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Kalooki (pronounced kah-LOO-kee) is central to British novelist Howard Jacobson's new book. 

It's a card game that's a bit like canasta, in as much as no one really knows the rules, so you get to argue. He remembers his mother's friends  playing. 

Jacobson says it's a great way to describe the British Jewish community where he grew up, and he uses it in his new comic novel "Kalooki Nights."  It tells the story of a cartoonist living in Manchester, England. 

The book explores the joys and frustrations Max Glickman's experiences living in the city's small but complicated Jewish community.   

Howard Jacobson told Minnesota Public Radio's Euan Kerr the book began as a reaction to a conversation. It was with an Orthodox Jew who recognized Jacobson as a writer.

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Euan Kerr

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Kalooki is central to British novelist Howard Jacobson's new book. It's a card game in which no one really knows the rules. Jacobson says it's a great way to describe the British Jewish community where he grew up, and he uses it in his new comic novel "Kalooki Nights."

Howard Jacobson spins a world from 'Kalooki Nights'

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