Author: Fay Webern
Publisher: Sagging Meniscus Press
ISBN: 9781944697112
Category : Authors, American
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
"Fay Webern's masterful chronicle of a youth spent in one of New York City's most vibrant immigrant communities during the harsh years of the Great Depression and The Second World War. Its forty-two beautifully sculpted episodes not only conjure into vivid existence a complete world, but reveal something of the bedrock of the author's inner being, in which the irreducible hardness, the 'is'-ness, of reality may be felt: the burden of survival; the 'stone in the heart'; the daily concerns, serious or frivolous, erected on it; and at the same time, always, flying above, indomitable, the muse of poetic imagination and the 'spirit of defiance.' "--Back cover.
The Button Thief of East 14th Street
Author: Fay Webern
Publisher: Sagging Meniscus Press
ISBN: 9781944697112
Category : Authors, American
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
"Fay Webern's masterful chronicle of a youth spent in one of New York City's most vibrant immigrant communities during the harsh years of the Great Depression and The Second World War. Its forty-two beautifully sculpted episodes not only conjure into vivid existence a complete world, but reveal something of the bedrock of the author's inner being, in which the irreducible hardness, the 'is'-ness, of reality may be felt: the burden of survival; the 'stone in the heart'; the daily concerns, serious or frivolous, erected on it; and at the same time, always, flying above, indomitable, the muse of poetic imagination and the 'spirit of defiance.' "--Back cover.
Publisher: Sagging Meniscus Press
ISBN: 9781944697112
Category : Authors, American
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
"Fay Webern's masterful chronicle of a youth spent in one of New York City's most vibrant immigrant communities during the harsh years of the Great Depression and The Second World War. Its forty-two beautifully sculpted episodes not only conjure into vivid existence a complete world, but reveal something of the bedrock of the author's inner being, in which the irreducible hardness, the 'is'-ness, of reality may be felt: the burden of survival; the 'stone in the heart'; the daily concerns, serious or frivolous, erected on it; and at the same time, always, flying above, indomitable, the muse of poetic imagination and the 'spirit of defiance.' "--Back cover.
My Father's Guitar and Other Imaginary Things
Author: Joseph Skibell
Publisher: Algonquin Books
ISBN: 1616205458
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 225
Book Description
Often comic, sometimes tender, profoundly truthful, the pleasure in these nonfiction pieces by award-winning novelist Joseph Skibell is discovering along with the author that catastrophes, fantasies, and delusions are what give sweetness and shape to our lives. “As a writer,” Skibell has said, “I feel about life the way the people of the Plains felt about the buffalo: I want to use every part of it.” In My Father’s Guitar and Other Imaginary Things, his first nonfiction work, he mines the events of his own life to create a captivating collection of personal essays, a suite of intimate stories that blurs the line between funny and poignant, and between the imaginary and the real. Often improbable, these stories are 100 percent true. Skibell misremembers the guitar his father promised him; together, he and a telemarketer dream of a better world; a major work of Holocaust art turns out to have been painted by his cousin. Woven together, the stories paint a complex portrait of a man and his family: a businessman father and an artistic son and the difficult love between them; complicated uncles, cousins, and sisters; a haunted house; and—of course—an imaginary guitar. Skibell’s novels have been praised as “startlingly original” (the Washington Post), “magical” (the New Yorker), and the work of “a gifted, committed imagination” (the New York Times). With his distinctive style, he has been referred to as “the bastard love child of Mark Twain, I. B. Singer, and Wes Anderson, left on a doorstep in Lubbock, Texas.”
Publisher: Algonquin Books
ISBN: 1616205458
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 225
Book Description
Often comic, sometimes tender, profoundly truthful, the pleasure in these nonfiction pieces by award-winning novelist Joseph Skibell is discovering along with the author that catastrophes, fantasies, and delusions are what give sweetness and shape to our lives. “As a writer,” Skibell has said, “I feel about life the way the people of the Plains felt about the buffalo: I want to use every part of it.” In My Father’s Guitar and Other Imaginary Things, his first nonfiction work, he mines the events of his own life to create a captivating collection of personal essays, a suite of intimate stories that blurs the line between funny and poignant, and between the imaginary and the real. Often improbable, these stories are 100 percent true. Skibell misremembers the guitar his father promised him; together, he and a telemarketer dream of a better world; a major work of Holocaust art turns out to have been painted by his cousin. Woven together, the stories paint a complex portrait of a man and his family: a businessman father and an artistic son and the difficult love between them; complicated uncles, cousins, and sisters; a haunted house; and—of course—an imaginary guitar. Skibell’s novels have been praised as “startlingly original” (the Washington Post), “magical” (the New Yorker), and the work of “a gifted, committed imagination” (the New York Times). With his distinctive style, he has been referred to as “the bastard love child of Mark Twain, I. B. Singer, and Wes Anderson, left on a doorstep in Lubbock, Texas.”
First, the Raven
Author: Seth Rogoff
Publisher: Sagging Shorts
ISBN: 9781944697440
Category : Friendship
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
Fiction. Sy Kirschbaum has spent almost twenty years in Prague translating legendary Czech dissident Jan Horak's samizdat masterpiece, Blue, Red, Gray. On the cusp of finishing, he is called back to his Maine hometown to see his troubled former lover, Ida Fields, now the wife of their childhood friend Gabe Slatky. But before he can see her, Sy must meet with Gabe for an evening at a local bar, an encounter that becomes a test of their old friendship and their dueling accounts of reality. In the conversation that follows, narratives of past and present--of art and life--interweave with perfect inevitability, yet with unpredictable, even shocking consequences, spiraling Sy and Gabe into confusion, doubt, and despair, without quite eroding, perhaps, the possibility of hope. FIRST, THE RAVEN: A PREFACE is a quietly yet profoundly radical work, as ingenious as a print by Escher or a Möbius strip: the Reader must glide along its whole immaculately ramified length before realizing how deeply life, despite its unceasing, nearly flawless appearance of normalcy, is upside down.
Publisher: Sagging Shorts
ISBN: 9781944697440
Category : Friendship
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
Fiction. Sy Kirschbaum has spent almost twenty years in Prague translating legendary Czech dissident Jan Horak's samizdat masterpiece, Blue, Red, Gray. On the cusp of finishing, he is called back to his Maine hometown to see his troubled former lover, Ida Fields, now the wife of their childhood friend Gabe Slatky. But before he can see her, Sy must meet with Gabe for an evening at a local bar, an encounter that becomes a test of their old friendship and their dueling accounts of reality. In the conversation that follows, narratives of past and present--of art and life--interweave with perfect inevitability, yet with unpredictable, even shocking consequences, spiraling Sy and Gabe into confusion, doubt, and despair, without quite eroding, perhaps, the possibility of hope. FIRST, THE RAVEN: A PREFACE is a quietly yet profoundly radical work, as ingenious as a print by Escher or a Möbius strip: the Reader must glide along its whole immaculately ramified length before realizing how deeply life, despite its unceasing, nearly flawless appearance of normalcy, is upside down.
Dark Places of the Earth: The Voyage of the Slave Ship Antelope
Author: Jonathan M. Bryant
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 163149077X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 472
Book Description
Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist in History A dramatic work of historical detection illuminating one of the most significant—and long forgotten—Supreme Court cases in American history. In 1820, a suspicious vessel was spotted lingering off the coast of northern Florida, the Spanish slave ship Antelope. Since the United States had outlawed its own participation in the international slave trade more than a decade before, the ship's almost 300 African captives were considered illegal cargo under American laws. But with slavery still a critical part of the American economy, it would eventually fall to the Supreme Court to determine whether or not they were slaves at all, and if so, what should be done with them. Bryant describes the captives' harrowing voyage through waters rife with pirates and governed by an array of international treaties. By the time the Antelope arrived in Savannah, Georgia, the puzzle of how to determine the captives' fates was inextricably knotted. Set against the backdrop of a city in the grip of both the financial panic of 1819 and the lingering effects of an outbreak of yellow fever, Dark Places of the Earth vividly recounts the eight-year legal conflict that followed, during which time the Antelope's human cargo were mercilessly put to work on the plantations of Georgia, even as their freedom remained in limbo. When at long last the Supreme Court heard the case, Francis Scott Key, the legendary Georgetown lawyer and author of "The Star Spangled Banner," represented the Antelope captives in an epic courtroom battle that identified the moral and legal implications of slavery for a generation. Four of the six justices who heard the case, including Chief Justice John Marshall, owned slaves. Despite this, Key insisted that "by the law of nature all men are free," and that the captives should by natural law be given their freedom. This argument was rejected. The court failed Key, the captives, and decades of American history, siding with the rights of property over liberty and setting the course of American jurisprudence on these issues for the next thirty-five years. The institution of slavery was given new legal cover, and another brick was laid on the road to the Civil War. The stakes of the Antelope case hinged on nothing less than the central American conflict of the nineteenth century. Both disquieting and enlightening, Dark Places of the Earth restores the Antelope to its rightful place as one of the most tragic, influential, and unjustly forgotten episodes in American legal history.
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 163149077X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 472
Book Description
Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist in History A dramatic work of historical detection illuminating one of the most significant—and long forgotten—Supreme Court cases in American history. In 1820, a suspicious vessel was spotted lingering off the coast of northern Florida, the Spanish slave ship Antelope. Since the United States had outlawed its own participation in the international slave trade more than a decade before, the ship's almost 300 African captives were considered illegal cargo under American laws. But with slavery still a critical part of the American economy, it would eventually fall to the Supreme Court to determine whether or not they were slaves at all, and if so, what should be done with them. Bryant describes the captives' harrowing voyage through waters rife with pirates and governed by an array of international treaties. By the time the Antelope arrived in Savannah, Georgia, the puzzle of how to determine the captives' fates was inextricably knotted. Set against the backdrop of a city in the grip of both the financial panic of 1819 and the lingering effects of an outbreak of yellow fever, Dark Places of the Earth vividly recounts the eight-year legal conflict that followed, during which time the Antelope's human cargo were mercilessly put to work on the plantations of Georgia, even as their freedom remained in limbo. When at long last the Supreme Court heard the case, Francis Scott Key, the legendary Georgetown lawyer and author of "The Star Spangled Banner," represented the Antelope captives in an epic courtroom battle that identified the moral and legal implications of slavery for a generation. Four of the six justices who heard the case, including Chief Justice John Marshall, owned slaves. Despite this, Key insisted that "by the law of nature all men are free," and that the captives should by natural law be given their freedom. This argument was rejected. The court failed Key, the captives, and decades of American history, siding with the rights of property over liberty and setting the course of American jurisprudence on these issues for the next thirty-five years. The institution of slavery was given new legal cover, and another brick was laid on the road to the Civil War. The stakes of the Antelope case hinged on nothing less than the central American conflict of the nineteenth century. Both disquieting and enlightening, Dark Places of the Earth restores the Antelope to its rightful place as one of the most tragic, influential, and unjustly forgotten episodes in American legal history.
The Chocolate Thief
Author: Laura Florand
Publisher: Kensington Books
ISBN: 0758279086
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 320
Book Description
When an American heiress and a French chocolatier butt heads, the business of chocolate is about to become a labor of love in this romantic comedy. Paris Breathtakingly beautiful, the City of Light seduces the senses, its cobbled streets thrumming with possibility. For American Cade Corey, it’s a dream come true, if only she can get one infuriating French chocolatier to sign on the dotted line . . . Chocolate Melting, yielding yet firm, exotic, its secrets are intimately known to Sylvain Marquis. But turn them over to a brash American waving a fistful of dollars? Jamais. Not unless there’s something much more delectable on the table . . . Stolen Pleasure Whether confections taken from a locked shop or kisses in the dark, is there anything sweeter? Praise for The Chocolate Thief “A delectable summer bonbon . . . The Chocolate Thief is for days when you lust not for wisdom, but for a bar of chocolate—at any price—and a hero who understands what is truly important: ‘Every dream I have has you in my apartment, has you in my laboratoire, has you with my babies . . . Every chocolate I’ve made since I met you, I’ve made for you.’” —Eloisa James, NPR.org “It’s like when you find that amazing piece of chocolate—you take a bite, and it sits on your tongue and melts into a pool of liquid heaven: Florand has managed to capture that emotional experience and put it into the pages of her novel.” —RT Book Reviews “[A] comfortable beach read . . . A good, fun read.” —Publishers Weekly
Publisher: Kensington Books
ISBN: 0758279086
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 320
Book Description
When an American heiress and a French chocolatier butt heads, the business of chocolate is about to become a labor of love in this romantic comedy. Paris Breathtakingly beautiful, the City of Light seduces the senses, its cobbled streets thrumming with possibility. For American Cade Corey, it’s a dream come true, if only she can get one infuriating French chocolatier to sign on the dotted line . . . Chocolate Melting, yielding yet firm, exotic, its secrets are intimately known to Sylvain Marquis. But turn them over to a brash American waving a fistful of dollars? Jamais. Not unless there’s something much more delectable on the table . . . Stolen Pleasure Whether confections taken from a locked shop or kisses in the dark, is there anything sweeter? Praise for The Chocolate Thief “A delectable summer bonbon . . . The Chocolate Thief is for days when you lust not for wisdom, but for a bar of chocolate—at any price—and a hero who understands what is truly important: ‘Every dream I have has you in my apartment, has you in my laboratoire, has you with my babies . . . Every chocolate I’ve made since I met you, I’ve made for you.’” —Eloisa James, NPR.org “It’s like when you find that amazing piece of chocolate—you take a bite, and it sits on your tongue and melts into a pool of liquid heaven: Florand has managed to capture that emotional experience and put it into the pages of her novel.” —RT Book Reviews “[A] comfortable beach read . . . A good, fun read.” —Publishers Weekly
The Thief
Author: Megan Whalen Turner
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 9780688146276
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 232
Book Description
Nothing is overdone and not a word is out of place in this auspicious debut," wrote Kirkus in a starred review of Instead of Three Wishes, the first book by Megan Whalen Turner. Her second book more than fulfills that promise. The king's scholar, the magus, believes he knows the site of an ancient treasure. To attain it for his king, he needs a skillful thief, and he selects Gen from the king's prison. The magus is interested only in the theif's abilities. What Gen is interested in is anyone's guess. Their journey toward the treasure is both dangerous and difficult, lightened only imperceptibly by the tales they tell of the old gods and goddesses. Megan Whalen Turner weaves Gen's stories and Gen's story together with style and verve in a novel that is filled with intrigue, adventure, and surprise.
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 9780688146276
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 232
Book Description
Nothing is overdone and not a word is out of place in this auspicious debut," wrote Kirkus in a starred review of Instead of Three Wishes, the first book by Megan Whalen Turner. Her second book more than fulfills that promise. The king's scholar, the magus, believes he knows the site of an ancient treasure. To attain it for his king, he needs a skillful thief, and he selects Gen from the king's prison. The magus is interested only in the theif's abilities. What Gen is interested in is anyone's guess. Their journey toward the treasure is both dangerous and difficult, lightened only imperceptibly by the tales they tell of the old gods and goddesses. Megan Whalen Turner weaves Gen's stories and Gen's story together with style and verve in a novel that is filled with intrigue, adventure, and surprise.
The Thief
Author: Fuminori Nakamura
Publisher: Soho Press
ISBN: 1616950226
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 130
Book Description
A literary crime masterpiece that follows a Japanese pickpocket lost to the machinations of fate. Bleak and oozing existential dread, The Thief is simply unforgettable. The Thief is a seasoned pickpocket. Anonymous in his tailored suit, he weaves in and out of Tokyo crowds, stealing wallets from strangers so smoothly sometimes he doesn’t even remember the snatch. Most people are just a blur to him, nameless faces from whom he chooses his victims. He has no family, no friends, no connections.... But he does have a past, which finally catches up with him when Ishikawa, his first partner, reappears in his life, and offers him a job he can’t refuse. It’s an easy job: tie up an old rich man, steal the contents of the safe. No one gets hurt. Only the day after the job does he learn that the old man was a prominent politician, and that he was brutally killed after the robbery. And now the Thief is caught in a tangle even he might not be able to escape.
Publisher: Soho Press
ISBN: 1616950226
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 130
Book Description
A literary crime masterpiece that follows a Japanese pickpocket lost to the machinations of fate. Bleak and oozing existential dread, The Thief is simply unforgettable. The Thief is a seasoned pickpocket. Anonymous in his tailored suit, he weaves in and out of Tokyo crowds, stealing wallets from strangers so smoothly sometimes he doesn’t even remember the snatch. Most people are just a blur to him, nameless faces from whom he chooses his victims. He has no family, no friends, no connections.... But he does have a past, which finally catches up with him when Ishikawa, his first partner, reappears in his life, and offers him a job he can’t refuse. It’s an easy job: tie up an old rich man, steal the contents of the safe. No one gets hurt. Only the day after the job does he learn that the old man was a prominent politician, and that he was brutally killed after the robbery. And now the Thief is caught in a tangle even he might not be able to escape.
Markus Zusak: The Book Thief & I Am the Messenger
Author: Markus Zusak
Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers
ISBN: 0553510266
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 910
Book Description
Two award-winning modern classics from #1 New York Times bestselling author Markus Zusak! The Book Thief affirms the ability of books to feed the soul even in the bleakest of times in a story the New York Times described as “brilliant. . . . the kind of book that can be life-changing.” It is 1939. Nazi Germany. Death has never been busier, and will become busier still. Liesel Meminger is a foster girl living outside of Munich, who scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can’t resist–books. With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, she learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement. I Am the Messenger is a Printz Honor-winning novel and recipient of five starred reviews that tells the story of Ed Kennedy, an underage cabdriver without much of a future. His life is one of peaceful routine and incompetence until he inadvertently stops a bank robbery. That's when the first ace arrives in the mail. That's when Ed becomes the messenger. Chosen to care, he makes his way through town helping and hurting (when necessary) until only one question remains: Who's behind Ed's mission? Discover the enormous talent that is Marcus Zusak in this extraordinary collection that showcases the intensity and heart inherent in his storytelling. DON’T MISS BRIDGE OF CLAY, MARKUS ZUSAK’S FIRST NOVEL SINCE THE BOOK THIEF.
Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers
ISBN: 0553510266
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 910
Book Description
Two award-winning modern classics from #1 New York Times bestselling author Markus Zusak! The Book Thief affirms the ability of books to feed the soul even in the bleakest of times in a story the New York Times described as “brilliant. . . . the kind of book that can be life-changing.” It is 1939. Nazi Germany. Death has never been busier, and will become busier still. Liesel Meminger is a foster girl living outside of Munich, who scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can’t resist–books. With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, she learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement. I Am the Messenger is a Printz Honor-winning novel and recipient of five starred reviews that tells the story of Ed Kennedy, an underage cabdriver without much of a future. His life is one of peaceful routine and incompetence until he inadvertently stops a bank robbery. That's when the first ace arrives in the mail. That's when Ed becomes the messenger. Chosen to care, he makes his way through town helping and hurting (when necessary) until only one question remains: Who's behind Ed's mission? Discover the enormous talent that is Marcus Zusak in this extraordinary collection that showcases the intensity and heart inherent in his storytelling. DON’T MISS BRIDGE OF CLAY, MARKUS ZUSAK’S FIRST NOVEL SINCE THE BOOK THIEF.
The Matchmaker's Gift
Author: Lynda Cohen Loigman
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 1250278082
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 282
Book Description
Named a Best Book of Fall 2022 by Parade • BuzzFeed • New York Post • GMA.com • People "Loigman's latest is a gem. A scrappy Jewish teenager newly arrived in 1920s New York struggles to follow her calling as a matchmaker––seventy years later, her cynical divorce-attorney granddaughter realizes she has very inconveniently inherited the family gift for matching soulmates. Both funny and moving, The Matchmaker's Gift made me smile from start to finish." ––Kate Quinn, New York Times bestselling author of The Rose Code Is finding true love a calling or a curse? Even as a child in 1910, Sara Glikman knows her gift: she is a maker of matches and a seeker of soulmates. But among the pushcart-crowded streets of New York’s Lower East Side, Sara’s vocation is dominated by devout older men—men who see a talented female matchmaker as a dangerous threat to their traditions and livelihood. After making matches in secret for more than a decade, Sara must fight to take her rightful place among her peers, and to demand the recognition she deserves. Two generations later, Sara’s granddaughter, Abby, is a successful Manhattan divorce attorney, representing the city’s wealthiest clients. When her beloved Grandma Sara dies, Abby inherits her collection of handwritten journals recording the details of Sara’s matches. But among the faded volumes, Abby finds more questions than answers. Why did Abby’s grandmother leave this library to her and what did she hope Abby would discover within its pages? Why does the work Abby once found so compelling suddenly feel inconsequential and flawed? Is Abby willing to sacrifice the career she’s worked so hard for in order to keep her grandmother’s mysterious promise to a stranger? And is there really such a thing as love at first sight?
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 1250278082
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 282
Book Description
Named a Best Book of Fall 2022 by Parade • BuzzFeed • New York Post • GMA.com • People "Loigman's latest is a gem. A scrappy Jewish teenager newly arrived in 1920s New York struggles to follow her calling as a matchmaker––seventy years later, her cynical divorce-attorney granddaughter realizes she has very inconveniently inherited the family gift for matching soulmates. Both funny and moving, The Matchmaker's Gift made me smile from start to finish." ––Kate Quinn, New York Times bestselling author of The Rose Code Is finding true love a calling or a curse? Even as a child in 1910, Sara Glikman knows her gift: she is a maker of matches and a seeker of soulmates. But among the pushcart-crowded streets of New York’s Lower East Side, Sara’s vocation is dominated by devout older men—men who see a talented female matchmaker as a dangerous threat to their traditions and livelihood. After making matches in secret for more than a decade, Sara must fight to take her rightful place among her peers, and to demand the recognition she deserves. Two generations later, Sara’s granddaughter, Abby, is a successful Manhattan divorce attorney, representing the city’s wealthiest clients. When her beloved Grandma Sara dies, Abby inherits her collection of handwritten journals recording the details of Sara’s matches. But among the faded volumes, Abby finds more questions than answers. Why did Abby’s grandmother leave this library to her and what did she hope Abby would discover within its pages? Why does the work Abby once found so compelling suddenly feel inconsequential and flawed? Is Abby willing to sacrifice the career she’s worked so hard for in order to keep her grandmother’s mysterious promise to a stranger? And is there really such a thing as love at first sight?
The Road
Author: Cormac McCarthy
Publisher: Vintage Books
ISBN: 0307386457
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 297
Book Description
In a novel set in an indefinite, futuristic, post-apocalyptic world, a father and his young son make their way through the ruins of a devastated American landscape, struggling to survive and preserve the last remnants of their own humanity
Publisher: Vintage Books
ISBN: 0307386457
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 297
Book Description
In a novel set in an indefinite, futuristic, post-apocalyptic world, a father and his young son make their way through the ruins of a devastated American landscape, struggling to survive and preserve the last remnants of their own humanity