The stories collected here span the years 1988 to 2002, during which time LeslA(c)a Newman wrote six volumes of short stories: "A Letter to Harvey Milk, Secrets, Every Woman's Dream, Out of the Closet and Nothing to Wear, Girls Will Be Girls "and "She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not." In Newman's prize-winning story "A Letter to Harvey Milk," Harry Weinberg, a 77-year-old Holocaust survivor, takes a writing class in which he unearths memories that force both him and his writing teacher, a Jewish lesbian, to see their lives differently. "Right Off the Bat" is a monologue by a 12-year old girl whose lesbian mothers have been gay-bashed. "Eggs McMenopause" tells the story of how a sleep-deprived butch finds a unique solution to the trials and tribulations of menopause. In "The Babka Sisters," a women's studies student interviews a nursing home resident and hears a tale the woman has never told anyone: the story of the girl she fell in love with in high school. And in "Mothers of Invention," a couple tests their relationship when one woman decides she wants to have a baby and the other woman does not. Newman's stories covers a dazzling array of themes pertaining to contem-porary lesbian life, including long-term relationships, one-night stands, family-of-origin angst, motherhood, friendships with gay men, AIDS, breast cancer, aging, loss and bisexuality. Many of these stories explore Jewish identity as well. Each story in this collection is told with Newman's trademark wit, honesty, talent and compassion. LeslA(c)a Newman's literary awards include fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the -Massachusetts Artists Foundation. Six of her books have been Lambda Literary Award finalists. A native New Yorker, she currently lives in western Massachusetts.

For Jewish grandmothers everywhere, with love and respect for their courage and dignity, their humor, their tsouris and their noches, their bitterness, and most of all, for their stubborn insistence on survival.

In this heartfelt, passionate and inspiring account, Kirk Douglas describes in powerful detail the incident that changed his life. He explains the fear he felt following his stroke, and the depression that took him to the brink of suicide. But a mixture of love, support and sheer determination pulled him through. Encouraged by the stories of Christoper Reeve and Stephen Hawking, Kirk, one of the great screen actors, had to learn how to speak all over again. When he recovered to receive an Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement, it made all the hard work worthwhile.

"As a child in 1950s Brooklyn, Kenneth Turan often turned to television programs like "Million Dollar Movie" on WOR-TV. Featuring a much-loved theme song from Gone with the Wind, "Million Dollar Movie" would run one feature film twice a day, every day, all week. It was there that he developed a life-long love of the world of the movies. One of the most discerning critics writing today, Kenneth Turan offers insights that are sure to delight and inspire movie-lovers of all kinds in his latest book, Unforgettable. As sophisticated and illuminating as the films they discuss, Turan's sketches are a blend of cultural analysis, historical anecdote and sordid Hollywood controversy, astute critical appraisals, all suffused with his abiding love for the silver screen. Turan's favorite films range across all genres, low and high. From All About Eve to Seven Samurai to Spirited Away, these are now timeless films--classic and contemporary, familiar and obscure, with big budgets and small--each as interesting as the lives of the authors and actors that made the usually two-or-so-hour-long cinematic experience itself"--

"Scarified sensibility, subversive intellect, and predatory wit make her a writer like no other I know." -New York Times Book Review The Childlike Life of the Black Tarantula , Kathy Acker's debut and the first in this three-novel collection, began as an episodic handmade pamphlet that Acker mailed out to influential writers and artists whose addresses she managed to get her hands on. In the novel, Acker steps into the biography of a Mississippi murderess who falls in love with a famous lawyer, and mixes in fragments from porn, historical romance, pulp fictions, and The Story of O . Collect with her second novel, the dreamy exploration of desire I Dreamt I was a Nymphomaniac , and her third, The Adult Life of Toulouse Lautrec , Portrait of an Eye is dive into the frenzy of sexual wanting, the search for identity, and the invention of a new literary language. Now with an introduction by Kate Zambreno contextualizing the resurrection of these three early Acker novels, this new edition of Portrait of an Eye reminds us of all there is still to learn from Kathy Acker, a writer and artist whose work "remains radical and uncanny, entirely inimitable, a smash and grab on the history of literature" ( Guardian ).

Kids don't have to wait until they grow up to make the world a better place! This Kathie Lee Gifford book empowers children to find unique ways to make a difference in the lives of those around them. The Gift That I Can Give is a heartwarming story that shows how all children can do something today to make a positive impact on others. From simply being kind to giving a loved one an extra-big hug to cheering for a friend, this story will inspire children with countless ways to show God's love. They'll want to read it again and again. The Gift That I Can Give: highlights big gifts and points them back to God, like the ability to sing, play sports, and dance. encourages quieter gifts as well, like encouragement, empathy, gratitude, kindness, and sharing God's love. is a great bedtime story, grandparent story, or encouraging story to a child who is struggling. Kathie Lee is a trusted voice who feels like a friend for countless people. With her strong faith, enthusiasm, and playful writing, she appeals to young hearts and encourages them with the message that no one is too young or too small to share their gift with others. Additional praise for The Gift That I Can Give: "The pictures are adorable, and the message is so important: teaching kids to be generous with their hearts. I can't wait to read this to my little ones!" --Savannah Guthrie, co-anchor of the Today show and NBC News Chief Legal Correspondent "Kathie Lee has given us all a gift with the beautiful message in this book: to love and embrace your unique self. It's an important lesson for children and a refreshing reminder for the rest of us." --Siri Daly, author and Today food contributor

Retired hitman Sidney Holden just wants to live quietly with his true love, Fay. But Fay is kidnapped, and the only person who can help find her is a shady millionaire who wants Holden to steal back his lost fortune. Their agreement puts Holden on a nightmarish trail of twisted love and bitter betrayal.

"Between the Records has the gritty realness of Meet Me in the Bathroom mixed with the literary family dynamics of The Corrections Brothers, fathers, and rock 'n' roll are at the heart of Between the Records, Julian Tepper's third novel, a moody and heady work of autofiction surrounding the relationship between Jules and Adam, two brothers who are also bandmates. Jules and Adam's quixotic yet fraught relationship has allowed them to make the art they love as they follow in their father's musician footsteps. Their band is signed to a label, they tour constantly, and their drummer, Abe is always late. As Jules navigates the period of time after their first album is released but before their second is made, the brothers begin to realize brotherhood and art are not enough. Jules, the younger, struggles to feel heard while Adam vies for the dominance he's accustomed to as the oldest brother. From the forest in Woodstock where they hole up trying to finish writing songs, to the tour van they're sick of, and finally to the streets of New York City where their final battle takes place, the brothers wrestle with their demons- musical and familial"--

Jesse has two best friends. He's in love with both of them. Jesse Dienstag's favorite sweatshirt says, "The real world isn't real." That's the slogan of the vacation-home community in Pennsylvania where his family has always spent every vacation and weekend for as long as he can remember. In the summer of 2019, as Jesse is about to enter his junior year of high school in New York City, he desperately wants to believe the slogan is true. For one thing, the two girls he loves -- equally and desperately -- are in Pennsylvania, and all the stresses and pressures of his daily life and school are in New York. But when his parents stop talking to each other, it gets harder and harder for Jesse to maintain his dream life in Pennsylvania. And when Covid shuts New York City down in March 2020, just days after Jesse’s mother leaves his father, Jesse's worlds collide.

Tap into the wisdom of one of the world's ancient religions by meditating on Rabbi Wittenberg's engaging, contemporary, spiritual, social and ethical insights. Relevant to Jews, Christian and spiritual seekers of all faiths and none, this book is rooted in decades of devoted immersion in Jewish learning, humanist literature, concern for people at all ages and stages of life, environmental activism and a love of nature. Over the hundred and more passages, key issues considered includes: Compassion and kindness; Creation and wonder; Emotional struggle; Environment and our relationship to nature; Ethical challenges; Illness and suffering; Identity and community; Justice and Social Justice; Refugess and strangers; Remorse and repentance; Responsibility; Searching for meaning; Seeking God.

Tap into the wisdom of one of the world's ancient religions by meditating on Rabbi Wittenberg's engaging, contemporary, spiritual, social and ethical insights. Relevant to Jews, Christian and spiritual seekers of all faiths and none, this book is rooted in decades of devoted immersion in Jewish learning, humanist literature, concern for people at all ages and stages of life, environmental activism and a love of nature. Over the hundred and more passages, key issues considered includes: Compassion and kindness; Creation and wonder; Emotional struggle; Environment and our relationship to nature; Ethical challenges; Illness and suffering; Identity and community; Justice and Social Justice; Refugess and strangers; Remorse and repentance; Responsibility; Searching for meaning; Seeking God.

Deborah Green is a woman of passionate contradictions--a rabbi who craves goodness and surety while wrestling with her own desires and with the sorrow and pain she sees around her. Her life changes when she visits the hospital room of Henry Friedman, an older man who has attempted suicide. His parents were murdered in the Holocaust when he was a child, and all his life he's struggled with difficult questions: Can happiness really come after such loss, or does the very wish profane the dead? Can religious promises ever bring peace? Deborah's encounter with Henry and his family draws her into a world of tragedy, frailty, love, and, finally, hope. The New Yorker called Rosen's first novel "An impressive debut--a highly original addition to the distinguished line of Jewish-American romances." He has fulfilled the promise of his first fiction in this contemporary story of classic scope, whose characters hunger for love, grapple with faith and doubt, and seek to bind themselves to something sacred in the midst of modern chaos.

From the streets of modern Israel to the barrooms of Brooklyn to a suburban New England synagogue, the characters in these 10 stories search for love and acceptance in a world scarred by loss and loneliness. In "The Madonna of Temple Beth Elohim," an Iraq war veteran sees a vision of the Virgin Mary on the eve of the Jewish high holidays. In "My Darling Sweetheart Baby," a working-class drunk waits on his stoop for his disability check and the courage to proclaim his love to a local prostitute. And in the title story "There Is No Other," a rage-filled Jewish boy, tormented by his African lineage, arrives at a school Purim party dressed as the prophet Mohammed. Magical, erotic, spiritually penetrating and terrifyingly realistic, these provocative tales continue the storytelling tradition of Bernard Malamud, Philip Roth, and Nathan Englander.

Titles are: Dance with Me * Everybody's Girl * First You Dream * The Last Girl * Love Bird * Rita's Theme * Second Chance * Somebody Older * Steel Pier * Wet * Willing to Ride.

"Comic verse," writes editor John Gross, "is verse that is designed to amuse--and perhaps that is as far as any attempt at a definition ought to go." In The Oxford Book of Comic Verse, Gross has combed the annals of literature in English from the middle ages to the present, gathering poems that provoke laughter, smiles, and even reflections on the human condition--but always poems that amuse. From limericks to social satire, The Oxford Book of Comic Verse offers a remarkable collection of outstanding light poetry. Gross has brought together the finest writers in the history of the English language--from Chaucer and Skelton to Shakespeare and Swift, Lord Byron to Robert Browning, Emily Dickinson to John Updike--offering delightful examples of their comic verse. Many of these lines dance with whimsy, such as John Skelton's Colin Clout ("For though my rhyme be ragged,/ Tattered and jagged,/ Rudely rain-beaten,/ Rusty and moth-eaten,/ If ye take well therewith,/ It hath in it some pith"); others float heavier thoughts on light rhymes--as in Matthew Prior's succinct Human Life ("What trifling coil do we poor mortals keep;/ Wake, eat, and drink, evacuate and sleep."). The range of writers who have composed comic verse is astonishing, as is the delight of the poems themselves. Here we read T.S. Eliot mocking himself ("How unpleasant to meet Mr. Eliot!/ With his features of clerical cut"); poet and Soviet historian Robert Conquest, mingling his two professions in a limerick ("There was a great Marxist called Lenin/ Who did two or three million men in/ --That's a lot to have done in/ --But where he did one in/ That grand Marxist Stalin did ten in"); and Wendy Cope commenting on her disillusionment with poets ("I used to think all poets were Byronic./ They're mostly wicked as ginless tonic/ And wild as pension plans"). And along the way, we are treated to witty song lyrics as well, from First World War soldiers' tunes, to Irving Berlin, to Cole Porter, to Lorenz Hart ("When love congeals/It soon reveals/ the faint aroma of performing seals/The double-crossing of a pair of heels/I wish I were in love again!"). Whether it comes from anonymous popular culture or the icons of the literary canon, comic verse has been a source of pleasure and diversion through the ages--a combination of wit, verbal artistry, and even serious contemplation. This collection, compiled by one of our finest critics and anthologists, brings this tradition into the hands of today's readers, offering hours of delight.

A hysterical new novel from the author of What's Wrong with Dorfman? Once a gangly teenager in oversized clothes, Plato G. Fussell is now handsome and independently wealthy. But inside he's still a bundle of neuroses and anxieties, with a tendency to engage in moronic word games in the presence of beautiful women. In the midst of working on his definitive ten-volume biography of Millard Fillmore, Plato finds himself dodging his vile ex-wife, trying to please his demanding elderly mother by inquiring weekly about the state of her bowels, and attempting to remain verbally coherent while courting a young woman whom he meets after her errant Frisbee connects with his cranium. As Plato blunders on in search of true love, romance, and an acceptable degree of worldwide cleanliness, he discovers that loving someone and knowing them needn't go hand-in-hand.

Novelist, draughtsman, film-maker, essayist and critic - John Berger is one of the major European intellectuals of our time. For sixty years he has been challenging the way we see the world and how we think about it, in books like Ways of Seeing, Permanent Red, To the Wedding, A Painter of Our Time, Pig Earth, Once in Europa, Lilac and Flag and G. But although Berger has always written poetry, often smuggling poems inside books like The Seventh Man and The White Bird, this is the first time his poetry has been collected in English. Collected Poems reflects Berger's longstanding concerns with art and politics, love and war, history and memory, emigration, immigration and the life of the European peasantry. It includes well-known poems like 'The Ladle', 'Village Maternity' and 'Death of La Nan M.' as well over twenty previously unpublished poems. From 'My Coney' (written in 1952 when Berger was just twenty-six) to 'They Are the Last' written in 2008, Berger the poet demonstrates an enduring commitment to the extraordinary lives of ordinary people. These are perfectly framed still-life images, sensual and plain, delicate sketches of hard lives caught between the provisional quality of language and the permanence of things. John Berger's Collected Poems reveals its author to be a major poet of our time.

"This groundbreaking collection brings together 28 stunning stories by literary talents never before assembled in a single volume. With contributions from both established and bright new voices in lesbian fiction, 'Women on Women' ranges from the subtlety and restraint of Willa Cather's 'Tommy, the Unsentimental' to Sapphire's daring and highly erotic 'Eat' and Valerie Miner's suspenseful 'Trespassing.' Some of the stories are universal in theme - the joy and excitement of new romance, the ageless problems of family life, and the pain of lost love and of death. And many are written by or about members of racial, ethnic, and other minorities within the gay community. These are stories that offer stirring, eloquent, often passionate insights into the lesbian experience in a long-overdue collection that represents the best of lesbian short fiction from past to present"--Amazon.com.

If you had 24 hours to live..Should you finally forgive the one who hurt you the most, and would you find the courage to apologize to the person you wronged? Who is your life's greatest love? What are you truly grateful for? Jim Moret didn't fully understand the answers to those questions until he was literally a day away from ending his own life. This verteran television broadcaster takes the readers on an intimate journey. He moves beyond depression, tragedy and self-doubt and grapples with his greatest decision: If you had 24 hours left..what would you do?

"Jerry Saltz, current senior art critic for "New York Magazine" and former senior art editor at "The Village Voice" for almost ten years, as well as a two-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Criticism, popular teacher, and coast-to-coast lecturer surveys the good, the bad, and the very bad in contemporary art. Saltz doesn't only address art objects in these essays, he considers the art world as an ever-mutating organism. He signals out mismanaged museums, out-of-control auction houses, misguided artists, the gossip pages of Artforum, and the tent-city casinos known as Art Fairs. Saltz has an unsparing eye, a deep love of the art world, respect for artists, self-deprecating humor, sweet skepticism, and one of the easiest writing styles of any critic working today. Tracking the most recent all-out orgy of art and money, Saltz considers what this did to art and asks, now that the money is gone, how might art and the art world put their house in order? Don't miss the twists and turns as he sorts out the answers. If books had credos, the one affixed to "Seeing Out Louder" would be: Art First. All Else Follows." --Book Jacket.