[Updated August, 2009.] In no particular order, here are some books that I have found to be useful, enjoyable, or helpful complements to some of my more popular material. (If you attended a lecture or class of mine and I told you to look for a book on my website, here is where you will find it.) If you think I've left off an important book, let me know.

The books range from scholarly to popular to religious. Happy reading.

Rabbi Lawrence A. Hoffman, ed. My People's Prayer Book. (1997-2007) A ten-volume series containing the traditional liturgy with my modern translations and commentary on those translations, along with expert commentary by several other scholars. If you're interested in how liturgy gets translated, or just more generally in Jewish liturgy, this is the place to start.

Linguistics
Steven Pinker. The Language Instinct. (1995) An accessible and enjoyable overview of the modern study of linguistics, and a great starting point for anyone interested in language or linguistics.

Peter Ladefoged. A Course in Phonetics. (2000) A comprehensive book about the sounds of language. It's more of a textbook than a storybook, but if you work your way through, you'll know almost everything there is to know about how the mouth, tongue, etc., produce the sounds of all of the world's languages.

History
H.W.F. Saggs. Civilization Before Greece and Rome. (1989) One of the best books I have ever read. The book is a wonderful window into the ancient world. Saggs writes to inform and to entertain, and succeeds admirably at both. His book, which describes the places, people, and events relevant to the early history of the Bible (and much more), is a delightful, informative, insightful and fun tour through material that, while largely well known in academia, is less commonly made available to wider audiences. He also includes new analyses and summaries of old information, making the book a gem for scholars and lay readers alike.

Martin Gilbert. The Routledge Atlas of Jewish History. (2003) This is, as the title suggestions, a book of maps, not a book you'll read. But each map is like a chapter from a history book. The author augments his clear snapshots of history with facts and figures that combine to paint a picture of every major period and place of Jewish history.

Jared Diamond. Guns, Germs, and Steel. (1999) A phenomenal book that tries to answer the question of why civilizations are so different one from the other. In answering that question, Diamond presents fascinating theories about how very early civilizations developed. This is the sort of book that answers questions you didn't know you wanted to ask, but once you start reading, you won't be able to put it down.

Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman. The Bible Unearthed. (2002) A re-evaluation of Israel's early history, from 1000BCE to 700BCE, primarily using archaeological data. The books concludes that the first 200 or so years of early Israelite history as we think we know it is largely myth created later. The book suffers from a few methodological errors (like assuming that everyone else's writings are accurate history, but doubting every one of Israel's documents), and has not made it to the mainstream, but the authors know enough about archaeology that the book makes for interesting reading.

Archaeology
Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman. The Bible Unearthed. (2002) A re-evaluation of Israel's early history, from 1000BCE to 700BCE, primarily using archaeological data. The books concludes that the first 200 or so years of early Israelite history as we think we know it is largely myth created later. The book suffers from a few methodological errors (like assuming that everyone else's writings are accurate history, but doubting every one of Israel's documents), and has not made it to the mainstream, but the authors know enough about archaeology that the book makes for interesting reading.

Amihai Mazar. Archaeology of the Land of the Bible: 10,000--586BCE. (1992) An excellent introduction to what archaeology can teach about ancient Israel. Amihai Mazar is one of Israel's leading archaeologists, and this book gives the reader an excellent introduction to what archaeology has discovered about ancient life in what is now Israel. To its credit, the book makes no systematic attempt to reconcile the picture that archaeology paints with the Bible or other religious concepts, but it does refer to Biblical passages from time to time.

Moshe Pearlman. Digging up the Bible. (1980) A beautiful book replete with photographs (B/W and color). Though slightly out of date, Pearlman's book is more of a storybook than Mazar's (above), conveying the drama and excitement of the archaeological discoveries that helped modern scientists re-envision what life was like in ancient Israel. This book is about both the archaeological finds and the process of archaeology itself.

Basic Jewish Reference
W. Gunther Plaut. The Torah: A Modern Commentary. (1981) The most commonly used Torah translation and commentary in the Reform movement. This is the blue (or red) book most of us use Saturday mornings. It contains the first modern translation of the Torah (prepared mostly by Dr. Harry Orlinsky) and the first modern commentary, incorporating both traditional approaches (such as Rashi) and modern science. If you have only one English translation of the Torah on your bookshelf, this is the one to have. (A revised edition has just come out. I have not looked at it extensively.)

Nosson Scherman. The Chumash: The Stone Edition. (1993) Probably the best Orthodox translation and commentary on the Bible. Unlike the Plaut edition (above), this commentary limits itself to traditional Jewish sources, but it so doing, has more traditional information. The translation is a little harder to read, but it is particularly interesting to compare this volume with progressive approaches to Bible study. Also, the book contains the entire Bible, not just the Torah. It even contains an index.

Adele Berlin, Marc Zvi Brettler and Michael Fishbane. Jewish Study Bible. (2003) A wonderful resource for understanding the Bible Jewishly and scientifically. Packaged with the complete text of the Bible (JPS translation), the commentary in this book, as the title suggests, provides the reader with a great way of beginning to study the Bible.

Yisrael Herczeg. Rashi: Sapirstein Edition. (1999) Published by Artscroll (and available most conveniently directly from them). Rashi, who lived in the 11th century CE, is without a doubt the leading Jewish commentator, and Artscroll's beautiful five-volume set is the only edition to make the text of Rashi available to non-experts. The set provides Rashi in Hebrew along with both a translation and notes on the translation. If you want to refer to Rashi when you study Torah (and you do!), this is far and away the best way to do it. This is the commentary I bring with me Shabbat mornings.

Hebrew
Joel M. Hoffman. In the Beginning: A Short History of the Hebrew Language. (2004) My book, available in paperback. It's a readable and (I hope) enjoyable presentation of the story of Hebrew: where it comes from, what we know about ancient Hebrew, what we know about the various dialects of the Bible, and how Hebrew was reborn in modernity. Along the way, the book discusses the text we now call the Bible, explaining where it comes from and how far back we can realistically trace it.

Jacob Weingreen. A Practical Grammar of Classical Hebrew. (1959) A grammar of the Classical Hebrew in which most of the Bible is written. Classical Hebrew is not as hard to learn as other ancient languages, and this classic book is still the best introduction, starting with the most basic elements of Hebrew for those who know nothing about it (``Hebrew is written from right to left''), and presenting clear and succinct explanations of everything you'll need to read most of the Bible. This book will not help you much with modern Hebrew, but if you're willing to invest the (considerable) time, it will give you the tools to understand Biblical Hebrew.

Angel Saenz-Badillos (trans. John Elwolde). A History of the Hebrew Language. (1996) A dense book, but worth the effort it takes to read it. Saenz-Badillos reviews pretty much everything written on the topic of Hebrew in its various forms (as evidences by the nearly seventy-page bibliography in eight-point type). The text, while academic and not meant to entertain, clearly and succinctly summarizes the state of scholarship about Hebrew in its various incarnations.

Lewis Glinert. Modern Hebrew: An Essential Grammar. (1994) One of the best grammars of modern Israeli Hebrew. Most grammars of "modern" Hebrew freely mix Israeli Hebrew and classical Hebrew, to the end that the reader learns a bizarre mixture of modern and clasical Hebrew. Glinert's book is a refreshing exception. His book is also engaging and accurate. If you're interested in Israeli Hebrew, this book is essential.

Jewish Commentary
Uriel Simon. JPS Commentary on Jonah. (1999) A modern Jewish commentary on the book of Jonah. This book's value is twofold. It is perhaps the best commentary on the book of Jonah available, and just that would make it worth having on your bookshelf. But beyond that, Dr. Simon is one of the best modern Jewish commentators I know, incorporating modern thought and classical Jewish values. This is his most accessible book in English. It's worth reading this book even if you don't care about the book of Jonah, because it will open your eyes to quality Biblical text study. (I haven't actually read this, but I know Dr. Simon, and he recommended it as the best English example of his work.)

Adele Berlin, Marc Zvi Brettler and Michael Fishbane. Jewish Study Bible. (2003) A wonderful resource for understanding the Bible Jewishly and scientifically. Packaged with the complete text of the Bible (JPS translation), the commentary in this book, as the title suggests, provides the reader with a great way of beginning to study the Bible.

Text of the Bible
Richard E. Friedman. Who Wrote the Bible?. (1997) An overview of the latest (and probably most widely accepted) scientific view of the origins of the Hebrew Bible. Known as the ``documentary hypothesis,'' this theory divides the Bible into four sources according to, variously, how they write, what they write about, and how they refer to God. The theory also posits redactors who assembled and modified the authors' materials. Friedman's book is the most accessible introduction to the documentary hypothesis.

Ernst Wurthwein (trans. Rhodes). The Text of the Old Testament. (1995) Nearly the complete story of how we got the text we now call ``the Bible,'' and what we know about its ancient sources. The book explains how the text of the Old Testament has reached us, and does so superbly, and the nearly fifty plates at the end of bring over three millennia of Hebrew and Biblical writing to life in a way that mere prose cannot. It is a reference book with succinct and informative summaries of most of the information about the history and study of the text of the Old Testament.

Emanuel Tov. Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible. (2001) Similar in scope to Wurthwein's book, Tov's book contains more analysis but fewer pictures. If you want a really complete understanding of the text of the Bible, read both.

Joel M. Hoffman. In the Beginning: A Short History of the Hebrew Language. (2004) My book, available in paperback. It's a readable and (I hope) enjoyable presentation of the story of Hebrew: where it comes from, what we know about ancient Hebrew, what we know about the various dialects of the Bible, and how Hebrew was reborn in modernity. Along the way, the book discusses the text we now call the Bible, explaining where it comes from and how far back we can realistically trace it.

Dead Sea Scrolls
Florentino Garcia Martinez. The Dead Sea Scrolls Translated: The Qumran Texts in English. (1996) Books about the Dead Sea Scrolls ("DSS") are plentiful, but vary widely in their quality. Martinez's book is a great place to start. It contains translations of all of the non-Biblical DSS, and also an excellent introduction.

Florentino Garcia Martinez et al. The Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition. (1999) This more expensive edition of the Dead Sea Scrolls contains the English with the complete Hebrew and Aramaic of most of the scrolls. If you want to read the original DSS yourself, this is the book to get.

Ancient Pronunciations
Edgar H. Sturtevant. The Pronunciation of Greek and Latin. (1968) A great introduction to what is known about the pronunciation of ancient Greek and Latin. Some scholars use Greek and Latin to help them figure out ancient Hebrew; this book will help you understand those arguments.

Kabalah
Studying Kabalah can be difficult because the plethora of books available vary so widely in their accuracy. I have found that two great ways to start are Art Green's introduction to the Pritzker edition of the Zohar, and, for a quick background, the essay in Volume 9 of My People's Prayerbook. Here is more information about both books:

Daniel Matt, trans. The Zohar: Pritzker Edition, Vol. 1. (2003) This is the first accessible English translation of the Zohar. If you want to study Kabalah, you will have to read the Zohar, and this is the way to start. Additionally, Art Green's introduction to the first volume is one of the best introductions to Kabalah available.

Rabbi Lawrence A. Hoffman, ed. My People's Prayer Book: Welcoming Shabbat in the Synagogue. (2004) One of the introductory essays to this volume gives the reader a concise overview of the Kabbalat Shabbat service, as created by the Kabalists, along the way explaining the development of Kabalah. The volume also contains Lecha Dodi, perhaps the finest liturgical poem ever written and certainly a pinnacle of Kabalistic achievement. The copious notes to Lecha Dodi not only give the reader insight into the prayer, but also offer a taste of Kabalah for beginners and seasoned scholars alike.