Beloved author Louis Begley returns to the monied halls of the Upper East Side with a sharp new comedy of manners. Divorced after decades of comfortable marriage, retired journalist Hugo Gardner sets out to explore paths not travelled. After four decades of what he believes to be a happy, healthy partnership, Hugo Gardner's world is overturned when he learns that his wife, Valerie, is not only requesting a divorce but has left him for a younger, more vital man. Hugo, an octogenarian political writer and retired journalist for Time , must rethink the way he's lived, and reassess how he'd like to spend his remaining years. Reconsidering past relationships in his mind, with years of distance, Hugo begins to see things in a new light: Valerie, whose youth and ambition eventually came between them; his children, whose support might be more financially than emotionally motivated; and his friends, who, like him are rapidly aging before his very eyes. With an ominous oncologist's report hanging over his head, Hugo decides to get away for a bit, to a conference in Paris. There, a new romance blooms and Hugo finds himself wondering if growing old in Paris might be the perfect antidote to the drama he left behind in New York. Unflinching, witty, and urbane as ever, Louis Begley delivers a spot-on satire of the world of New York's aging elite, and uncovers the unexpected delights a late-in-life change can offer.

Literary, lyrical, and cuttingly satiric, Mother India is a brilliantly original novel about Jews who go to India to find transformation and eternal release from the sufferings of life. Narrated in luminous prose by Meena, a Jewish American lesbian who has claimed India as her home, the novel is vividly populated by the darkly comic universe of three generations of women along with other family members, as well as by the Indians whose world they seek to penetrate. There is Meena’s religiously observant mother, Ma, whose desire to remove herself from the wheel of life plays out in a Faulknerian funeral procession and cremation on the banks of the holy river Ganges; Meena’s daughter, Maya, a misunderstood child coming of age in an emotionally treacherous household; her ex-wife, Geeta, a privileged and hedonistic Indian woman who enters their world with devastating consequences; Meena's twin brother, Shmelke, a charismatic rabbi turned guru and international fugitive; and the Indian servant, Manika, whose loyalty to the family both sustains and shackles them. Identifying with the humanity of its characters, the reader is drawn into a vast, tragicomic, and fascinating epic, Homeric in scope, drama, discovery, and surprise. Universal yet intimate, brutal yet tender, satiric yet sympathetic, Mother India evokes reactions—intellectual, emotional, visceral—that are complex, even contradictory, containing the might and bite that our current cultural hubris and self-involvement deserve. In Mother India, Reich offers us her most poignant and astonishing novel to date.

""A uniquely nuanced and engaging perspective on the oddness of Hollywood...Superhero goes inside baseball in all the best ways: unbiased, at times ridiculous, and wonderfully, uncomfortably accurate. It begs to be read because it is so damned good." -Amanda Seyfried A-list actor Peter Compton and producing partner Marci Levy exist in the rarefied air of Hollywood's elite. Their status as a married power couple is unmatched, their presence in any room transformative and god-like. But as their private jet lands in Atlanta to begin production on a tentpole superhero movie, even their privileged position will come under threat by the massive pressures of such an undertaking. Compton, a self-educated recovering addict, sees the role of Sparta comics superhero Major Machina as the opportunity to transcend his already stratospheric platform. As director Joel Slavkin, Oscar-winning DP Javier Benavidez, and a crew of hundreds arrive in Atlanta to begin shooting, it doesn't take long for the production to be embroiled in the tension and egos that drive the film. But when video of Peter's disastrous on-set behavior goes viral, Peter and Marci's partnership will be challenged as it never has before. As the stakes grow ever higher, it may just take a superhero to save them. With his signature wit and razor sharp dialog, Tim Blake Nelson invites the reader to walk alongside him as he enters the closely-guarded world of industrial strength cinema"--

"A blistering, brilliant novel from the Booker-shortlisted author, elegantly reflecting his Geoffrey Faber Memorial award-winning story collection The Quantity Theory of Insanity. In The Quantity Theory of Morality, Will Self 's unconventional new novel, his pen remains dipped in vitriol and elegance as ever. In this dark yet hilariously satirical "state-of-an-era novel," Self 's target is a collective morality that is nothing more or less than pure sociability. His middle-class, middle-English characters appear trapped in a timeless go-round of polite chitchat in dinner parties that refract like a hall of mirrors as the novel progresses, until one day someone says something to the effect of, "This way to the gas chamber, please, ladies and gentlemen." The Quantity Theory of Morality finally solves the equation of time and money that dominates our lives, in a way that is simultaneously deranging, destabilizing, and hilarious. With recurring-if defeated-appearances from now-canonical characters like Zack Busner, the repetition of each chapter, or "Proposition," shows Will Self to be both a master of satire and slapstick humor and a sublime and thoughtful critic of the alienation of modern life. With The Quantity Theory of Morality, Self provides the sequel to his award-winning debut of thirty-four years ago: The Quantity Theory of Insanity. That literary psycho-surgery proved there wasn't enough sanity to go around-now he's established what many of us fear to be the absolute truth: there isn't enough good to go around, either"-- Provided by publisher.

"In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed."- First Corinthians 15:52 "Three alarming, eclectic novellas imagine a ravaged America left behind by the totalitarian reign of Donald Trump in this chilling anthology, which picks up after Trump's death in 2024 during 'the second great COVID outbreak' "-Publishers Weekly From New York Times bestselling author, Harry Turtledove, critically-acclaimed novelist, James Morrow, and Nebula Award winner, Cat Rambo, comes a masterful anthology of three sensational novellas depicting a dark fictional future of the United States. And the Last Trump Shall Sound is a prophetic warning about where we, as a nation, may be headed. Mike Pence is President of the United States after years of divisive, dogmatic control by Donald Trump. The country is in turmoil as the Republicans have strengthened their stronghold on Congress, increasing their dominance. And with the support of the Supreme Court, more conservative than ever, State governments become more marginalized by the authoritarian rule of the Federal government. There are those who cannot abide by what they view as a betrayal of the nation's founding principles. Once united communities break down and the unthinkable suddenly becomes the only possible solution: the end of the Union. The authors' depiction of a country that is both unfamiliar and yet unnervingly all too realistic, make you realize the frightening possible consequences of our increased polarization-a dire warning to all of us of where we may be headed unless we can learn to come together again.

"An ex-Soviet professor plays amateur detective in this post Cold War romp by New York Times bestselling spy master Robert Littell. Lemuel Falk, a theoretical "chaoticist," has been denied permission to leave Russia for the last twenty-three years, likely because he knows a few state secrets. Even he is surprised-and wary-when his twenty-fourth request is approved, and he is offered a position as visiting professor at the Institute for Advanced Interdisciplinary Chaos-Related Studies in upstate New York. But as soon as Professor Falk arrives in America, he is plunged into a new kind of chaos-including a high-stakes academic catfight, an affair with a much-younger hairdresser, and cascading offers from domestic spies looking to capitalize on his knowledge-and soon finds himself playing amateur detective at the behest of local police. While he helps hunt for a dangerous serial killer, he grapples with ghosts from his own past in Russia. In this wholly original novel, Littell explores chaos theory, questions of faith, ad the ironies of contemporary America"-- Provided by publisher.

In Israel, militant settlers establish a secessionist kingdom on the West Bank. They are led by Jerry Goldberg, a onetime Bronx social worker who becomes king. When the Israeli army moves in, the militants gather in the necropolis under Hebron to stage a second Masada. A tragicomedy by the author of Mara.

Award-winning novelist, journalist, and playwright Rick Salutin takes us into the world of his protagonist, Max -- economist, leftist, and reluctant but incorrigible womanizer. Max’s amorous adventures begin at the age of eight when the young Casanova finds himself running from the scene of his first crime, a surreptitious kiss on the couch with the neighbour’s daughter. For the next few decades women become participants in Max’s awkward and often hilarious journey to self-discovery -- some willing, some reluctant, some unwitting. We follow Max from the 50s to the 90s, through shifting sexual codes and practices, from Toronto to London and Paris, and, most importantly, from one woman to another. He is doomed to repeat this history until he learns from it. Resonant with authority, experience, and self-deprecating insight, The Womanizer explores the riddles of growing up and the discovery that we understand ourselves only through others and that our most intimate moments are clues to our true selves.

The Great American Novel (1923) is an experimental novel by William Carlos Williams. Although he is predominately known as a poet, Williams frequently pushed the limits of prose style throughout his career. In the defining decade of Modernism, Williams sought to try his hand at the so-called "Great American Novel," a concept fueling impassioned debate in academic and artistic circles nationwide. Far from conventional, Williams' novel is a metafictional foray into matters more postmodern than modern, a commentary masquerading as narrative and a satire of the all-American overreliance on cliché in form and content. "If there is progress then there is a novel. Without progress there is nothing. Everything exists from the beginning. I existed in the beginning. I was a slobbering infant. Today I saw nameless grasses--I tapped the earth with my knuckle. It sounded hollow. It was dry as rubber. Eons of drought. No rain for fifteen days. No rain. It has never rained. It will never rain." Williams' novel begins with the word and a birth. Language describes the experience of awakening to experience, of coming into consciousness as a living being in a living world. Using words from everyday speech, he builds a novel out of observations, a book that remains conscious of itself throughout. Like the child whose first experience with the written word often comes from names and slogans stretched over trucks and billboards, the reader eventually comes to accept their new reality, a world where people love and succeed and fail, where history and art intercede to make meaning where they can. The Great American Novel showcases Williams' experimental form, stretching the meaning of "novel" to its outermost limit. This edition of William Carlos Williams' The Great American Novel is a classic of American literature reimagined for modern readers. Since our inception in 2020, Mint Editions has kept sustainability and innovation at the forefront of our mission. Each and every Mint Edition title gets a fresh, professionally typeset manuscript and a dazzling new cover, all while maintaining the integrity of the original book. With thousands of titles in our collection, we aim to spotlight diverse public domain works to help them find modern audiences. Mint Editions celebrates a breadth of literary works, curated from both canonical and overlooked classics from writers around the globe.

The dawning of the nineteenth century found the Jews of Eastern Europe torn between the forces of progress and reaction as they took their first tentative steps toward the modern world. In a war of words and of books, Haskaia-the Jewish Enlightenment-did battle with the religious revival movement known as Hasidism. Perl, an ardent advocate of Enlightenment, unleashed the opening salvo with the publication in 1819 of Revealer of Secrets . The novel tried to pass itself off as a hasidic holy book when it was, in fact, a broadside against Hasidism-a parody of its teachings and of the language of its holy books. The outraged hasidim responded by buying up and burning as many copies as they could. Dov Taylor's careful translation and commentary make this classic of Hebrew literature available and accessible to the contemporary English-speaking reader while preserving the integrity and bite of Perl's original. With Hasidism presently enjoying a remarkable rebirth, the issues in Revealer of Secrets are all the more relevant to those seeking to balance reason and faith. As the first Hebrew novel, the work will also be of great interest to students of modern Hebrew literature and modern Jewish history.

Bruce Jay Friedman is the reigning don of the ironic comic novel, a man of whom The New York Times has written, "His writing is so funny -- and deceptively effortless -- critics often liken it to a stand-up comedy routine." Now he triumphantly returns to the form with Violencia!, a crackling satire of show-business pomposity, flimflam, and dreck in the spirit of Mel Brooks's The Producers. Paul Gurney is a struggling civilian clerk working the desk at a major New York homicide precinct who runs a department newsletter, The Homicider, that covers the goings-on at the precinct, dispenses advice, and disseminates interoffice gossip. But Gurney is newly divorced and dissatisfied, and abruptly decides to retire from the force, not knowing exactly what he'll do next. When he meets a shady Broadway impresario who wants to create a stage musical from his newsletter, he soon finds himself plunging headlong into the world of actors, agents, singers, songwriters, hacks, hams, and con artists. As the show Violencia! moves from rounds of financing from suspect sources to questionable casting calls to a disastrous out-of-town opening (at each stage getting progressively -- and hilariously -- worse and worse), Gurney enjoys the high living, romantic flings, and glamour of the entertainment industry. But he also comes to realize that show people aren't that different from other people he already knows: the thugs, lowlifes, and cutthroats he's encountered during his career on the homicide squad. Packed with unforgettably reprehensible characters, unimaginably turgid lyrics, and unimpeachably funny dialogue, Bruce Jay Friedman's Violencia! is a sidesplitting farce about the dark underbelly of the Great White Way.

"The ageing civil servant Eduard Saxberger has banished all hope of literary renown. His one collection of youthful verse never led to the glittering career he hoped for, and he has resigned himself to the fact that he'll live out his life as, after all, just an ordinary man. Until, that is, a young admirer seeks him out and declares his deepest admiration for his early poems. He invites Saxberger to join him and his circle of fellow writers, who regularly meet at one of Vienna's grand coffee houses: Saxberger is their model, their literary hero. Embarrassed at first, the old man eventually gives in, flattered and fascinated by the self-styled 'Enthusiasts' (not to be confused, of course, with the 'Talentless', who sit at the other tables in the café). Will Saxberger find the inspiration he needs to write a new masterpiece? Will he be able to help the Enthusiasts to attain the public recognition for which they hunger? Will he, indeed, find late love as well as late fame? Ah, but everything is not as it seems... by Arthur Schnitzler (b. 1862 in Vienna), who qualified as a doctor but was increasingly driven to a career in writing, resulting in several celebrated plays, novellas and novels which explore the great existential subjects of the modern age: relationships, love, sex, ageing and death. Because his work dealt with subjects considered taboo, he frequently attracted the hostility of the authorities, consequently losing his position as Chief Medic in the Reserve Army and being tried for disorderly conduct. Schnitzler was close friends with Stefan Zweig and Sigmund Freud, who both admired him greatly, and a member of the 'Young Vienna' circle of writers who regularly met at a café nicknamed 'Café Megalomania' - the very same clique and café he satirises so deliciously in Late Fame. Schnitzler died in 1931."-- Publisher's website.

Humankind is in danger. The Year of the Fruitcake tells of the Earth-based life of a mostly-mindwiped alien anthropologist inhabiting a human perimenopausal body instead of her own more rational body with its capacity to change gender. This alien has definitely shaken a great intergalactic empire by sitting in cafés with her new best friends. Chocolate may or may not have played a part. Will humanity survive? Polack describes her novel as, "Bleak. It's political. It's angry. It's also sarcastic, cynical and funny."

At an end-of-season London soirée a young Hungarian scholar, Dr János Bátky, is introduced to the Earl of Gwynedd, a reclusive eccentric who is the subject of strange rumours. Invited to the family seat, Pendragon Castle in North Wales, Bátky receives a mysterious phone call warning him not to go. Once there, nothing is quite as it seems... Antal Szerb's first novel is a gently satirical blend of gothic and romantic genres, crossed with a murder mystery to produce a fast-moving and often hilarious romp. But beneath the surface, Szerb's steely intelligence poses disturbingly modern questions about the nature of self and reality. "An absolute treat... Szerb is a master novelist, a comedian whose powers transcend time and language" Nicholas Lezard, Guardian Pushkin Collection editions feature a spare, elegant series style and superior, durable components. The Collection is typeset in Monotype Baskerville, litho-printed on Munken Premium White Paper and notch-bound by the independently owned printer TJ International in Padstow. The covers, with French flaps, are printed on Colorplan Pristine White Paper. Both paper and cover board are acid-free and Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified.

"One Hundred Philistine Foreskins centers on the life of Temima Ba'alatOv, known also as Ima Temima, or Mother Temima, a charismatic woman rabbi of extraordinary spiritual power and learning, and an utterly original interpreter of the Hebrew Bible. Temima is revered as a guru with prophetic, even messianic powers-- one who dares to raise her woman's 'naked' voice even in the face of extreme hostility by the traditional establishment. Moving between two worlds-- Temima as a child in Brooklyn and Temima as an adult in Jerusalem-- the story reveals the forces that shaped her, including the early loss of her mother; her spiritual and intellectual awakening; her complex relationship with her father, a ritual slaughterer; her forced marriage; her 'ascent' to Israel; and her intense romantic involvements with charismatic men who launch her toward her destiny as a renowned woman leader in Israel"--

Like most people, Vic Mullan, habitual drug-user, professional layabout, and amoralist extraordinaire, can remember where he was and what he was doing on the day of Princess Diana's death. Yes, he can remember it particularly well: he was at home, beginning an affair with Emma, his best friend's wife.The opening sections of David Baddiel's second novel chart the history of an intense and passionately sexual liaison set against the background of the most hysterical - in both senses of the word - time in recent memory. But as the months wear on, and life and love return to normal, so things become more complex between Vic and Emma. And then, tragedy - a real, local, small-scale tragedy, as opposed to a national, iconic, mythological one - intervenes. Part-satire, part-love story, part-whodunnit, and part-meditation on the nature of sex and death, Whatever Love Means is truly a tale for our times

2014 COMPTON CROOK AWARD FINALIST. The Brogardi appeared out of nowhere, and -- telegraphing their peaceful intentions -- they landed in the middle of nowhere: New York State's Catskills Mountains resorts. It was an alien invasion, of the most peaceful, friendly kind. But there had to be something sinister behind it all, right? Movie executive Jake Berman lives fiction for a living, promoting movies to the masses. He's happy, and only moderately harried. But his peaceful existence is thrown into overdrive when one of the aliens sets his sights beyond the decaying resorts of the east -- when he decides it's time to invade Hollywood Daniel M. Kimmel is a film critic and professor of film. His book on the history of FOX TV, The Fourth Network received the Cable Center Book Award. His other books include a history of DreamWorks, The Dream Team , and I'll Have What She's Having: Behind the Scenes of the Great Romantic Comedies . His collection of essays, Jar Jar Binks Must Die... and other Observations about Science Fiction Movies , was a 2012 nominee for the Hugo Award for Best Related Work. He is a past president of the Boston Society of Film Critics, and current co-chair of the Boston Online Film Critics Association. This is his first novel. " Kimmel's first novel is] a true joy... let's hope there are more to come." --Don Sakers, Analog Science Fiction and Fact "This is the book we've been waiting for from Dan Kimmel -- funny, knowing, fast paced, full of humor, and told with a big heart. An absolute joy." ---Robert J. Sawyer, Hugo Award-winning author of Red Planet Blues "Dan Kimmel's first novel is a funny and delightful tour de force that will appeal to movie fans as well as science-fiction readers." --Michael A. Burstein, John W. Campbell Award-winning author of I Remember the Future "Exceptionally funny... pretty damned spectacular... this is the funniest book of the year and one of the best debut SF novels in ages " --Chris Garcia, The Drink Tank

Jack Stack is an editor with the full-blown tabloid virus. He says 'bollocks' a lot and his headline signature is a 'double ejaculation mark'. He revels in Fleet Street's non-stop silly season of hunting down young royals and petrifying cabinet members. He even outsmarts the Palace, Prime Minister and proprietor to win a knighthood for 'services to journalism' at the hand of the sovereign whose family he has comprehensively shafted. Jack takes over the beleaguered Mercury and within a day transforms the formerly respectable newspaper into the most tabloid of all tabloids. His cut-the-crap management style has the old guard trembling in its boots, but has he met his match in the domineering Marina Marshall - the chairman's mistress and the most canny columnist in Fleet Street? Perfect for an era obsessed with celebrity and spin, The Silly Season is a beautifully crafted, laugh-out-loud, satirical novel. Written by an insider who has seen it all, Bernard Shrimsley has drawn on his vast experiences. Bernard Shrimsley has been Editor of the Sun, News of the World and Mail on Sunday. He also edited the Daily Mirror in Manchester and the Daily Post in Liverpool, and helped edit both the Daily Express and Sunday Express. This is his third novel.

The Flutter of an Eyelid, originally published in 1933, is a vicious, and often quite funny, satire of Southern California's bohemian community in the 1920s by Jewish-American novelist Myron Brinig (1896-1991). Illustrated by Lynd Ward (1905-1985). Some of the novel's characters are loosely based on prominent residents of the Los Angeles neighborhood of Echo Park, an early center of film-making on the West Coast. These include the rare book dealer Jake Zeitlin (1902-1987), whose shop became a gathering place for local writers and artists, and who introduced Brinig to his circle of friends; and the charismatic evangelist and media celebrity Aimee Semple McPherson (1890-1944). Zeitlin, who was caricatured as a self-loathing Jewish antique dealer in the novel, considered the book an "insulting betrayal" and, after seeing an early set of galleys, threatened to sue. He succeeded in having some of its more offensive anti-Semitic passages removed prior to its publication. Jewish himself, Brinig was no anti-Semite; he and Zeitlin simply did not get along. One source reports that shortly after the book was released, it was pulled from stores because of further legal threats from McPherson and some of the other individuals who were too "thinly disguised" in the novel.