News of uncontacted indigenous tribes being “discovered” fascinates me. Max Gross imagines life without awareness of the modern world in The Lost Shtetl, his incredible debut that hooked me at page one.

A small Jewish shtetl known as Kreskol exists deep in the Polish forest, so secluded it missed out on modern amenities and is even spared the horrors of the Holocaust. A string of events sends an unprepared villager into society, and Kreskol is unwittingly put on the map.