“What they’re reading” appears as an occasional series in MinnPost’s Book Club Club section. We’re asking well-known and not-so-well-known Minnesotans to tell us about the books they’re reading and recommending to others — and why. In today’s installment, we hear from Michael Adam Latz, rabbi of Shir Tikvah Congregation in Minneapolis.

I just finished reading “Little Bee” by Chris Cleave. It’s a powerful narrative about two women whose lives collide on the beach in Nigeria. A stunning, evocative testimony to the redemptive power of storytelling amidst the destruction of tribal lands and peoples in Nigeria in the search for oil, “Little Bee” is a haunting and inspiring story of the human soul.

Currently, I’m reading Brady Udall’s “The Lonely Polygamist” — with a comic title like that, who could put it down?!? It’s the story of a polygamist named Golden Richards, who, despite having four wives and 28 children, finds himself entangled in an affair with a fifth woman… I’m only about 150 pages into it, but I’ve laughed out loud several times and find myself enchanted by the tenderness of how loneliness affects all of us.

In addition to these books, I’d recommend reading “Drawing in the Dust” by Rabbi Zoe Klein — an epic story of searching for lost stories in Israel, where Christian, Jewish and Muslim narratives collide, and the hero of the novel — Page Brookfield — ultimately discovers her own story. Klein is a poet and an oracle — she sees the world through the eyes of an artist and the soul of a rabbi. Fabulous book!