Livingston—Award-winning author Sande Boritz Berger will lead the discussion about her newest book, “The Sweetness”, on Wednesday, September 9, at the Books and Bites discussion group hosted by the National Council of Jewish Women, Essex County (NCJW/Essex). “The Sweetness” is set in 1941 during World War II. The story revolves around the lives of two young girls from separate branches of a Jewish family from Lithuania. One girl lives in Brooklyn with her immigrant parents while her cousin still lives in Europe and struggles to survive against the invading Nazis.

Sande Boritz Berger attended Stony Brook Southampton College, where she received an MFA in Writing and Literature and where she was awarded The Deborah Hecht Memorial prize for fiction. After nearly two decades working for Fortune 500 companies as a scriptwriter and video producer, Berger is thrilled to re-explore her love for fiction and nonfiction literature and writing. She was a semi-finalist in Amazon’s yearly Breakthrough Novel Awards and nominated for the Sophie Brody Award.

Books and Bites, an ongoing book discussion group exploring novels and nonfiction writing, is held multiple times each year and brings community members together to discuss thought-provoking literature. “The Sweetness,” the first book selected for the upcoming season, will be sure to incite intuitive and thoughtful conversation at the event.

Registration for Books and Bites is available online at www.ncjwessex.org. The registration fee for NCJW/Essex members is $6 and for non-members is $10. The event will begin promptly at 10 a.m. and will be held in the NCJW/Essex Conference Room located at 70 South Orange Avenue Suite 120 in Livingston, NJ 07039.

By Lisa Blumert