I've had [a:Chaim Potok|7385|Chaim Potok|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1472717039p2/7385.jpg]'s 1967 [b:The Chosen|187181|The Chosen (Reuven Malther, #1)|Chaim Potok|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1403191327l/187181.SY75.jpg|1336083] on my to-be-read list since 1988. That was when a woman I was nuts about told me it was her favorite book. She majored in English and graduated with honors, so I respected her judgment. Also, she had been born in Hong Kong, grew up from the age of four in Los Angeles, and went to college in Minnesota. I don't think she had spent any time on the East Coast when I knew her, and certainly not in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, which is where The Chosen takes place.
 It's about the academic and social maturing of two Jewish boys, both sons of prominent rabbis, who meet in their high school years during the last year of World War II. It ends in 1950, when they are in college. They study with the intensity and focus of athletes, and even though what much of their study is about, the Talmud, doesn't interest me, the way they've chosen to spend their lives as scholars—a choice that evolves into psychology for one of them—is something that's always appealed to dumb me.
 This novel has absolutely no hint of sex in it. At one point, one of the boys politely remarks that the other's sister is attractive. The remark is batted away and there's no mention of girls again.
 Potok cleverly started The Chosen with a lengthy description of a high-school softball game. What happens there begins the action of the novel in a way that invites American readers who may have no knowledge of or interest in Judaism.