Artists, cartoonists, comedians, musicians, actors, politicians, the famous and the infamous, these chosen people are just that: People chosen to be rendered by the man BoingBoing calls “The greatest living portrait artist.”

This comical collection of of Jewish comedian portraiture is a sequel to 2006's wildly successful Old Jewish Comedians, which earned Friedman raves from Jerry Lewis, Howard Stern, The Believer,Entertainment Weekly and many more, and earned Friedman his own roast at New York's legendary Friar's Club. This all-new collection includes the famous (Woody Allen, Carl Reiner, Joan Rivers, Mel Brooks, Soupy Sales, etc.), the not-so-famous (Jerry Stiller, Zeppo & Gummo Marx, Larry Storch, Zero Mostel, etc.) and the largely unknown (Molly Picon, Herbie Faye, Jan Milton, etc.). The Reuben Award-winning Friedman, one of the great caricaturists of his age, presents a thorough visual history of the 20th Century's greatest Borscht-Belt comedians.

With Too Soon? Drew Friedman finally (none “too soon,” in fact) gets his due with this fat, beautiful collection that showcases his wide-ranging skills as a portraitist and caricaturist. Subjects (or targets, depending on how you look at it) for Friedman’s pen on the political side include Bill and Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, John McCain, and George W. Bush (with an iconic “W. as Strangelove” image) and his gang. Entertainers include Tiny Tim, Barney Fife, Bob Dylan, Woody Allen, Oprah Winfrey, Barbra Streisand, Jerry Lewis, the Three Stooges, Ellen DeGeneres, and Conan O’Brien. And falling somewhere in the gray area between entertainers and political players (you make the call!) Rush Limbaugh (who blasted Friedman’s George W. Bush image as being of “low artistic quality”), Sarah Palin, and Michael Moore.

From the bestselling author of Cultural Literacy , a passionate and cogent argument for reforming the way we teach our children "Ought to be read by anyone interested in the education and training of the next generation of Americans."--Glenn C. Altschuler, Boston Globe Why, after decades of commissions, reforms, and efforts at innovation, do our schools continue to disappoint us? In this comprehensive and thought-provoking book, educational theorist E. D. Hirsch, Jr. offers a masterful analysis of how American ideas about education have veered off course, what we must do to right them, and most importantly why . He argues that the core problem with American education is that educational theorists, especially in the early grades, have for the past sixty years rejected academic content in favor of "child-centered" and "how-to" learning theories that are at odds with how children really learn. The result is failing schools and widening inequality, as only children from content-rich (usually better-off) homes can take advantage of the schools' educational methods. Hirsch unabashedly confronts the education establishment, arguing that a content-based curriculum is essential to addressing social and economic inequality. A nationwide, specific, grade-by-grade curriculum established in the early school grades can help fulfill one of America's oldest and most compelling dreams: to give all children, regardless of language, religion, or origins, the opportunity to participate as equals and become competent citizens. Hirsch not only reminds us of these inspiring ideals, he offers an ambitious and specific plan for achieving them.

A son is set the task of concealing his father's death; a drowned child is callously handled by rescuers; a lonely schoolteacher is shot by a hunter; a boy witnesses his mother's act of infidelity; a car explosion kills a foreign schoolgirl; and the middle-aged author of these tales depicts his own consciousness. In a perceptive work about a writer of stories, acclaimed author E.L. Doctorow opens to the reader the creative imagination of a writer.

Eleanor of Aquitaine, wife to two kings, mother to two others, has been waiting in Heaven a long time -- eight centuries, more or less -- to be reunited with her second husband, Henry II of England. Finally, the day has come when Henry will be judged for admission. While Eleanor, never a patient woman in life or afterlife, waits, three people, each of whom was close to Eleanor during a time of her life, join her. Their reminiscences do far more than help distract Eleanor -- they also paint a rich portrait of an extraordinary woman who was front and center in a remarkable period in history and whose accomplishments have had an important influence on society through the ages.

Eleanor of Aquitaine has every reason to be upset. For centuries she's been patiently waiting for her husband, King Henry II, to meet her in Heaven. Luckily, she's sharing a cloud with some old friends who knew her when she and Henry ruled supreme. As long as they're together, they might as well gossip about old times--and soon all of Eleanor's adventures in the Middle Ages spring to life again. Finally, just when they're about to give up on Henry, Eleanor spots three men floating toward them. After all this time, could one of them be Henry?

Spending the summer in Florida with her stepfather's sister who operates a "meals-on-wheels" van, twelve-year-old Chloë and her aunt become involved in a controversy surrounding the wearing of T-back bathing suits.

Andy's not your average resident of exclusive Foxmeadow -- whenever he sits down to draw something, it turns out to be a dragon. And he wants to be a detective when he grows up -- not just an ordinary, everyday police detective, but a tough, cool, famous detective like the ones he reads about in mystery novels. Everyone knows a famous detective needs a sidekick, but Mrs. Edie Yakots, a lonely new bride who's just moved into Foxmeadow, isn't exactly what Andy had in mind -- he sometimes has a hard time just figuring out what's she's talking about. But she's the only volunteer for the job, and before he knows it, she's led him right into the middle of his first real crime -- in an inner-city neighborhood a short drive, and light years away, from Foxmeadow.

Five short stories in which young people gain a sense of self.

The sudden and almost bloodless demise of the Soviet Union - and with it, communism - caught everyone by surprise, from the KGB and the Red Army to Gorbachev, Yeltsin, and the dissidents at home and in the satellite states. In the first full-scale account of this mysterious transformation, historian and journalist David Pryce-Jones is able to provide answers to the crucial questions: Why did Gorbachev not shoot his way out of the crisis in classic Soviet style, as former leaders had done in Hungary and Czechoslovakia? How did an unlikely alliance of nationalist actors, idealistic poets, and political priests unseat the ruling despots of Warsaw, Bucharest, East Berlin, and Prague? What role did the West really play in all this? And what do these remarkable events presage for Russia's future? The result is a vivid account of the Soviet empire's fall, as experienced from the inside - and at the top. Uncompromising in its accuracy and keen in its insight, The Strange Death of the Soviet Empire is the definitive account of one of history's greatest anticlimaxes.

Having run away with her younger brother to live in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, twelve-year-old Claudia strives to keep things in order in their new home and to become a changed person and a heroine to herself.

A giant in the history of American entertainment, Eddie Cantor (1892-1964) won over the American public time and time again, first on stage, bowling audiences over in the Ziegfeld Follies, then in films, on the radio, and on television. His career ran from Vaudeville to video making all stops in between. A tireless person even when not on the stage, Cantor helped found the March of Dimes, and was the first national president of the Screen Actor's Guild (SAG), the American Federation of Radio Artists (later AFTRA), and the Jewish Theatrical Guild. Yet another medium in which Cantor succeeded was print. He authored and co-authored several books that upheld his standing as one of America's leading comedians. My Life Is In Your Hands & Take My Life combines for the first time in a single volume two memoirs written in 1928 and 1957, in which Eddie remembers his beginnings as an orphan on the Lower East Side and his hard-won climb from poverty to the bright lights of Broadway. The book also contains a lost chapter in which Eddie recalls his reactions to the stock market crash of 1929, along with a new complete index, discography, and filmography. In My Life Is In Your Hands & Take My Life, Cantor's humor is as sharp as ever and his sentiment is 100% genuine. While not at all modest about his decades of public adoration, Cantor shows a willingness to laugh at his blunders (such as his second film, "Special Delivery"), and to praise the many talented people with whom he collaborated. Along with telling the story of show business in the first half of the 20th century, Cantor also lets readers in on fond stories of his friends, from Jimmy Durante (who worked as a pianist in the Coney Island restaurant where Cantor was a singing waiter), to Ziegfeld alumni Will Rogers and W. C. Fields, to fellow entertainers Clara Bow and Fanny Brice.

When Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha married his cousin, the young Queen Victoria, in 1840, it was not only a match whose fertility and personal devotion provided a model for the queen's subjects, it was also a triumph of dynastic politics. It drew the couple deeply into European politics, where their personal and family relationships with many of the rulers often had repercussions at home. Despite the death of Albert in 1861, the marriage of Victoria's children into Europe's royal houses continued the dynastic theme. It was a tragedy for Germany and Europe that Vicky, Victoria's eldest daughter, and her husband, the heir to the German throne were unable to master Bismarck. Albert and Victoria is a portrait of a marriage. It also traces Albert to his unhappy family roots in Coburg and shows how important his attitudes, most of them shared by Victoria, were in their joint dynastic enterprise. >

Traces the author's involvement with the Seagram Company, and his experiences and reflections as he learned the running of the business from the ground up.

"this volume, "written by a beginner for beginners" bears the imprint of the extraordinary intellectual and spiritual journey of its author, one of the most remarkable women of the twentieth century. born in Breslau into a practicing Jewish family in 1891, Edith Stein abandoned her faith as a teenager and later became a key figure among the early disciples of Edmund Husserl, the founder of phenomenology. ........." [from back cover]

"Edith Stein's (1891-1942) pivotal philosophical study of being. Includes two appendixes: "Martin Heidegger's Philosophy of Existence" and "The Interior Castle""--

"this is an inspiring collection of Edith stein's shorter spiritual writings, many available for the first time in English translation. They were composed during her final years, often at the request of her Carmelite superiors. ..." [from back cover]