In That's Life, William Herrick's view of humanity is unsparing yet compassionate. He sees life as commitment--to ideals, friends, family--but no one, least of all Herrick, said it was going to be easy. His portraits of the members of a distinctly American family--a novella, five short stories, and a group of five letters--comprise not quite a novel but more than a collection of stories. "I think of it as a co-operative structure," the author says, "in which each character owns and occupies his or her own place, yet it is the entire family which operates the building. To simplify matters, I call the book a fiction." And so we learn the past and present of each of the Millers: Max and Rebecca, Rebecca's mother Ruth (in an old folks' home), and the three Miller children--Eli, an obsessive artist, Peter, an amateur student of life as he bums rides across the country, and teen-ager Nina, a not-so-innocent working-class child away at prep school on a scholarship. But we learn about them in counterpoint and mosaic as Herrick turns our attention, and our allegiance, first to one member of the family and then another. There are few books where human weaknesses are so fully displayed and yet where human endurance and capacity for joy are so palpably present.

"In the beginning there was Lucette, who is the mother to three children--Sammy, a gentle giant, almost blind, but a genius with locks; Corinne, a flighty beauty who cannot keep a job; and "the child," an afterthought, who strives to make sense of her fractured Egyptian-Jewish immigrant family. Lucette's children would like a kinder, warmer home, but what they have is a government-issued concrete box, out in the thorns and sand on the outskirts of Tel Aviv; and their mother, hard-worn and hardscrabble, who cleans homes by night and makes school lunches by day. Lucette quarrels with everybody, speaks only Arabic and French, is scared only of snakes, and is as likely to lock her children out as to take in a stray dog. The child recounts her years in Lucette's house, where Israel's wars do not intrude and hold no interest. She puzzles at the mysteries of her home, why her father, a bitter revolutionary, makes only rare appearances. And why her mother rebuffs the kind rabbi whose home she cleans in his desire to adopt her. Always watching, the child comes to fill the holes with conjecture and story. In a masterful accumulation of short, dense scenes, by turns sensual, violent, and darkly humorous, The Sound of Our Steps questions the virtue of a family bound only by necessity, and suggests that displacement may not lead to a better life, but perhaps to art"--

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.

Hailed as a masterpiece when it was first published in France in 1977, The Desert tells the story of al-Mammi, a young exiled prince of a now-destroyed Jewish kingdom in southern Morocco in the late fourteenth century. Fighting battles in the service of kings and narrowly escaping imprisonment, the prince travels the Islamic world absorbing lessons, often painfully, on how to govern himself, as well as a country. At that same time, al-Mammi engages upon a spiritual journey to obtain inner wisdom rather than material riches. Memmi chronicles the prince’s fortunes as they rise and fall, drawing upon the traditions of Maghrebian storytelling and Arabian tales to offer a highly imaginative and allegorical novel that provocatively blends history with fiction.

A collection of stories celebrating the Jewish tradition in many different places and different times, some reconstructed from actual events, some based on tradition, and some fictional in form.

Seven queer fantasy shorts set in the tropical Jewish world of the Mangoverse novels. "Your Name is Love" An energetic royal guard takes her artist wife on a scavenger hunt around the city so she can stop having artist's block about the lesbian graphic novel she's supposed to make for the queen. "No Whining" Trans woman Chef Yael dithers over whether to switch wine sellers, at the urging of her husband Aaron, when her regular vendor is incompetent but the delivery girl is a trusted ally. "Every Us" A prince with anxiety is comforted in the arms of his partner when he wakes up from a nightmare. "Take Time to Stop and Eat the Roses" A trans teenager and his girlfriend go on a midnight quest for flowers for her sister's wedding. "The Generous Princess" A royal family with two moms and two dads puts their own special twist on celebrating Purim. And now, bundled with Tales from Outer Lands, two contrasting stories of heroic Jewish womanhood: "Rivka in Port Saltspray" Trapped in a seedy port town because an innkeeper is holding her shapeshifting dragon-horse hostage until she can pay all the charges he invented, nomadic warrior Rivka finally has a chance at some decent money when a wealthy but weak man hires her to rescue his fiancée. But she has to think on her feet when she learns there may be more at stake. "Aviva and the Aliens" On the night before the royal Passover seder, Aviva has to outsmart the aliens who abducted her to cook for them because they had grown sick of their spaceship's food replicators. Will she get home before Queen Shulamit wakes up and panics from her absence?

Danny Zilber is a world-acclaimed trumpet player. A constant procession of women traipse through his dressing room, yet none can satisfy his need for love. Until, that is, an encounter with a mysterious woman who leaves just as quickly as she drops her panties ... are just some of the means Danny's manager and his compatriots employ in order to safeguard the security of Israel and propagate German guilt. Meanwhile Danny holds dear the sole memento he has of that fateful meeting - the brassiere his 'one and only' left behind. scathingly comic take on Zionist politics and Israeli espionage.

This collection of literature attempts to compile many of the classic, timeless works that have stood the test of time and offer them at a reduced, affordable price, in an attractive volume so that everyone can enjoy them.

Paulette and Danni grew up miles apart, Paulette in Hamilton and Danni in North Toronto, but they might as well have been worlds apart. Paulette's family emigrated from Jamaica. Danni grew up Jewish in an affluent neighbourhood of Toronto. Now both women find themselves on the streets of Toronto, working in the sex trade. Paulette is a seasoned prostitute, working to support herself and her addiction. She acts as an unlikely and reluctant mentor and friend to Danni, who is new to the street and whose addiction has set her on a similar path to Paulette. Their paths intersect again and again over the course of a difficult and troubled friendship that sees Paulette begin to pull herself together while Danni manages to survive everything that comes her way. Will her luck run out? Has Paulette learned to make her own luck?

Growing up in Soviet Russia, Kat Knopman worships her parents, Jewish intellectuals who teach literature at a Moscow school, run a drama club, and dabble in political radicalism. When Kat is diagnosed with rapidly-progressing scoliosis, the trajectory of her life changes and she finds herself at a different institution-- a school-sanatorium for children with spinal ailments. Confined to a brace, surrounded by unsympathetic peers, Kat embarks on a quest to prove that she can be as exceptional as her parents despite her physical limitations, her Jewishness, and her suspicion that her beloved parents are in fact flawed.

In a huge Hawaiian mansion by the sea live Jack Wolfe, ruthless millionaire, and his knockout wife, ex-hooker Nora. Weary of their marriage, Nora seduces dim-bulb aging surfer Chad to kill her husband. But then it seems as if Jack wants Chad to kill him--or rather, he wants it to look like he was killed so he can avoid legal prosecution and begin a new life. So he offers Chad a better deal. Then it gets complicated: who are allies and who are conspirators is not known. It's all observed by Hawaiian Jewish detective Dani Kahana--also in love with Nora. This complicated tale ends explosively with a hilarious and unexpected close. Martin's Press.

Tancred: or, The New Crusade by Benjamin Disraeli , 1847.Tancred, Lord Montacute, the novel's idealistic young hero, seems destined to live the life of any conventional member of the British ruling class. Dissatisfied with his life in fashionable London circles, he instead leaves his parents and retraces the steps of his Crusader ancestors to the Holy Land, hoping there to "penetrate the great Asian mystery" and understand the roots of Christianity.He meets the beautiful Eva, daughter of a Jewish financier, and becomes involvedin the political machinations of her foster-brother, the brilliant Fakredeen, a Lebanese emir. Benjamin Disraeli (1804 - 1881)was a British politician and writer who twice served as Prime Ministerof the United Kingdom. He played a central role in the creation of themodern Conservative Party, defining its policies and its broadoutreach. Disraeli is remembered for his influential voice in worldaffairs, his political battles with the Liberal Party leader WilliamEwart Gladstone, and his one-nation conservatism or "Tory democracy".He made the Conservatives the party most identified with the glory andpower of the British Empire.

Love's Shadow (1908) is a novel by Ada Leverson. Having established herself as a journalist and short story writer, Leverson published her debut novel in 1907 to moderate acclaim. Entertaining and effortlessly witty, Leverson's prose paints a stunning portrait of the Edwardian era, a time when hope and relative peace proved prosperous for many. Often compared to her close friend Oscar Wilde, Leverson, a pioneering Jewish woman, remains a unique and refreshing voice in English literature. Love's Shadow is the first installment in her Little Ottleys trilogy, a series of novels exploring the romantic lives of a hilariously diverse group of friends. Edith and Bruce Ottley seem to have it all--a charming flat, a healthy child, and a group of entertaining friends. Although they are far from perfect--Bruce can be jealous and quite the hypochondriac at times--their marriage remains strong and their home remains a place of refuge to their frequently lovelorn comrades. Among a dizzying array of faces and names, Hyacinth Verney, Mrs. Eugenia Raymond, Cecil Reeve, and Lord Selsey stand out. Although Hyacinth loves Cecil, a match favored by his uncle Lord Selsey, the young man seems inexplicably smitten with the widow Eugenia, who has no interest in marrying again. Edith and Bruce do their best to make themselves hospitable while defending their home against the hostilities of love, but the hearts and minds of their eclectic guests prove difficult to assuage. Love's Shadow is a humorous tale of romance and desire from Ada Leverson, an underappreciated novelist of the Edwardian era. This edition of Ada Leverson's Love's Shadow is a classic work of British 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.

Two novellas of young men embracing a mystical past In “Dorchester, Home and Garden,” a thirty-year-old adolescent, Maishe, returns to a burnt-out Jewish district on Blue Hill Avenue. He is swept up by angels and dropped among the bums of the Boston Common, in a city through which Isaiah and the Greek philosophers wander. “Onan’s Child” recasts this narrator as the biblical Onan, who refused to sleep with his wife, Tamar. It is a tale of a Kabbalistic world where angels go astray and the clay of the earth, still warm, cries out for human seed.

"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 William Herrick's Kill Memory, erasing the past is just what seventy-one-year-old Elizabeth cannot do. A woman who has had many lovers, a ruthless revolutionary, a courageous underground courier during World War II, and now a disengaged exile waiting out a solitary existence in Paris, Boishke (as Elizabeth has always been called) gives her primary attention the the rituals of living-- eating, dressing, walking, realistically facing up to old age, trying to sleep--and to her memories.

Growing up, Daniel seemed like a model son: a student activist blessed with easy charm and a fluid intelligence, who believed that he was heir to a better and brighter future. When that dream faded, he drifted from his family and into a rootless life, marked by wasted possibility.Bearing the Body begins when Daniel’s younger brother, Nathan, a medical resident in Boston, learns that Daniel has died in San Francisco. The circumstances are unclear, and the police are involved. Nathan, who suffers from chronic anger and uncontrollable compulsions, travels to New York to inform their father, Sol, of Daniel’s death. Sol is an Auschwitz survivor who has spent most of his adult energy compiling an archive of the fates of Hitler’s victims. Due in part to this obsessive research, he has lost touch with his sons. He nevertheless decides to join Nathan on a trip to the West Coast, where both men hope to learn more about Daniel’s untimely death. In San Francisco they meet Abby and her son, Ben, who were Daniel’s companions in a life that his family never knew about or shared.A moving study of isolation and its costs, Bearing the Body is a book about history and memory, about family and loss. Most of all, it is a book about the past, which, far from receding quietly, weighs ever more heavily on those who hope to leave it behind