A Bride for One Night: Talmud Tales by Ruth Calderon, translation Ilana Kurshan (BYFI ‘96)
Calderon, a secular Israeli scholar of the Talmud and a former Knesset member, rewrites talmudic tales as richly imagined fictions, drawing us into the lives of such characters as the woman who risks her life for a sister suspected of adultery; a humble schoolteacher who rescues his village from drought; and a wife who dresses as a prostitute to seduce her pious husband in their garden. Breathing new life into an ancient text, "A Bride for One Night" offers a surprising and provocative read, both for anyone already intimate with the Talmud and for anyone interested in one of the most influential works of Jewish literature.
The Book of Legends / Sefer HaAgaddah, ed. Bialik and Rawnitsky, Schocken.
Focus specifically the section on the Talmudic Rabbis, Part II "The Deeds of the Sages" - Reading through a bunch of Rabbinic stories is the best way to enter the mind of the Rabbis. Bialik and Rawnitsky's classic is still the unrivalled collection of the Rabbinic stories in a readable volume. Reading through the sections describing the Rabbis biographies – although highly un-"academic" – will give you the best base for understanding the stories cultural and textual context.
Rabbinic Stories, translated and introduced by Jeffrey Rubenstein, The Classics of Western Spirituality Series, Paulist Press
Alongside his academic books, Rubenstein created this volume of basic translations and simple analysis with many basic insights.
See also Dr. Jon Levisohn’s list: What Sugyot Should An Educated Jew Know?
Other authors include Ari Elon and Admiel Kosman. Gershon Schwartz’s book, Swimming in the Sea of Talmud (JPS, 1998) that presents several dozen texts with light, informal commentary.” And Rabbi Louis Jacobs, The Talmudic Argument (Cambridge University Press, 1984), which contains a great list of such sugyot together with a masterful exposition of each in clear English.”
Academic Scholarship
Jeffrey L. Rubenstein, Talmudic Stories: Narrative Art, Composition and Culture, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999.
Jeffrey L. Rubenstein, The Culture of the Babylonian Talmud, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003.
Daniel Boyarin, Carnal Israel: Reading Sex in the Talmudic Culture, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993.
Charlotte Fonrobert and Martin Jaffee, The Cambridge Companion to The Talmud and Rabbinic Literature, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Leib Moscovitz, Talmudic Reasoning, Paul Mohr Verlag, 2002