Product Description Welcome to Mark Leyner’s America, where you can order gallium arsenide sushi at a roadside diner, get loaded on a cocktail of growth hormones and anabolic steroids, and support your habit by appearing on TV game shows. Welcome to a wildly post-Einsteinian fictional universe where the locals include a speech pathologist with a waterbug fetish, a kamikaze airline pilot, and the lead singer for Brazil’s most notoriously nihilistic samba band. From Publishers Weekly These 17 loosely linked short stories are intelligent, funny and incredibly bizarre. Though not all are science fiction, each displays a supercharged cyberpunk writing style jam-packed with elements of tabloid journalism, bits of advertising slogans, references to kung fu films, literary allusions, television trivia, deadpan non sequiturs, puns and poetry. The fiercely imaginative Leyner ( I Smell Esther Williams ) announces: "Dad was in the basement centrifuging mouse spleen hybridoma, when I informed him that I'd enrolled at the Wilford Military Academy of Beauty." He also discusses the difficulty of finding a haberdashery near the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries shipyard and speculates on a televised encounter between Tennessee's youngest member of the House of Representatives and 17th-century metaphysician Baruch Spinoza. Squads of displaced, armed and dangerous combatants inhabit a young boy's bedroom in the marvelous "In the Kingdom of Boredom, I Wear the Royal Sweatpants." It's an exuberant, adventurous and audacious collection. Some of the pieces were originally published in Esquire, Harper's and Fiction International , among other magazines. Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. Review "I really, really liked it. It's like nothing else. I laughed out loud in the bathroom." -- David Byrne Welcome to Mark Leyner's America, where you can order gallium arsenide sushi at a roadside diner, get loaded on a cocktail of growth hormones and steroids, and support your habit by appearing on TV game shows. Welcome to a wildly post-Einsteinian fictional universe where the locals include a speech pathologist with a waterbug fetish, a kamikaze airline pilot, and the lead singer for Brazil's most notoriously nihilistic samba band. My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist is fiction the brain can dance to, by one of the funniest and most subversive young writers of this or any other decade. "Most current fiction is as well made and exciting as floral wallpaper; but here is a writer willing to decorate the room with the contents of his own dynamited head." -- Entertainment Weekly "Reading this is like fishing in some hallucinated lake of the subconscious. No telling what term, idea, or thing you'll pull up next." -- Houston Post From the Back Cover This book is fiction the brain can dance to, by one of the funniest and most subversive young writers of this or any other decade. About the Author Mark Leyner is the author of two novels, Et Tu, Babe and The Tetherballs of Bougainville; two collections of stories , I Smell Esther Williams and Other Stories and My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist; and a collection of fiction, plays, and journalism, Tooth Imprints on a Corn Dog. His work has also appeared in The New Yorker, Esquire, The New Republic, George, and Harper’s.

Originally published in 1983 and now reissued, a portrayal of middle-class Englishwomen in the interwar period which draws on the work of such novelists as May Sinclair, Rosamond Lehmann and Rebecca West.

"Newlyweds just barely out of their childhood, the ben-Yichyas make their new home in Jerusalem, in the shadows of the dark towering walls of stone and amid a community of devout Jews living in squalor. Who among these impoverished neighbors will buy the exquisite jewelry that Ezra fashions from gold and silver? And how will the young Yemenite couple maintain their ancient traditions and customs while struggling to weave themselves into the vivid tapestry of immigrants from distant lands who comprise the old Yishuv?"--from jacket.

A novel based loosely on the life of the Turkish-born 17th-century Jew, Shabbatai Zevi. Hailed as the Messiah, forced to convert to Islam, five times married, he is an eccentric and exotic character. In 1970 the author won the Booker Prize for her fourth novel, The Elected Member.

A remarkable insight into Jewish history in Britain, 'My Mother's House' is a poignant story of belonging, nationhood and identity set in Wales, England and Palestine. The first novel from the acclaimed author of Eunice Fleet - a poignant story of belonging, nationhood and identity set in Wales, England and Palestine. First novel from the acclaimed author of EUNICE FLEET a poignant story of belonging, nationhood and identity set in Wales, England and Palestine Simon is a troubled young manborn in Wales, of Jewish heritage, and in love with Englishness and an English heiress. He determines to reject his Jewish and Welsh identity and the industrial valleys he grew up in and seeks to fulfil his ambition to rise in the Civil Service. His experiences in love and his professional life see him reject Edith on discovering that she is not what he believed her to be, and taking up arms in the fight against Englands enemies in the Great War. Ultimately, he must embrace his family and his heritage before he can experience a sense of wholeness. Simons experience raises questions of belonging, language, nationhood and identity that are as relevant now as they were in 1931 when the novel was first published. Lily Tobiass sensitive individual and communal portraits illuminate some of the most topical personal, social and political issues of the twenty-first century.

Matt Cohen's stories have been widely anthologized and have appeared in distinguished periodicals and journals in Canada, Britain and the United States. "Lives of the Mind Slaves" features 7 short stories -- one of which (Trotsky's First Confessions') was written especially for this book -- and a brilliant novella. Cohen's novella, Golden Whore of the Heartland, explores the conflict between the spontaneity of passion -- a chance affair -- and the comfort of commitment and belonging. The Sins of Tomas Benares' explores the theme of love over generations. 'Caf? Le Dog' is a celebration of all that remains inexplicable in the attractions between men and women. Racial Memories' is vintage Cohen -- a story about a not-so-classic Jewish family. "Lives of the Mind Slaves" contains the best of Cohen's two previous short story collections, "Caf? Le Dog" and "Living on Water."

"Subversion and Sympathy : Gender, Law, and the British Novel brings new energy and perspective to the law-and-literature movement. Focusing on the position of women in British novels of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries - a period during which literature played a creative role in legal reform - the book illustrates the many ways in which the investigation of legal matters sheds new light on major literary works. At the same time, it shows that attention to literary representations of legal issues illuminates developments in the law by bringing to life matters at stake in legal reforms. In fourteen essays, the volume spans a range of gender-related issues, including inheritance, money lending, illegitimacy, marriage, and rape. At the same time, it makes a methodological contribution, displaying (and discussing) a range of perspectives that exemplifies the breadth and range of this interdisciplinary area of scholarship, which links history, gender studies, philosophy, literary studies, and law. The volume seeks to reinvigorate the methodology of the law-and-literature movement by provoking a cross-disciplinary conversation among legal scholars, judges, literary scholars, and feminist philosophers. Participants include those already known for their work on law and literature but also, crucially, legal leading lights who have not previously written about literature. Subversion and Sympathy shows that the conversation between law and literature can enrich our understanding not just of the fields in question but also of the deeper human issues at the heart of a given period - and beyond"--Unedited summary from book jacket.

This is the outer and inner journey of Mo Smith, a homeless vagrant who walks northward along the crowded island of Manhattan from the southern tip of Battery. Multiple voices, multiple personas, shifting identities and multiple tales accompany his stubborn journey. This is a novel of our post 9/11 world that looks at ordinary and extraordinary lives that teem in our chaotic times. It also makes the connections, so dramatically relevant now, between America and the Middle East.

"Betty Miller wrote this, her fourth novel, in 1935. But her publisher, Victor Gollancz, #x91;turned the book down flat,#x92; wrote Neal Ascherson in The New York Review of Books. #x91;It seems most likely that he saw it as terrifyingly provocative, not only an attack on the solid English assimilation of his own family but a tactless outburst against the English at precisely the moment, two years after Hitler's assumption of power, when their tolerance and hospitality were most needed.#x92; In the novel Alec Berman escapes from his restrictive Jewish family in Brighton, and although he has a successful career as a film-maker (perhaps modelled on that of Alexander Korda) and marries the very English Catherine, he always feels a #x91;Dago: Jew: Outsider.#x92; #x91;Yet,' continued Neal Ascherson, #x91;the rejection is not really the refusal of a snobbish Gentile world fully to accept him. The rejecting force comes from within himself.#x92; #x91;A thought-provoking insight into anti-semitism between the wars,' wrote the Guardian, 'not the violent prejudice of Mosley's fascists, but the discreet discrimination of the bourgeoisie.#x92;" -- Provided by publisher.

Pick his brains - you know it makes sense. Well, what would you do? Your mentor and best friend, herald as the 'greatest novelist of our time', suddenly expires, and you find yourself bereft of a cherished companion's wit and wisdom. Your twelve-year stretch of writer's block, too, now seems like a life sentence. For Martin Peabody, the answer is simple. You remove your dead friend's brain, syphon off his thoughts, and use them as inspiration to revive your career and write a fitting testament to a great man - an autobiopsy, if you like. This superbly sharp and funny novel shows Booker-winner Bernice Rubens at her best.

A story which attempts to capture the fierce heat of the Italian landscape as well as the rhythm of London days and evenings. The author is also known for her novels The Elected Member, Kingdom Come and Five Year Sentence.

Lind, Jakov. Travels to the Enu. New York, St. Martin's, 1982. Octavo. 125 pages. Original Hardcover with original dustjacket in protective collector's mylar. First edition of this brief satirical novel, Lind's first novel to be composed in English. A fine copy in dust jacket. This copy signed and inscribed by Lind to American novelist Harold Brodkey. Jakov Lind (born Heinz Jakov Landwirth, 10 February 1927 in Vienna - 16 February 2007 in London) was an Austrian-British writer of short stories and novels. After the annexation of Austria by Germany in 1938, Jews were immediately targeted by the new Nazi regime with anti-Semitic decrees designed to make their lives untenable and force them to leave Austria. The decrees included prohibition of using public transportation, of being employed, and of operating businesses. Jews were expelled from schools and universities, had their businesses Aryanized, a euphemism for their theft and confiscation by the Nazi regime, and were harassed with washing street signs of the previous regime in front of cheering and violent mobs. Eventually they were forced out of their apartments and prevented from leaving the country by themselves. While sitting in a cafe, Lind's father was picked up and arrested by the Gestapo, and shortly afterwards the family was ordered to evacuate their apartment within 24 hours. On the run, his mother managed to find a place for Lind and two sisters on a Kindertransport bound to the Netherlands. After Lind's father was somehow released, his parents struggled to leave Austria on a Danube barge bound for the Black Sea. There they boarded the ship Patria which was sunk with great loss of lives at Haifa Port in November 1940 by the Hagana in an effort to prevent the British from turning it back to Europe. As a child of 11 years in the Netherlands, Lind stayed initially in a children home in The Hague with his two sisters, but after a few months the sibl..

A novel based on a television soap opera for children of 10-14 years that explores the lives of children that use The Grove, a centre for young people in Byker Park, an area of Newcastle. The book accompanies a six episode series shown on BBC1 Children's TV.