"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 witty and erudite love letter to a bygone age, from one of Europe's last great humanists. "A sparkling slice of eighteenth-century life" Paul Bailey, Independent In August 1785 Paris buzzed with scandal. It involved an eminent churchman, a notorious charlatan, a female fraudster, a part-time prostitute and the hated Queen herself. At its heart was the most expensive diamond necklace ever assembled and the web of fraud, folly and self-delusion it had inspired. In Szerb's last major work, a witty and often surprising account of events, the story is used as a standpoint from which to survey the entire age. Written in war-torn Hungary in the early 1940s,it constitutes a remarkable gesture of defiance against the brutal world in which the writer lived and died. Antal Szerb (1901-1945) was born in Budapest. Though of Jewish descent, he was baptised at an early age and remained a lifelong Catholic. He rapidly established himself as a formidable scholar, through studies of Ibsen and Blake and histories of English, Hungarian and world literature. He was a prolific essayist and reviewer, ranging across all the major European languages. Debarred by successive Jewish laws from working in a university, he was subjected to increasing persecution, and finally murderedin a forced labour camp in 1945. Pushkin Press publishes his novels The Pendragon Legend , Oliver VII and his masterpiece Journey by Moonlight , as well as the historical study The Queen's Necklace and Love in a Bottle and Other Stories .

Lester (The Last Tales of Uncle Remus, 1994, etc.) offers a potentially controversial and intimate account of the life and death of a black civil rights leader as told 25 years later by the leader himself and the people who loved him. John Calvin Marshall—a fictional Martin Luther King Jr.- -speculates about the movement he led and its unintended consequences. Were the costs too high? As John grapples with this question, three casualties of the movement assess its cost to their own lives in an effort to free themselves from John's burdensome legacy: Andrea, the wife who resented his work during his lifetime and became a national symbol of it as his widow; Lisa Adams, John's white personal secretary and lover who lost everything when he died and she was thrust from the movement; and Bobby Card, the black organizer who sacrificed his youth and sanity for love of John. The three of them are reunited as Andrea lies dying of a stroke in a hospital in Nashville. Lisa leaves her mountain in Vermont to sit with the comatose Andrea and ask for forgiveness and perhaps for permission to move on. Amazingly, Andrea is able to give her both and, at the same time, free herself. In her turn, Lisa helps Bobby forgive himself for not hating whites enough, a terrible weakness in his mind. Lisa and Bobby leave each other with real hope for the future. The future of the movement is more doubtful, however, just as its past is ambiguous. The answer to John's original question is never stated explicitly, but perhaps hope can be found in the Andrea-Lisa-Bobby microcosm. Ultimately, however, Lester leaves John Calvin Marshall's question unanswered because it is unanswerable. A forceful and startling look into the minds and hearts of those involved in the civil rights movement, this novel raises compelling questions about the successes and failures of that movement. -

Roth tells the tragic story of Mizzi Schinagl, the daughter of a pipemaker, who has fallen in love with a nobleman and cavalry officer - a man of a much higher class. Unfortunately for Mizzi, Baron Taittinger, the object of her affection, has liberally bestowed his charms on too many others. Crushed by the Baron's promiscuities, Mizzi nonetheless finds herself pregnant with his son. Her reputation ruined by the Baron, Mizzi is forced into a bordello after being abandoned by her erstwhile lover. At the same time, the Persian Shah pays a state visit to the Kaiser. Desirous of an affair with an "exotic" Western woman, the Shah conspires with Taittinger to find a consort. When the Shah decides upon a court nobleman's wife, Taittinger must act quickly to deceive his friend from Persia. Mizzi, surreptitiously chosen for this role, soon finds herself enmeshed in an ironic series of calamitous events in which nothing is what it seems.

"Through airtight prose which allows no overtones of pity, Nissenson has written a relentless assessment of the martyr's way in religion's less-than-grand designs". -- Kirkus Reviews Set in the year 1912, this is the dramatic portrayal of Jake Brody, an orphaned fifteen-year-old immigrant; of Hannele Isaacs, the rabbi's daughter; and of the Jewish pimp Schlifka, who ruthlessly makes her one of his girls. In the struggle to save Hannele, Jake comes of age abruptly, discovering violence, perversity, and mysticism in the bitter reality of life in a turn-of-the-century American ghetto. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.

In the seventh book in The Performers saga, it is 1873 and impoverished Sophie Lackland must marry if she is to escape a lifeof genteel poverty. Then comes a letter telling of the death of her step-grandmamma, and of a strange bequest which could make it possible for Sophie to fulfil her ambition to qualify as a physician. So Sophie sets off for London, to a new life, new career and Gilbert Stacey, who offers her charm, tenderness and excitement.

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It is 1947, and in the British Mandate of Palestine the political pressure is rising. Jewish immigrants are arriving from Europe in their thousands, smuggled ashore past the armed patrols. The Wertman family, like the Jewish community, is divided: Avram is a member of the Irgun, a terrorist group fighting to end occuption; his daughter Hannah works for the Haganah, peacefully campaigning for a Jewish state. David Millar and Will Griffiths are two English sergeants, reluctant conscripts, who transfer to Intelligence. Half-Catholic, half-Jewish, David has mixed feelings about his work, more so when he becomes close to Hannah. Will, meanwhile, is finding trouble at the Jerusalem jazz bar where he plays his saxophone...

"The Frontier Garrison" is the first English translation of "Az elõretolt helyõrség" by the Hungarian novelist Jenõ Rejtõ (1905-1943), originally published in 1939 under the pen name of "P. Howard." The translator, Balint Kacsoh (a university professor) also annotated the edition. The preface provides biographical data of Jenõ Rejtõ in historical and literary context. The genre is fiction; elements of action, adventure, mystery, and comedy are mixed in the story. It is suitable for young readers and adults. Synopsis: Action and adventure are mixed with a healthy dose of offbeat humor in this P. Howard classic, set in the second half of the 1930s. Harrincourt is dishonorably discharged from the French Naval Academy for a prank. He realizes that his carefree behavior put the livelihood of his widowed mother and teenage sister in jeopardy. To secure their financial future, he pays the premium on his life insurance policy and joins the French Foreign Legion destined to Africa, where his death "in the course of professional duty" would be all but guaranteed. While in basic training in Oran, he unwittingly becomes mixed up in murder and espionage and encounters the ghost of a murdered woman who has a penchant for singing. In short order, his unit is dispatched to a frontier garrison established to support French colonial expansion into equatorial Africa. Rival foreign powers, however, attempt to thwart the French plans and Harrincourt finds himself in the crossfire of international intrigue and falls in love with the beautiful woman whose haunting ghost follows the legionnaires as they march through the deadly Sahara. It is up to Harrincourt to save the day and uncover the secret of a mysterious watch, even if it might mean foregoing the death benefit his insurance policy would pay to his family.

Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford, was--as Nicholas Delbanco writes--"world famous in his lifetime," yet now he has been "almost wholly forgotten." Like Delbanco himself, Sally Ormsby Thompson Robinson--the narrator of this novel and the Count's fictional, last-surviving relative--is "haunted" by one of history's most fascinating and remarkable figures. On par with Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, Count Rumford was, among many other things, a politician, a spy, a philanthropist, and above all, a scientist. Based on countless historical documents, including letters and essays by Thompson himself, The Count of Concord brings to life the remarkable career of Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford.

Brash, sexy, investigative journalist Margo Ross runs her hip news program with wit and intelligence. Tipped off that Albert Einstein might have been murdered by a group of right-wing militarists, Margo pursues the scoop of her life, tangling with a network of clues and an outlandish cast of suspects.

Aus dem Buch: "Als meine Urgroßeltern den Namen Ahrweiler annahmen, da wohnten sie bereits im benachbarten Koblenz; dort betrieben sie um 1800 eine Metzgerei, welche nachweislich durch drei Generationen in der selben Familie blieb. Das Handwerk des Schlächters, des rituellen Schlächters, konnte in den alten Gemeinden nur von strenggläubigen Männern ausgeübt werden. Daher ist wohl anzunehmen, daß diese Vorfahren fromme Leute gewesen sind, obwohl schon mein Großvater, welcher reich geworden als Bankherr in Düsseldorf lebte, nicht mehr der jüdischen Gemeinde angehörte." Theodor Lessing (1872-1933) war ein deutscher Philosoph und politischer Publizist.

In this erotic, metaphysical, and theological novel, the spirits of medieval Templar monks gather on the anniversary of their Grand Master's torment and execution. Together they commit the sexual perfidies and blasphemous acts of which they had been forced to accuse one another before a tribunal.

After Archangels materialise over the bloodbaths of WWII, they take up residence in most of the world's major cities. But what would happen if, more than a quarter of a century later, something somehow managed to kill these supreme beings? Killarney knows and, as an agent working for the Bureau, a British agency that's so secret it doesn't officially exist, she finds herself embroiled in the consequences as, one by one, the Archangels die. Assigned to trace a missing cryptographer thought to have information on the murders, she travels from England, through France, heading for the frozen wastes of the USSR. But there's an unknown third party intent on stopping her, and there's God, who also has an agenda. Not knowing who is friend and who is foe, and with only a brief glimpse of a swastika on angel wings as solid information, Killarney struggles to remain alive long enough to glean sufficient information to put together the pieces of the puzzle and complete what is, without them, an impossible mission.

Joseph Roth paints a vivid portrait of Emperor Napoleon's last grab at glory, the hundred days spanning his escape from Elba to his final defeat at Waterloo. This particularly poignant work, set in the first half of 1815 and largely in Paris, is told from two perspectives, that of Napoleon himself and that of the lowly, devoted palace laundress Angelica--an unlucky creature who deeply loves him. In The Hundred Days, Roth refracts the deep sorrow of their intertwined fates. Roth's signature lyrical elegance and haunting atmospheric details sing in The Hundred Days. "There may be," as James Wood has stated, "no modern writer more able to combine the novelistic and the poetic, to blend lusty, undamaged realism with sparkling powers of metaphor and simile."