Struggling to hold on to the illusion of youth, Friedan wrote, we have denied the reality and evaded the new triumphs of growing older. We have seen age only as decline. In this powerful and very personal book, Betty Friedan charted her own voyage of discovery, and that of others, into a different kind of aging. Friedan found ordinary men and women, moving into their fifties, sixties, seventies, discovering extraordinary new possibilities of intimacy and purpose. In their surprising experiences, Friedan first glimpsed, then embraced, the idea that one can grow and evolve throughout life in a style that dramatically mitigates the expectation of decline and opens the way to a further dimension of "personhood." The Fountain of Age suggests new possibilities for every one of us, all founded on a solid body of startling but little-known scientific evidence. It demolishes those myths that have constrained us for too long and offers compelling alternatives for living one's age as a unique, exuberant time of life, on its own authentic terms.

"This capstone novel in Library of America's Bernard Malamud edition brings together his three final novels: The Tenants, about the growing tension between two male writers--one Jewish, the other Black--who are the only inhabitants of a crumbling Manhattan tenement house; Dubin's Lives, a revealing study in the perils and promise of love in middle age thought to be Malamud's most autobiographical work; and God's Grace, a postapocalyptic tale of upended evolution in which redemption depends on the lone human survivor's ability to find common ground with a talking chimp. Edited by Malamud's definitive biographer, the volume is rounded out with thirteen masterful short stories and the memoir 'Long Work, Short Life' as well as a fascinating autobiographic sketch, 'A Lost Bar-Mitzvah,' published here for the first time."--Dust jacket.

A middle-aged novelist devoid of inspiration alights on material in the form of an obsessive pet-shop worker from Cincinnati. A pregnant mother of two finds herself increasingly in thrall to her help, Nat. For Joad, the discovery of a haunting type-written document in an old desk in need of restoration is overwhelming. And when Roxanne rescues her sister from an institution, she comes to realise how vulnerable they both are.Each of the seven stories in Total is a full world, painted with vivid strokes. From the comforting mundanities of motherhood to a technologically infected near future that mirrors our present with dark prescience, each life captured in this collection is unforgettable.Deftly navigating the fault lines of relationships - new, established or remembered - Total is a powerful collection of brilliantly imaginative stories, and eloquent proof of Rebecca Miller's writing prowess.

Set in an imagined land where magic and religion work in strange ways, this is the story of young Valemar, who discovers that he is the heir to the throne; his dark, manipulative cousin, Narrion; and Taja, a young woman who finds her destiny in magic. Along the way, there are intrigues, battles, duels with swords and with magic, and the revelation of complex human relationships.

The Misunderstanding is Irène Némirovsky's first novel, written when she was just twenty-one and published in a literary journal two years later. An intense story of self-destructive and blighted love, it is also a tragic satire of French society after the Great War. Yves Harteloup, scarred by the war, is a disappointed young man, old money fallen on hard times, who returns for the summer to the rich, comfortable Atlantic resort of Hendaye, where he spent blissful childhood holidays. He becomes infatuated with a beautiful, bored young woman, Denise, whose rich husband is often away on business. Intoxicated by summer nights and Yves' intensity, Denise falls passionately in love, before the idyll has to end and Yves must return to his mundane office job. In the mournful Paris autumn their love flounders on mutual misunderstanding, in the apparently unbridgeable gap between a life of idle wealth and the demands of making a living, between a woman's needs and a man's way of loving. As Denise is driven mad with desire and jealous suspicion, Yves, too sure of her, tortures himself and her with his emotional ambivalence. Taking her sophisticated mother's advice, Denise takes action...which she may regret forever. With a sharp satirical eye and a characteristic perception for the fault lines in human relationships, Irène Némirovsky's first novel shows sure signs of the brilliant novelist she was to become.

"A novel of unsurpassed candor, punctuated by bold ruminations on love, marriage, family, sex, gender, and relationships, 22 Minutes of Unconditional Love depicts one woman's psychological descent into sexual captivity. This is the story of the extremes to which she will go to achieve erotic bliss--and of her struggle to regain her soul."--Jacket flap

The post-office girl is Christine, who looks after her ailing mother and toils in a provincial Austrian post office in the years just after the Great War. One afternoon, as she is dozing among the official forms and stamps, a telegraph arrives addressed to her. It is from her rich aunt, who lives in America and writes requesting that Christine join her and her husband in a Swiss Alpine resort. After a dizzying train ride, Christine finds herself at the top of the world, enjoying a life of privilege that she had never imagined. But Christine's aunt drops her as abruptly as she picked her up, and soon the young woman is back at the provincial post office, consumed with disappointment and bitterness. Then she meets Ferdinand, a wounded but eloquent war veteran who is able to give voice to the disaffection of his generation. Christine's and Ferdinand's lives spiral downward, before Ferdinand comes up with a plan which will be either their salvation or their doom. Never before published in English, this extraordinary book is an unexpected and haunting foray into noir fiction by one of the masters of the psychological novel.

A New York Times Notable Book: A woman learns the truth about her husband's deceptions in this "superb" novel by the bestselling author of Gone to Soldiers ( Boston Herald ). After a cross-country tour promoting her latest cookbook, Daria Walker is ready to return to her beautiful home in an affluent Boston suburb and her beloved husband, Ross, a prominent attorney whose rough-hewn good looks have never stopped charming her. But when she arrives, he blindsides her by announcing he wants a divorce. Surprised and devastated, Daria suspects he may be having an affair, but the reality is far worse and will tear apart the illusion of her perfectly happy family. When a boy dies tragically and a scandal erupts involving a mercenary slumlord, Daria is outraged along with the rest of the city. But when she learns that Ross may have a connection to the case, she sets out on a journey to discover the truth--a quest that will cast a shadow over the comfortable life she once enjoyed. From the New York Times -bestselling author of Woman on the Edge of Time , Fly Away Home is the story of a woman forced to question her values, her relationships, and herself--"a tale of love, betrayal, and revenge set against a backdrop of sterile suburbs, confrontational politics [and] the evils of gentrification" ( The New York Times ).

Fiction. LGBTQIA Studies. 2019 Lambda Literary Award finalist for Transgender Fiction. A body-swapping personal trainer and her trans girlfriend turn to a life of crime. A man mourning his dead lover becomes trapped in the mind of the leader of a bathhouse raid. A trans man, recovering from top surgery paid for with a stolen credit card, finds strange connection and condemnation among his fellow patients. The fifteen stories in this debut fiction collection from author Calvin Gimpelevich move in the borderlands between realism and surrealism, investigating gender, class, relationships, and the powers we still hold within spaces of powerlessness. They articulate the invasions we commit, the invitations we receive to cross over into another person's world. "INVASIONS blew my mind. Flipping between speculative worlds deeply rooted in realness and emotion and more familiar landscapes that tip on the edges of personal apocalypses, Gimpelevich's writing is strong and sure, taking us places we really haven't been. I'm hooked."--Michelle Tea "In INVASIONS, Calvin Gimpelevich writes fearlessly about trans and queer bodies, sex, and the possibilities of gender. In these edgy, strange stories, characters transform, transition, and transgress to discover themselves and, sometimes, each other."--Carter Sickels "Gimpelevich's stories are so firmly controlled, immaculate lakes with roiling depths that unapologetically probe interlocking webs of queerness, class, protection, disability, transness, addiction, race, and love. This is one of the most gripping, crisp, and moving collections of short fiction I have read in a long time."--Casey Plett "INVASIONS flows from experiences that border on the divergent and taboo--polyamory, secret queer encounters--into the surreal, the unreal, the fluidity of moving from body to body. Gimpelevich writes with a rhythm that sings like a rock ballad; we have no idea where he might take us next and we don't much care as long as we get to come along."--Afrose Fatima Ahmed, City Arts

Venezuela, 1992. CIA agent Eva and her Cuban counterpart, Mauricio, must deal with each other, imprisoned crime lord Pran, journalist Mónica, and Swiss banker Günther Müller while reacting to Hugo Chávez, the charismatic and volatile Venezuelan leader.

"In this follow-up work to Jacob the Liar, Becker tells the story of a man named Aron Blank, tracing his life from his release from a concentration camp in the summer of 1945 through the next twenty or so years. Living in a ghetto at the start of the war, Aron had lost his wife who one day was arrested by the Nazis. In desperation, he turned over his two-year-old son, Mark, for safe-keeping to a neighbor just before he was deported. Now, having survived the war, Aron sets out, with the help of an American relief organization, to find his son."--Jacket.

Obsessive and confessional, sifting over every action and thought, Contempt is a tale about the precarious nature of love and integrity; a study of the limits of our subjective nature and of storytelling itself. It was adapted for the screen by Jean-Luc Godard in 1963.

Fleeing the chaos of World War I and the terror of the Soviet Revolution, practical, sensible Pearl Kahn and her lovestruck, impulsive younger sibling Frieda sail for America to join their sister in New York. But discriminatory new immigration laws bar their entry, and the young women are turned back at Ellis Island. With few options, Pearl and Frieda head for Havana, Cuba, convinced they will find a way to overcome this setback. At first, life in big-city Prohibition-era Havana is overwhelming, like nothing Pearl and Frieda have ever experienced--or could have ever imagined in the rural shtetl where they grew up. As the sisters begin to adjust, their plans for going to America together become complicated. Frieda falls for the not-so-dreamy man of her dreams while Pearl's life opens up unexpectedly, offering her a taste of freedom and heady romance, and an opportunity to build a future on her own terms. Though to do so, she must confront her past and the shame she has long carried. A heartbreaking, epic family story, Hotel Cuba explores the profound courage of two women displaced from their home who strive to create a new future in an enticing and dangerous world far different from anything they have ever known.

The stories collected here span the years 1988 to 2002, during which time LeslA(c)a Newman wrote six volumes of short stories: "A Letter to Harvey Milk, Secrets, Every Woman's Dream, Out of the Closet and Nothing to Wear, Girls Will Be Girls "and "She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not." In Newman's prize-winning story "A Letter to Harvey Milk," Harry Weinberg, a 77-year-old Holocaust survivor, takes a writing class in which he unearths memories that force both him and his writing teacher, a Jewish lesbian, to see their lives differently. "Right Off the Bat" is a monologue by a 12-year old girl whose lesbian mothers have been gay-bashed. "Eggs McMenopause" tells the story of how a sleep-deprived butch finds a unique solution to the trials and tribulations of menopause. In "The Babka Sisters," a women's studies student interviews a nursing home resident and hears a tale the woman has never told anyone: the story of the girl she fell in love with in high school. And in "Mothers of Invention," a couple tests their relationship when one woman decides she wants to have a baby and the other woman does not. Newman's stories covers a dazzling array of themes pertaining to contem-porary lesbian life, including long-term relationships, one-night stands, family-of-origin angst, motherhood, friendships with gay men, AIDS, breast cancer, aging, loss and bisexuality. Many of these stories explore Jewish identity as well. Each story in this collection is told with Newman's trademark wit, honesty, talent and compassion. LeslA(c)a Newman's literary awards include fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the -Massachusetts Artists Foundation. Six of her books have been Lambda Literary Award finalists. A native New Yorker, she currently lives in western Massachusetts.

The only forensic psychiatrist writing suspense, Keith Ablow is being hailed as the heir to Thomas Harris. Keith Ablow's novels delve deep into that dark and deadly place that Ablow, one of the nation's leading forensic psychiatrists, knows best: the psyche of a killer. Ablow has explored the catacombs of the criminal mind to find out what makes them tick, and he brings that expertise to his new novel, a chilling and emotionally compelling story of the lengths to which one man will go to leave his own life behind. In Murder Suicide , Ablow and his alter-ego, Dr. Frank Clevenger, return to take on a murder case like no other. John Snow is a brilliant inventor who has made millions from his genius in aeronautics. He has everything a man could desire: wealth, family, even a beautiful mistress. But he also has a brain disease, a rare form of epilepsy, that threatens his most valuable possession -- his mind. Only one doctor may be able to cure it surgically, but at a terrible cost, one that Snow reveals to no one: Snow will have no memory whatsoever of his past - of its emotional entanglements or its secrets. He will be abandoning everyone he has ever known. But the night before he is scheduled to undergo the operation, he is found near the Massachusetts General Hospital, dead of a gunshot wound. Did he commit suicide, as the police suspect - or was he murdered? Forensic psychiatrist Dr. Frank Clevenger delves into Snow's complex past and tortured relationships to unlock the identity of Snow's killer: Was it the wife who can never forgive what he's done to their child and their marriage, the son who loathes him, the beautiful mistress who loves him so deeply but can never have him, or the business partner intent on taking control of his inventions? Only Frank Clevenger can unlock the door to Snow's startling past. And only Keith Ablow can take readers even further into the mind of a killer.

"Jacob Appel's acrobatic imagination is always a thrill to watch in action. These stories fly through the air and grip your heart. Appel's naturalness as a storyteller makes The Liars' Asylum a total pleasure, a collection in a league of its own. Each story-- there are no duds here-- engages and entertains. Each is beautifully measured and composed, populated by characters I worried for, crushed on, and hoped with."-- Kelly Luce "In this excellent collection of stories, Jacob Appel mines everything for what it is and what it might be: the ordinary, the bizarre, the poignant. The voice, regardless of the narrator, is always crisp and exuberant, in ways subtle and fresh. I could say he is a writer to watch, but actually he is publishing well and frequently. He's a writer to read."-- Fred Leebron "While the plants and ponds might be aggressively artificial in Jacob Appel's newest collection of stories, there's not a single false note when it comes to Appel's characters and their intertwined lives. Romance blooms despite vast differences in ages and circumstance, and near connections plunge into a unique melancholy optimism that will propel readers from one story to the next."-- Suzanne Greenberg "Jacob M. Appel's brilliant new story collection manages to pull off the rarest of literary feats-- delivering eight fantastic stories, each as entertaining as it is philosophically rich. A book of laugh-out-loud wit braided with intellectual fearlessness, The Liars' Asylum offers delights for the mind on every page. Best of all, these irreverent, lovingly subversive stories upend dusty assumptions about what it means to be alive and allow the reader to experience her own existence with a fresh eye. A stunning book that will remain with you long after the last page is turned."-- Alethea Black "Across eight compelling stories, Jacob Appel offers us glimpses into the lives of people keeping secrets, broaching taboos, and testing the limits of their relationships. From a former teacher's suicide to an epidemic of storms that forces those caught in them to tell the truth, The Liars' Asylum beautifully and artfully exposes the mysteries and longings of the human heart."-- Anne Valente "Jacob M. Appel new collection, The Liars' Asylum , confirms his status as one of our most skillful, and appealing, practitioners of short fiction. Indeed, Appel is one of those blessed and nimble writers who, like Chekhov, can find a story anywhere. On ample display are his trademark first-person narrators (often young women), his deliciously light touch, his mastery of the 'reversal of fortune' moment. His new cast of characters includes a girl tasked with ensuring her aunt a 'beau, ' an immigrant Finn who teaches us the meaning of endurance, and a ER psychiatrist dealing with a mass hysteria of truth-telling. Appel's fiction is a brilliant and reassuring example of Horace's maxim: The role of the artist is to inform and delight."-- Catherine Browder

After Yair Berman left her and shattered all her dreams, the devastated Shlomtzion Drore escaped as far as possible from him and her intensely religious life in Jerusalem, becoming an interior designer in secular Tel-Aviv. Twenty-one years later, her daughter has become engaged to his son, and Shlomtzion is forced to visit the controversial settlement in which Yair lives, not only to plan the wedding but to confront her former love and the mistakes of her life. Set in Israel between the Six Day War and the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, If You Awaken Love is the intensely moving story of a stormy and spiritual young girl and her love-hate relationships with her childhood sweetheart, with her father, and with God. Translated by David Hazony.

In "Men I'm Not Married To," Dorothy Parker offers a sharp, witty collection of essays and character sketches that explore the complexities of love, desire, and disillusionment through her incisive lens. Known for her acerbic humor and keen observations of the societal norms of her time, Parker employs a conversational yet poignant literary style, weaving personal anecdotes with broader social critiques. This work emerges from the early 20th century, a pivotal era in American literature marked by a burgeoning feminism and shifting gender dynamics, which Parker critiques with a blend of irony and authenticity. Dorothy Parker, a prominent member of the Algonquin Round Table, was known for her biting wit and advocacy for women's rights, often reflecting her personal experiences with romance and disappointment. Her own tumultuous relationships and her struggles within the patriarchal society profoundly influenced her writing. Parker's work not only illuminates her individual concerns but also resonates with the broader existential questions of her generation, establishing her as a significant voice in American literature. "Men I'm Not Married To" is an essential read for those who appreciate humor laced with wisdom. Parker's insightful commentary on relationships remains relevant, inviting readers to reflect on the intricacies of human connections, making this collection a timeless exploration of love's transient nature.

Set in the early 1900s, Viennese Romance tells the story of Michael Rost, an eighteen-year-old Jewish youth who travels to Vienna, hungry for experience. There, he forms passing relationships with everyone who crosses his path - prostitutes, revolutionaries, paupers, army officers, and rich men alike. With a foreword that explains how this lost novel came to light, Viennese Romance is a seminal work that explores the conflicts faced by many Jewish intellectuals in early-twentieth-century Europe. A compelling portrait of a decadent society, it also lays bare the obsessive-destructive nature of love.

A novel on an unusual household in our day and age, three generations of women living together in Boston. They are a lawyer who owns the house, her ailing mother--the mother had no time for the lawyer before she fell ill--and the lawyer's daughter, unemployed and on drugs.