Commemorating the sixtieth anniversary of the founding of the American Jewish Archives and the tenth anniversary of Gary P. Zola as its Director, New Essays in American Jewish History includes twenty-two new articles representing the best in modern American and Jewish scholarship. More than a celebration, New Essays serves as a scholarly benchmark in the growing field of American Jewish studies.

"Telling Larry Charles's life story is telling the story of modern American comedy. Over the last 40 years, few comedians have been a part of so many iconic, beloved projects. Larry was one of the original writers and producers on the first five seasons of Seinfeld, directed over 20 episodes each of Curb Your Enthusiasm and Entourage, and served as the showrunner for Mad About You. His film directing credits include Borat, Bruno, and The Dictator, Bill Maher's Religulous, and Bob Dylan's Masked and Anonymous. In Comedy Samurai, Charles pulls back the curtain on the making of his successful projects, offering often sharp, never-before-told anecdotes about Jerry Seinfeld, Sacha Baron Cohen, Bill Maher, Nic Cage, Mel Brooks, Julia Louis-Dreyfuss, and Larry David, among many others. Perfect for fans of Seinfeldia and lovers of comedy in general, Larry promises to offer new insights into and about many of the most beloved shows, films, and actors of all time"--

Vanity Fair's Oscar parties have become a legend of their own over the last decade. A summit of the greatest Hollywood stars, they are the ultimate melting pot of beauty, fame, glamour, and wealth. For ten years American photographer Larry Fink, famous for a keen, uniquely sensual documentary eye, has been the official interpretive Vanity Fair photographer of these events. His view of superstars and their entourages is in sharp contrast to everything we know and expect of official Hollywood. His look is clear and honestly searing; his flash light is married to the instant in devilishly expressive ways. His photographs capture the atmosphere of these meetings reminiscent of evenings at a royal court. With his sensual and intuitive eye, Larry Fink shows the celebrities of the glamorous movie world anxiously at leisure.

The writer who developed the acclaimed series "M*A*S*H," among other hits, looks back on his long career from radio onward in the company of Mel Brooks, Jack Paar, and Neil Simon

The public usually learns when a celebrity is stricken with a life-threatening illness. But what we don't get to share are the intimate details of their private anguish and personal treatment. In TAKING ON HEART DISEASE, more than a dozen celebrities from the arts, sports, politics, and journalism team up with The Larry King Cardiac Foundation and Spotlight Health to speak candidly and movingly about the battles they have waged with heart disease. In the process, they arm us with the knowledge we need to fight--and eventually win--the war against the nation's #1 killer. Walter Kronkite, Regis Philbin, Joyce Carol Oates, Kate Jackson, Mike Wallace, Peggy Fleming, and Brian Littrell are some of the famous, successful men and women who have agreed to speak so openly in TAKING ON HEART DISEASE. Their private doctors, among the top cardiologists in the nation, explain the important medical implications of each case, providing the most up-to-date scientific information on preventing, treating, and living with a variety of heart ailments. In TAKING ON HEART DISEASE, you will discover: ? An honest discussion of the emotional impact of deadling with heart disease, including the anxiety and depression many heart patients experience after treatment ? A primer on the main risk factors for heart disease--and what you can do to lower your risk ? A surprising look at the spiritual implications of surviving a life-threatening cardiac event

Larry Kramer has been described by Susan Sontag as "one of America's most valuable troublemakers." As Frank Rich writes in his Foreword to this new collection of writings for the screen and stage, "his plays are almost journalistic in their observation of the fine-grained documentary details of life ... that may well prove timeless." The title work, the Oscar-nominated screenplay for Women in Love, is a movie "as sensuous as anything you've probably ever seen on film" (The New York Times). The screenplay is accompanied by Kramer's reflections on the history of the production, sure to be of interest to any student of film. This volume also includes several early plays, Sissies' Scrapbook, A Minor Dark Age, and the political farce Just Say No, illuminating the development of one of our most important literary figures. "Since his screenplay for Women in Love, Kramer has been a prophet of psychic health and catastrophe among us." -- from The American Academy of Arts and Letters citation

The idea for this book came to Larry Tye as he traveled overseas as a reporter for the Boston Globe. In each city he visited he was intrigued by a reawakening of practice and spirit of the long repressed Jewish community. And the more communities he saw close-up, the clearer it became to him that the Jewish world was being reshaped and revitalized in ways that were not reflected in what he was reading about the disappearing diaspora and the vanishing Jews of America. The result is Home Lands, an narrative that tells the story of the new Jewish diaspora. Tye picked seven Jewish communities from Boston to Buenos Aires and Dusseldorf to Dnepropetrovsk deep in the Ukraine, and in each he zeroes in on a single family or congregation whose tale reflects the wider community's history and current situation. He met each community's leaders, talked with their scores of young people and old, and went with them to High Holiday services and Sabbath celebrations. The first impression that emerges from his travels is each city's uniqueness. Far more striking than the differences, however, is the unity. Jews all over the world still have enough customs and rituals in common for outsiders to see them as part of the same people, and for them to define themselves that way. It is that new comfort level, that sense of finally feel comfortable in the lands where they are living, that is at the heart of this engrossing book. Readers' eyes will be opened to how Germany, just a generation after the genocide, has the world's fastest-growing Jewish population; how the Jews of Buenos Aires have carved a place for themselves in a land that also gave refuge to Nazi henchmen like Adolph Eichman, and how Ireland is home to a tight-knit Jewish community that, remarkably, has produced Jewish Lord Mayors in Belfast, Cork and, twice from the same family, in Dublin. In Boston, Tye tells the story of his own family, whose roots run deep in the city's Jewish community. Home Lands is a book that is deeply personal even as it sheds light on the larger Jewish experience.

Did you hear about the Polack?Of course you did, and so did millions of others. Poles included. But now it has all been done; after this book there are just no more Polish jokes! This is the ultimate collection of the best, newest, silliest, funniest, most inane, ridiculous, irreverent, and hilarious Polish humor ever. Which should make everybody happy, especially the Poles.

1991, mass market original paperback edition, Bantam, NY. 187 pages. Larry Wilde is a master at creating original titles with jokes that will amuse readers and make them laugh out loud.

The child of a Jewish father and a lapsed Southern Baptist mother, Lauren F. Winner chose to become an Orthodox Jew. But even as she was observing Sabbath rituals and studying Jewish law, Lauren was increasingly drawn to Christianity. Courageously leaving what she loved, she eventually converted. In Girl Meets God , this appealing woman takes us through a year in her Christian life as she attempts to reconcile both sides of her religious identity. Here readers will find a new literary voice: a spiritual seeker who is both an unconventional thinker and a devoted Christian. The twists and turns of Winner’s journey make her the perfect guide to exploring true faith in today’s complicated world. Praise for Girl Meets God: “A passionate and thoroughly engaging account of a continuing spiritual journey within two profoundly different faiths.” – The New York Times Book Review “A charming, humorous, and sometimes abrasive recollection of a religious coming-of-age . . . a compelling journey from Judaism to Christianity.” – The Atlanta Journal-Constitution “A book to savor . . . Winner is an all-too-human believer, and the rest of us can see our own struggles, theological and otherwise, in hers.” – Fort Worth Star-Telegram “[A] memoir, literary and spiritual, sharing Anne Lamott’s self-depreciating intensity and Stephen J. Dubner’s passion for authenticity . . . Winner’s record of her own experiences so far is a page-turning debut by a young writer worth watching.” – Publishers Weekly (starred review) “[The] narrative’s real strength . . . is its addictive readability combined with the author’s deep knowledge of, delight in, and nuanced discussion of both Christian and Jewish teachings. . . . Intriguing, absorbing, puzzling, surprisingly sexy, and very smart.” – Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Is there life on Mars? If not, why not? These questions have gripped mankind throughout the twentieth century. In the shadow of the new millennium, The Genesis Question seeks the definitive answers from the scientists participating in the race to discover life on the Red Planet. 'Ever since I was a small child, I've believed there was life out there. When I look at the magnitude of the universe, with its billions of stars, I believe that if life developed here on Earth, it must have developed elsewhere. We simply can't be unique. I really don't think we're the most intelligent life forms in the universe, but that's just my gut feeling', Dr Claire Parkinson, NASA scientist. Of all the planets, Mars has exerted the most powerful allure over the human intellect and imagination. Generations of astronomers have expected to find clues to the origin and destiny of Earth and its inhabitants concealed amid the red storms sweeping across the surface of Mars. Today, public interest in the Mars mission is sky-high; the exploits of the tiny Mars Rover 'Sojourner' in the summer of 1997 excited the greatest curiosity in a space mission in a generation. In The Quest for Mars Laurence Bergreen has unrestricted access to a team of NASA employees - engineers, geologists and other scientists - who are consumed by the search for proof of life on Mars. As one formidable obstacle after another attempts to scupper their quest for a deeper understanding of life on Mars and throughout the Solar System, the narrative takes us step by step through the exhilaration and the despondency of their extraordinary adventure. Nothing is off limits in this unique, behind-the-scenes story of space exploration.

Explains the relation between literature and society during Victorian era. This book discusses various fundamental aspects of Victorian society: the economic and social framework, government and institutions, the sense of the past, painting and illustration, religion and the role of women.

Discusses why global warming happens, the ways in which it impacts our planet, and how we can work together to stop it. Suggested level: secondary.

In the wake of the elegant master theories of Joseph Campbell, Mircea Eliade, Georges Dumezil, and Claude Levi-Strauss, how are mythology and the comparative study of religion to be understood? In Myth and Method, a leading team of scholars assesses the current state of the study of myth and explores the possibilities for charting a methodological middle course between the comparative and the contextual issues raised in the last ten years. In confronting these tension, they provide an outline of the most troubling questions in the field and offer a variety of responses to them.

A seminal book by one of the first artists of the Pictures generation to use set-up photography to create images with intensely psychological subtexts. it features the first comprehensive survey of Simmons' early black-and-white photographs, the importance of which Carol Squiers describes in her essay: "What Simmons did with domestic subjects was unique ... Her use and manipulation of miniaturized dolls, objects, and interiors gave the photographs the abstracted quality of a dream, which was markedly different from the cool... images of other artists. By using objects that so clearly evoked childhood, she was also more directly referencing personal memory." This previously unpublished early work put Laurie Simmons on the forefront of a new generation of artists, predominantly women, whose use of the media as subject began a new dialogue on contemporary art. In Simmons' own words, "Re-examining the pictures, I became aware of a potential narrative and structure that hadn't been obvious to me during the years that I was shooting. I actually began to see a house with many rooms, as well as indoor and outdoor space. I also began to think about a female presence, both real and implied, and to formally locate a space that didn't exist in my mind originally when I was exploring the territory with my camera. The project that you see here took shape when hundreds of long-forgotten images were revisited with the notion of creating a home within In and Around the House." -- back cover inset.

Deep in the heart of history's most infamous concentration camp, a man lies dreaming. His name is Shomer, and before the war he was a pulp fiction author. Now, to escape the brutal reality of life in Auschwitz, Shomer spends his nights imagining another world - a world where a disgraced former dictator now known only as Wolf ekes out a miserable existence as a low-rent PI in London's grimiest streets. An extraordinary story of revenge and redemption, A Man Lies Dreaming is the unforgettable testament to the power of imagination

Anthologies of previously published science fiction, fantasy, and horror stories from authors outside the United States and United Kingdom.

"Throughout the twentieth century, 'free enterprise' has been a contested keyword in American politics, and the cornerstone of a conservative philosophy that seeks to limit government involvement into economic matters. Lawrence B. Glickman shows how the idea first gained traction in American discourse and was championed by opponents of the New Deal. Those politicians, believing free enterprise to be a fundamental American value, held it up as an antidote to a liberalism that they maintained would lead toward totalitarian statism. Tracing the use of the concept of free enterprise, Glickman shows how it has both constrained and transformed political dialogue. He presents a fascinating look into the complex history, and marketing, of an idea that forms the linchpin of the contemporary opposition to government regulation, taxation, and programs such as Medicare."--Publisher's web-site

Not all racial incidents are racist incidents, Lawrence Blum says. "We need a more varied and nuanced moral vocabulary for talking about the arena of race. We should not be faced with a choice of 'racism' or nothing." Use of the word "racism" is pervasive: An article about the NAACP's criticism of television networks for casting too few "minority" actors in lead roles asks, "Is television a racist institution?" A white girl in Virginia says it is racist for her African-American teacher to wear African attire. Blum argues that a growing tendency to castigate as "racism" everything that goes wrong in the racial domain reduces the term's power to evoke moral outrage. In "I'm Not a Racist, But . . .", Blum develops a historically grounded account of racism as the deeply morally-charged notion it has become. He addresses the question whether people of color can be racist, defines types of racism, and identifies debased and inappropriate usages of the term. Though racial insensitivity, racial anxiety, racial ignorance and racial injustice are, in his view, not "racism," they are racial ills that should elicit moral concern. Blum argues that "race" itself, even when not serving distinct racial malfeasance, is a morally destructive idea, implying moral distance and unequal worth. History and genetic science reveal both the avoidability and the falsity of the idea of race. Blum argues that we can give up the idea of race, but must recognize that racial groups' historical and social experience has been shaped by having been treated as if they were races.

New Directions is proud to announce a riveting and galvanizing new book by Lawrence Ferlinghetti. At ninety-three, he shows more power than most any other poet at work today. Ferlinghetti describes his new book, Time of Useful Consciousness, as "a fragmented recording of the American stream-of-consciousness, always westward streaming; a people's poetic history in the tradition of William Carlos Williams' Paterson, Charles Olson's Maximus, Allen Ginsberg's Fall of America, and Ed Sanders' America: a History in Verse. 'Time of Useful Consciousness, is an aeronautical term denoting the time between when one loses oxygen and when one passes out, the brief time in which some life-saving action is possible."Ferlinghetti's first book since Poetry as Insurgent Art, the fierce and immediate Time of Useful Consciousness presents poetry written "in ways that those who see poetry as the province of the few and educated had never imagined" (The New York Times Book Review).