People of the Book, let's live up to our reputation! Join the Etz Chayim Bookworms in a discussion of The Guide for the Perplexed, by Dara Horn, in the Doubletree Room on Saturday, April 5, at 4:00 p.m.

Horn braids three narrative threads: In the first story, software prodigy Josie Ashkenazi has developed a program that enhances human memory beyond anything previously known. When Josie goes to Egypt to demonstrate her invention, she is kidnapped. In the second story, around the turn of the 20th century, Solomon Schechter discovers the Cairo Genizah, a chaotic melange of cast-aside writings accumulated for centuries by the Cairo Jewish community. In the third story, in the 12th century, physician-philosopher Moses Maimonides migrates to Cairo, where he writes his renowned meditation on destiny and free will, The Guide for the Perplexed. Each of the three stories is textured by the biblical saga of Joseph in Egypt.

This discussion is coordinated with the second annual One Book One Bay, a project of the Jewish Community Library, to turn the entire San Francisco bay area Jewish community into a single united book club. 'J' Weekly writes about the project and the novel at http://www.jweekly.com/article/full/69609/one-bay-one-book-dara-horns-time-tripping-novel-kicks-off-a-year-of-reading/