb Yudel Krinsky is right up there with Melquiades, and that says a lot).

There is absolutely nothing I would ever dare to criticize about My Name Is Asher Lev – although sadly that means that I am really in no rush to read any other Potok books (and in particular not The Gift of Asher Lev) for fear of spoiling its memory.