First published in 1933, this novel tells the story of a Jewish family living in New York City in the early 20th century. The book explores themes of identity, assimilation and the immigrant experience. Written in a humorous and irreverent style, the novel was controversial at the time of its release for its frank portrayal of sexuality and its use of slang and non-standard English. Today, it is recognized as an important work of Jewish-American literature. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

The Road to Miltown: Or Under the Spreading Atrophy is a humorous and satirical novel written by Sidney Joseph Perelman. The book follows the misadventures of a young man named Alexander Hero, who sets out on a journey to the fictional town of Miltown in search of a cure for his father's mysterious illness. Along the way, Alexander encounters a cast of eccentric characters, including a mad scientist, a group of militant vegetarians, and a band of traveling actors. The book is filled with witty wordplay, absurd situations, and biting social commentary. Through Alexander's experiences, Perelman explores themes of conformity, consumerism, and the dehumanizing effects of modern society. The novel is set in the early 20th century and reflects the cultural and political climate of the time. Overall, The Road to Miltown is a clever and entertaining work of satire that offers a unique perspective on the human condition.This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the old original and may contain some imperfections such as library marks and notations. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions, that are true to their original work.

Art Does (Not!) Exist is lively, inventive, and artfully wicked. In the world according to video artist Julia Maraini , life is in need of tracking control. Personas warp and twist in a perverse parody of modern life that is, nonetheless, exactly the thing itself. As the protagonist prepares a video for an important grant application, she discovers that the video has been tampered with, and a snuff film of her controversial star (a wealthy Brazilian) added. Does she turn it in? Does she receive an NEA grant? How much hipper can hip be than Art Does (Not!) Exist? Art Does (Not!) Exist is about Julia Maraini, an artist in her early twenties involved in video and other new genres, who is down on her luck: her mad scientist husband is gone but threatens to return; and her apartment on the lower east side close to Soho, burns down under suspicious circumstances. Through it all she works at completing her art projects hoping to receive an NEA grant for one of them, or at least an invitation to be included in the prestigious Whitney Biennial. One of her projects is an interview with two skeletons purported to be Nag and Nell, the parents of Hamm, a character in Samuel Beckett's Endgame. Her competitors are: a Brazilian steel magnate who writes her sexy letters and appears by two mysterious characters; a famous British feminist who is in the States to promote her first novel; and a pair of near-sighted detectives disguised in Hawiian shirts. At one point her estranged husband, his mother and step-father appear on the Geraldo Show where all hell breaks loose. This is a book about the way an artist thinks, it examines what's at stake in today's art world - and dares to ask the question, what is art anyway? A question that has been pondered ever since someone handed a loaded paintbrush to a chimp and aimed her at a canvas. Written with tongue in one cheek and tofu in the other, Art Does (Not!) Exist is both funny and nourishing.

Robert Nathan's "Jonah" is a compelling work of literary fiction that reimagines one of the Old Testament's most profound narratives. This acclaimed novel delves into the story of the biblical prophet Jonah, exploring the challenges and spiritual journey of a man called to deliver a divine message. Through Nathan's evocative prose, readers are drawn into a deeply reflective exploration of religious themes. The book centers on Jonah, the reluctant prophet, as he grapples with the weight of prophecy, the nature of obedience, and the concept of divine mercy. It offers a nuanced portrayal of a timeless figure confronting his faith, destiny, and the world around him. As a significant piece of biblical fiction, "Jonah" stands as a literary novel that resonates with enduring questions about human will and spiritual calling. It is a masterful example of Christian historical fiction that transcends its setting to ponder universal dilemmas. This edition presents a classic narrative, inviting reflection on a foundational story and its lasting impact on literature and thought. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

An avant-garde novel combines fable, comedy, and metaphysical questioning in an odyssey through the mind

Racing from England to Washington, Paris and finally Moscow, this new novel by the authors of The Dossier crackles with action and authenticity as it leads the reader to a breathless, edge-of-the-chair finale.

Péter Nádas is one of the most renowned contemporary Hungarian authors. A Lovely Tale of Photography displays his essentially experimental orientation. It is a hallucinatory novella about a female photographer who is suffering from an undetermined illness. Confined to a sanatorium, where she is surrounded by a cast of stock characters speaking various languages, she is made to confront a reality other than that framed by her camera. The novel takes the form of short scenes, as if a film sequence, and this structure lends the text a fairy-tale, poetic quality similar to many surrealist works. Nominated for the 2001 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award

"A way to live" is a black comedy about revenge when there's nothing more to lose. "Where there's a Will" is a film about a struggling country jazz band that receives a helping hand from long dead musicians. "The third player" tells the tale of an Australian country football team which discovers a novel way to improve their performance.

In Light of My Eye, Paula Jacques, born in Egypt, recreates the vanished world of cosmopolitan Cairo with remembered affection and amusing dialogue. Her novel depicts the turbulent waning days of its once thriving Jewish community, during the strange and ominous time between the collapse of the Egyptian monarchy and Nasser's rise to power. At its center are the pre-adolescent Mona Castro and her family, whose lives and destinies the author evokes in a series of scenes that veer between poignancy and wit. Mona's coming of age is marked by her youthful rebellion against her domineering mother, Becky; the illness of the beloved family patriarch, Joucky; and her half-innocent dalliance with an older man, a refugee from eastern Europe. The surrounding ensemble of relatives, whose family gatherings attempt to cope with a history that will overwhelm them, shifts the focus from Mona' s tale to a chronicle of a proud, doomed family.

Poetry. Infused with an eerily adept understanding of Latin American history and culture dating from the 15th century to modern times, their collective duende, REFLECTIONS IN A SMOKING MIRROR will come to stand as a monumental work and as a companion piece to the epic Gabriel García Márquez novel One Hundred Years of Solitude. This collection of poems takes on the true power of myth--Wayne Atherton. REFLECTIONS IN A SMOKING MIRROR tells the story of the fall of an ancient, vibrant civilization to Spain's conquistadors under Cortez. Pines's language is intelligent and refreshing, his ideas provocative, his images striking, and his narrative--however tragic--dramatically thrilling. This book is a smoking mirror--Maurice Kenny.

'This book seems to be about us. Within a day or two of starting it I devised a title: VAC... The subtle idea was to fuse the suggestion of holiday or vacation with that of vacuum...' Paul Ableman's third novel, first published in 1968, is - through the voice of its narrator Billy Soodernim, libidinous and regretful by turns - a meditation on love and carnality, monogamy and promiscuity, childbirth, separation and indeed the whole of the fraught relations between the sexes: 'male and female, citizens with distinct personalities, flesh inwraught in flesh.' 'Paul Ableman's novels were praised for their inventive language, bawdy high spirits, and originality of form by Anthony Burgess, Philip Toynbee, Robert Nye and other friends of the avant-garde. They are witty, original, and full of good humour, and I am delighted Faber Finds are reissuing them.' Margaret Drabble

Fiction. California Interest. Short Stories. With settings that range from the Cuban Missile Crisis and Soviet-era Perestroika to present-day San Francisco, LIKE WATER AND OTHER STORIES, the first English-language collection from Leningrad-born author Olga Zilberbourg, looks at family and childrearing in ways both unsettling and tender, and characters who grapple with complicated legacies--of state, parentage, displacement, and identity. LIKE WATER is a unique portrayal of motherhood, of immigration and adaptation, and an inside account of life in the Soviet Union and its dissolution. Zilberbourg's stories investigate how motherhood reshapes the sense of self--and in ways that are often bewildering--against an uncharted landscape of American culture. In "Dandelion," a child turns into a novel and is shipped off to an agent in New York. In "Doctor Sveta," a young Soviet woman finds herself on a ship bound for Cuba at the onset of the Cuban Missile Crisis. In "Companionship," a young boy decides to return to his mother's uterus. Anthony Marra calls LIKE WATER "A book of succinct abundance, dazzling in its particulars, expansive in its scope," and of these stories, Karen E. Bender says, they "cast a clear, illuminating light on topics ranging from motherhood, the workplace, birth, death, ambition, and immigration, all explored through exquisitely wrought characters in Russia and the United States. Olga Zilberbourg is a writer to read right now."

Mois Benarroch is the winner of the Jacquline Kahanoff literary prize 2021. "Mois Benarroch is the most important Mediterranean Sephardi writer in Israel." Prof. Habiba Pdaya, Haaretz. 2020. Follow the Benzimra family all over the world returning to the Moroccan city of Tetouan. Gates to tangier When the father of the Benzimra family dies, he leaves a will informing his family of an illegitimate son he fathered with a Muslim woman in Morocco. To receive the inheritance, the family is instructed do everything possible to find that son. They embark on a journey to Tetouan, Morocco, from places as far-flung as Jerusalem, Madrid, New York and Paris. They are in search of their lost brother; a journey that will bring them face-to-face with their Moroccan roots and with their Judaism, a journey that will force them to think about their identities. After this experience they will no longer be the same. The novel reveals the Sephardi-Ashkenazi conflicts that exist in Israeli society as well as the ties and tensions between the Arab world and Europe, and between Middle Eastern and Western cultures. This is a world of complexities and nuances that are often blurred in the versions shown to you by the media.This is a novel about the little-known world of the Jews of Northern Morocco, full of intrigue, humor, and eroticism. But there is also the possibility of a homecoming. Ways To Lucena In one of his major works, Lucena, Benarroch goes from time travel to social comment, which brings to mind the hilarious novels of Kurt Vonnegut Jr. An old odd ancient man is reaching the age of 1,000 years and has to pass his legacy to his great great great grandson, and prepares him for a journey that will last a thousand years. His first days begin in the Jewish city of Lucena at the beginning of the second millennium and ends in Israel and in Spain. He meets his descendant in a hotel in Malaga, while the young adolescent is trying to find his place in life and family, writing science-fiction short stories and fighting with his parents. This novel will take you back and forth from the future and back to the past, into a world of Sephardi Jewry, the inquisition, Mexican Jews, and back to our present day crazy modernity. Lucena is an internal exploration of the why of exile. Keys to Tetouan Keys to Tetouan is the novel of the Benzimra family and its infinite branches expanded all over the world. They are born in the city of Tetouan, Morocco and emigrate to Madrid, New York, Paris, Jerusalem, and wherever the wind takes them. But they keep longing for the city and keep returning in search of a bride or of an answer.

Review "For sheer scope and clarity there's nothing like Favorite Songs, the poems range from a fantasy for the American Surfer to an elegy for an extinct sparrow. In these poems there's a fine interlinking of autobiographical perceptions with accurate imagery and, at the same time, the author is engaged sending his rhizomes into the broad world of thought and travel." -- Michael McClure"Michael Rothenberg has one of those genius takes on language. A lot of this is the relish with which he lays out lines of poems like a master chef might produce an intricate, fine meal. But there's a restraint too, that of the practical botanist (he's that-- I have no idea how or if he cooks), so that: the poems are exciting and physical but also slow. Michael has wit and wordlove, enough to move mountains, chip by chip. (They're not too slow-- the mountain's there before you know it.) -- Jack Collom Product Description "From the Heart is where Michael tests his sincerity, indeed where else? This thoughtful, heartful, plant lover and naturalist expresses himself with `no pretense to divine', just women and a hundred thousand sea birds in the pages of this poetry, `finding time to consult the better part' of himself." Joanne Kyger About the Author Michael Rothenberg lives in Pacifica, CA. He is a poet, songwriter and publisher of Big Bridge Press and Big Bridge, a webzine of poetry and everything else. His poems have appeared in Berkeley Poetry Review, Exquisite Corpse, Jacket, Sycamore Review, Zyzzyva and many other publications. Most recently he is editor of Overtime, Selected Poems by Philip Whalen. His book of poems "The Paris Journals" will be published (Fish Drum Press) in the year 2000. His novel Punk Rockwell (Tropical Press) will be on the shelves in March 2000.

One may contend that "Replenishing Jessica" is neither a novel nor an essay, but one cannot deny it is prose. After all, a poet wrote it and he put into is such a phrase as, "He wrapped his dreams in a sigh," which is good even if it does not belong in this novel..." So wrote a critic contemporary of Maxwell Bodenheim in December 1925. Shortly afterwards, the novel was yanked from bookshelves and repressed for reasons of obscenity. It would be almost four years later that Replenishing Jessica would finally be cleared of its charges by a New York judge and available for sale. A new edition was published by Boni & Liveright and sold in excess of 10,000 copies mere days after its revival. Success had landed on Bodenheim's doorstep, but would only last a short while before he was once again at the cusp of personal and financial failure. Replenishing Jessica fell out of print in the early 1950s and has since been forgotten in the annals of Depression-era American literature. Though Bodenheim wrote the novel with its suggestive title in order to turn a quick buck, he managed to also instill into the book a magical realism accurately capturing the sights and sound of Jazz Age New York. Now reprinted for the first time in over 70 years, Bodenheim scholar, Paul Maher Jr., has researched and edited a new edition of Replenishing Jessica for the 21st-century complete with an extensive introduction tracing the history of the book and a biography of Bodenheim between 1925 to 1928.

New edition of the controversial 1933 novel by Maxwell Bodenheim, the "King of the Greenwich Village Bohemians." From the 1933 first edition: Here's Maxwell Bodenheim's biggest book about fast, modern life in New York-the novel for which Georgie May, Replenishing Jessica and Ninth Avenue were only a preparation. It's the story of two bright, vivacious New York girls, game and scrappy kids full of youth's zest for life, and willing to go anywhere, try anything to satisfy their fierce craving for excitement. Their quest leads them to New York's toughest spots, the East Side, the Far West of gangland and the waterfront dives, the Spanish Section, Union Square with its fearless and desperate radicals, and the racketeer hells on the Broadway side streets. Their adventures and their men make a story of enthralling power; and their discovery of the only way to get clear of New York Madness brings it to a climax of terrific punch. Bodenheim has never written a more glamorous, sweeping story, reflecting sophisticate New York's own racy lingo.

A contemporary of Lorca and Buñuel in Spain’s Second Republic, Max Aub escaped into a life of exile after General Franco seized Barcelona. His masterpiece, acknowledged in Spain as one of the best accounts of the Spanish Civil War, is the five-novel cycle known as The Magic Labyrinth —never before translated into English. A playwright as well as a novelist, he brings the period alive through vibrant dialogue and a story that navigates the factional intrigues that eventually erupted onto the streets in violence. The protagonist of the first novel is Rafael López Serrador, whose coming of age in Barcelona introduces a cast from all walks of city life—Catalan nationalists, anarchists, Falangists, government ministers and showgirls. Just as central a character is Barcelona itself, lovingly depicted. Rafael’s adventures bring him into contact with the forces that were to destroy the Republic and determine the bloody course of the Spanish Civil War. Masterfully translated by Gerald Martin, author of Gabriel García Márquez: A Life , Max Aub’s novel is set to introduce to an English-speaking audience a classic of Spanish and Latin American literature—an account of the Spanish Civil War to compare with Ernest Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls .

"This is a subtle, complex book. . . . A new generation of Argentinean writers are showing that they are worthy successors of Borges, Sabato and Bioy Casares."-- Le Devoir New York, 1923: the Argentine boxer Luis Angel Firpo knocks out of the ring Jack Dempsey, heavyweight champion of the world. Dempsey is out of the ring for seventeen seconds, but is allowed by the US referee to get back in. In the second round, Dempsey knocks Firpo out. Seconds Out is a powerful reflection on memory and national identity. Martin Kohan lives in Buenos Aires. Seconds Out is his first novel translated into English.

In the 9th century BC, King Ittobaal of Tyre is building a vast maritime empire. His daughter Jezebel believes the gods intend for her to rule after him. Tamar, daughter of a poor fisherman, longs to be a scribe. Elijah, an Israelite farm boy, swears bitter ven¬geance against the king who caused his father¿s death. Driven by their passions ¿ sexual, political, and religious ¿ they tangle and fly apart, again and again. Shelley¿s astonishingly well-researched novel takes you deep into their world, a world as real as your own. This is what was, and what might have been.

A Victorian mystery with a haunting twist! Perfect for fans of Sherlock Holmes, Agatha Christie and Antonia Hodgson... A scandalous rumour is sweeping through Brighton. But is everything really as it seems...? Brighton, 1871 Forty-one years after his death, King George IV is said to be haunting the Royal Pavilion . The story of the ghostly encounter has been published anonymously, and it is sweeping through the town. Mina Scarletti , an author herself, immediately suspects the story to be false. And when she inspects the Pavilion, she is certain her suspicions are correct . But as she prepares to expose the false claims, her past begins to catch up with her. Blackmailed and threatened by those with an ulterior motive, Mina finds herself caught in a trap . Can Mina prove that the Royal Ghost is a fake? Will she escape from the threat hanging over her? Or will she find herself in grave danger...? THE ROYAL GHOST is the second cosy mystery in Linda Stratmann's intriguing historical series, the Mina Scarletti investigations, a traditional British detective series with a feisty woman sleuth set in Victorian Brighton. 'I found this tale totally different from the usual Victorian melodramas , as it was firmly based on fact and the beliefs of the time. The pace is good , the characters believable and the style of writing suits the time in which it is set without going over the top. I enjoyed it very much .' - Historical Novel Society 'This beautifully written mystery tale could be glibly summed up as Jane Austen meets a female Perry Mason. The historical background is evocative and brings middle class Victorian Brighton, with all its gullibility, gossip, backbiting, social climbing and pretensions, to life, often with a wry sense of humour . Mina is a more than believable protagonist, pragmatic and resourceful and while realising her limitations, determined not to let her disability stop her doing things she wants to. The supporting characters are also well-rounded and contribute effectively to the whole.' - John Cleal, Crime Review ' The Royal Ghost benefits from a nicely evoked setting in Victorian Brighton, and casts entertaining light on an era when ghosts and psychic phenomena were all the rage.' - Martin Edwards 'If you enjoy the Frances Doughty mysteries then you'll find this book right down your street.' - Crime Fiction Lover THE MINA SCARLETTI MYSTERY SERIES: BOOK ONE: Mr Scarletti's Ghost BOOK TWO: The Royal Ghost BOOK THREE: An Unquiet Ghost BOOK FOUR: The Ghost of Hollow House BOOK FIVE: His Father's Ghost BOOK SIX: The Cyanide Ghost