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Less Interesting Jewish Books

Thank God we have better stuff to read

by
Marc Tracy
May 26, 2011
(IMDB/Ye Olde Tablet Photoshoppe)
(IMDB/Ye Olde Tablet Photoshoppe)

Today’s big trending topic on Twitter is #lessinterestingbooks, the joke being that you take the titles of famous books and re-imagine them as, well, less interesting (so, I dunno, The Okay Gatsby, The Sound and the Calm, and Hamlet, Librarian of Denmark). The best, so far, has been actor Josh Malina’s suggestion, The New Testament (get it?). But what of the great books of the Jewish canon? What would make them less interesting?

• The Triteuch

Isaiah Thomas

A Guide for the Clear-Minded

Quiet Evenings of Augie March

Civilization and Its Benefits

The Diary of Anne Roiphe

• “Gimpel the Sage”

Tevye the Actuary

The Clothed and the Dead

And your special Philip Roth section:

Portnoy’s Compliment

Goodbye, Toledo

A Lesser American Novel

French Pastoral

I Married A Liberal

The Human Smudge

Marc Tracy is a staff writer at The New Republic, and was previously a staff writer at Tablet. He tweets @marcatracy.