The River Midnight (Lilian Nattel)

The River Midnight is a wonderfully seductive book, set in a Polish shtetl named Blaszka. For about a year, we follow the lives of the men and women within the village, their interlinked histories, and their relationships with the midwife Misha, who is the common thread among many of the stories.

The River Midnight has a faintly magic realist thread - there's a mysterious Traveller who meddles in the lives of the villagers - but the appeal of this novel for me was how strongly it evoked a small Jewish village in Russian-occupied Poland, and the intricate details of everyday life. I felt immersed in this novel, and by the end was immensely fond of many of the characters therein. I knew them intimately, what they thought about in bed at night lying next to their wives, what they thought of when they prayed.

To be honest, my general fascination with Jewish culture (Almonds and Raisins by Maisie Mosco, a Jewish family saga, and Leon Uris's Exodus were two books I passionately adored as a teenager) probably influenced my enjoyment of this book, but not so much that I would hesitate recommending it to others.