"Julia instructs her little brother and their dog Rexie how to prepare for and perform at the local kennel club dog show, but must improvise when things don't go according to plan"--

The Schmutzys are very messy all week long and Mama seems not to notice, but when Friday comes it is time for everyone to pitch in and clean up for Sabbath.

This book is an exciting journey taking place in the Land of Imagination and Fantasy. It is a fairy tale in which the Muse, the Spirit of Creativity, appears and talks to the childen, taking them along with her on a miraculous and wonderful adventure. There are stories within the story, poetry abounds, and the book is designed so that different children and play act different roles as everyone reads along. This is the third book in Magda Herzberger's Holocaust Trilogy, the first two are: "Survival" and "The Waltz of the Shadows."

When Max the millionaire poet dog and his Parisian poodle friend Crêpes Suzette leave Paris for the lure of glittering Hollywood, can movie stardom be far behind?

The Calder Circus comes roaring into town to razzle dazzle those of all ages.

"Set at the height of Vietnam protests, Jimi Hendrix and LSD, Wet Goddess is a story of strange encounters, awkward misadventures, and ultimately, love. Stoked on cheap pot and reports that dolphins possess near-human intelligence, liberal arts major Zachary Zimmerman couldn’t have been more thrilled about his first pro photography job. The project: shoot a book about the stars of Florida Funland’s struggling dolphin show – while turning a blind eye to the writer’s affair with a trainer. But the writer isn’t the only one at Florida Funland looking for forbidden love. Ruby, a solo performer in the show, slowly edges her way inside Zach’s slightly foggy mind, drawing him deeper and deeper into her wet, wild realm of sensual abandon and unexpected violence. Previously excerpted in Penthouse and the classic Project Jonah anthology Mind in the Waters, this is the only authorized print edition of the long-awaited novel." -- From back of book

" What do a chamber pot, a famous poet, a family feud, and a long-ago suitor all have in common? In this delicious laugh-out-loud new novel of love and loss, rivalry and reconciliation, treasure and trash, by acclaimed author Mameve Medwed (Mail, The End of an Error), we see what happens when past and present collide. . . ." Elizabeth Barrett Browning might have written about the length and breadth of love, but Abby Randolph has given up on all that, preferring to spend her time between her cluttered "needs work" apartment and the overcrowded antiques mart -- the optimistically named Objects of Desire. Yet Abby can't help but wonder what happened to her earlier passionate self who rejected the path set out for her, dropping out of Harvard and falling headfirst into an ill-fated love affair. . . . Then the "Antiques Roadshow" comes to town, and Abby turns up at the crack of dawn, artifact in hand, standing alongside thousands of Boston's hopefuls. But there, among the carousel horses, pipe sets, potbellied stoves, and bedraggled stuffed animals, it is Abby's rather ordinary -- and squalid -- piece of porcelain that gets the star treatment. Abby is barely able to enjoy her good news, for the moment the show airs, life comes back at her at full force. Everything changes: friendship, finances, family, love affairs, career, her view of others, and the way she sees herself. With this, her fourth novel, Medwed once again returns to Cambridge and, in her "sardonic, funny voice" ("Chicago Tribune"), "homes in on the rarified self-important atmosphere of our Ivy League institutions -- and the reflected snobbishness of the people who serve them" ("New York Times Book Review"). This novel is a gift to anyone who goes to a flea market or watches "Antiques Roadshow," anyone who has ever defied expectations, or, especially, anyone who has never been able to extinguish an old flame.

Manny Farber, one of the most important critics in movie history, championed the American action film-the bravado of Howard Hawks, the art brut styling of Samuel Fuller, the crafty, sordid entertainments of Don Siegel-at a time when other critics dismissed the genre. His witty, incisive criticism later worked exacting language into an exploration of the feelings and strategies that went into low-budget and radical films as diverse as Michael Snow's Wavelength, Werner Herzog's Fata Morgana, and Chantal Akerman's Jeanne Dielman. Expanded with an in-depth interview and seven essays written with his wife, artist Patricia Patterson, Negative Space gathers Farber's most influential writings, making this an indispensable collection for all lovers of film". --Publisher.

In 1931 Cameroon, young Kedi is upset to learn that children in her American teacher's village of New York are going hungry because of the Great Depression, and she asks her mother, neighbors, and even the headman for money to help. Includes historical notes.

Best friends Agatha May Walker and Eulalie Scruggs, who live on opposite sides of busy Rushmore Boulevard, inspire their neighbors to come together and make their street a much more pleasant place.

It is commonly asserted that Maimonides' famous Thirteen Principles are the last word in Orthodox Jewish theology. This is a very popular notion, and is often repeated by scholars from all camps in Judaism. Yet such a position ignores the long history of Jewish theology in which Maimonides' Principles have been subject to great dispute. The book begins with a discussion of the significance of the Principles and illustrates how they assumed such a central place in traditional Judaism. Each principle is then considered in turn: the reasons underlying Maimonides' formulations are expounded and the disputes that have arisen concerning them are discussed in detail. Marc B. Shapiro's authoritative analysis makes it quite clear that the notion that Maimonides' Principles are the last word in traditional Jewish theology is a misconception, and that even Maimonides himself was not fully convinced of every aspect of his formulations. Although structured around Maimonides' Principles, this book can also be seen as an encyclopedia of traditional Jewish thought concerning the central issues of Jewish theology. The diversity of opinion in Jewish tradition on such issues as God, Creation, and the Revelation of the Torah is sure to surprise readers.

Marc Chagall (1887-1985) traversed a long route from a boy in the Jewish Pale of Settlement, to a commissar of art in revolutionary Russia, to the position of a world-famous French artist. This book presents for the first time a comprehensive collection of Chagall's public statements on art and culture. The documents and interviews shed light on his rich, versatile, and enigmatic art from within his own mental world. The book raises the problems of a multi-cultural artist with several intersecting identities and the tensions between modernist form and cultural representation in twentieth-century art. It reveals the travails and achievements of his life as a Jew in the twentieth century and his perennial concerns with Jewish identity and destiny, Yiddish literature, and the state of Israel. This collection includes annotations and introductions of the Chagall texts by the renowned scholar Benjamin Harshav that elucidate the texts and convey the changing cultural contexts of Chagall's life. Also featured is the translation by Benjamin and Barbara Harshav of the first book about Chagall's work, the 1918 Russian The Art of Marc Chagall .

An excellent self-titled debut album. Our album-matching folio includes a bio, color and black & white photos and eleven titles like: Ghost Train * Miles Away * Perfect Love * Silver Thunderbird * True Companion * Walk on Water * Walking in Memphis.

In Honored by the Glory of Islam Marc David Baer proposes a novel approach to the historical record of Islamic conversions during the Ottoman age and gathers fresh insights concerning the nature of religious conversion itself. Rather than explaining Ottoman Islamization in terms of the converts' motives, Baer instead concentrates on the proselytizers -- in this case, none other than the sultan himself. Mehmed IV (1648-87) is remembered as an aloof ruler whose ineffectual governing led to the disastrous siege of Vienna. Through an integrated reading of previously unexamined Ottoman archival and literary texts, Baer reexamines Mehmed IV's failings as a ruler by underscoring the sultan's zeal for bringing converts to Islam. As an expression of his dedication to Islam, Mehmed actively sought to establish his reputation as a convert-maker, convincing or compelling Christian and Jewish subjects to be "honored by the glory of Islam" and Muslims subjects to turn to Islamic piety. Revising the conventional portrayal of a ruler so distracted by his passion for hunting that he neglected affairs of state, Baer shows that Mehmed IV saw conversion as central to his role as sultan. He traces an ever-widening range of enforced piety, conversion, and conquest expanding outward from the heart of Mehmed IV's empire. This account is the first to correlate the conversion of people and space in the mature Ottoman Empire, to investigate conversion from the perspective of changing Ottoman ideology, and to depict the sultan as an interventionist convert-maker. The resulting insights promise to rework our understandings of the reign of a forgotten ruler, a largely neglected period in Ottoman history, the changing nature of Islam and its history in Europe, relations between Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Europe, the practice of jihad, and religious architecture in urban history.

"Explores how American Jews leveraged the Black Power movement to strengthen American Jewish religious, ethnic, and cultural life"--Provided by the publisher.

A renowned historian and Resistance fighter --later executed by the Nazis --analyzes at first hand why France fell in 1940. Marc Bloch wrote Strange Defeat during the three months following the fall of France, after he returned home from military service. In the midst of his anguish, he nevertheless "brought to his study of the crisis all the critical faculty and all the penetrating analysis of a first-rate historian" (Christian Science Monitor). Bloch takes a close look at the military failures he witnessed, examining why France was unable to respond to attack quickly and effectively. He gives a personal account of the battle of France, followed by a biting analysis of the generation between the wars. His harsh conclusion is that the immediate cause of the disaster was the utter incompetence of the High Command, but his analysis ranges broadly, appraising all the factors, social as well as military, which since 1870 had undermined French national solidarity.

"In this important and moving true story of reconciliation after war, beautifully illustrated in watercolor, a Japanese pilot bombs the continental U.S. during WWII--the only enemy ever to do so--and comes back 20 years later to apologize."--Provided by publisher.

The image of Hollywood often translates as some otherworldly dreamscape filled with fantastic lives and fantasy fulfillment. The real deal was carved from the Southern California desert as an outpost northwest of Los Angeles. The movie industry arrived when tumbleweeds were not simply props and actual horsepower pulled the loads. Everyday workers, civic management, and Main Street conventionalities nurtured Hollywood's growth, as did a balmy climate that facilitated outdoor photography and shooting schedules for filmmakers. Splendid vintage photographs from the renowned collections of the Hollywood Heritage Museum and Bison Archives illustrate Hollywood's businesses, homes, and residents during the silent-film era and immediately after, as the Great Depression led up to World War II. These images celebrate Hollywood before and after its annexation into the city of Los Angeles in 1910 and its subsequent ascension as the world's greatest filmmaking center.