#10 Book recommendation
Beatrice and Virgil, an unusual Holocaust allegory by the celebrated author of Life of Pi, is well worth your time and money. A story within a story within a story, it opens up, slowly but with immense originality, numerous issues about the Holocaust rarely done so well in fiction. And it is very short!

Latest burger rankings

If it were not for the price (double that of Ray's), the burger at Vidalia would tie the burger at Ray's with nearly a perfect score. But $7 vs $17 keeps Ray's on top, with a burger not only unsurpassed, but (aside from Vidalia) unrivaled in quality in NoVA, MD or DC.

Burger Rankings Change
The former #3 burger is now #2, moving Black Market's excellent burger down one slot and moving Black's (Bethesda) to the slot behind the sensational Ray's Hell Burger. Black's (tasted twice) has fine meat cooked to perfection, fresh veggies and four choices of cheese, with a super bun. Don't miss the fries - they can rarely be beat.

#9 Book Recommendation

Colm Toibin's Brooklyn is a short novel you will not be able to put down. Set in impoverished Ireland of the early 1950s (not 1850s), and centering around Ellis, a young woman we come to know well, its focus is partly on Ireland and Brooklyn of that period, but mostly on Ellis, and her point of view. Toibin's novels develop complicated feelings with the simplest of prose; his deep psychological realism grabs you, even without Irish nationalism and Catholicism in your background. The steerage voyage to Brooklyn is unforgettable, surely one of the most vivid on record. You will love it!

#8 Book Suggestion

The Master and Margarita, by Bulgakov. My colleague in Russian literature calls this the most important Russian novel of the first half of the twentieth century, and while that may be arguable, that this is a sensational work is not. Three distinct narratives weave in and out, highlighted by the farcical and satirical Russia of the 1920s and 1930 (Stalin's terror) and a serious story of Pilate and Yeshua (=Jesus, stripped of all messianic attributes) with an amazing crucifixion scene. Note especially the clever ways the narrator/author connects these two stories set 1,900 years apart (e.g. weather, architecture, time frame).

The Williamsburg Rebbe is now chairing a tasting panel dedicated to ranking burgers in the Metro DC area. As of late May, 2009, the panel has visited 14 burger joints, and evaluated the gourmet centerpiece in six categories (burger, cheese, additions, bun, price, size) worth 10 points each. #1, with 55 points, is Ray's Hell-Burger (Arlington VA), and #2, with 48 points, is Black Market (Garrett Park, MD). #3-14 are available on request.

#7 - Liana Millu's Smoke Over Birkenau
I cannot believe I did not know until last month of this brilliant translation (in 1991) by the novelist and short-story writer, Lynne Sharon Schwartz, of Millu's six essays on her experiences in Birkenau. You will cry, and you will be amazed at her elegance, in these astonishing stories which tell of the women who lived and suffered alongside her during her months at Birkenau in 1944. They are stories "of violence and tragedy, but also of resistance, of dreaming in the middle of a nightmare, and of the endurance of the human spirit." Primo Levi says that it is "one of the most powerful European testimonies to come form the women's lager at Auschwitz-Birkenau."