Hang on for a Wild Journey through the Political and Spiritual Adventures of the Baby-Boom Generation Join Wes "Scoop" Nisker as he takes us on a hilarious, wild ride through the heyday of the Beats and the Hippies and the birth of the modern environmental movement, and the surge of Buddhism in the West.

"America is the model of modernity, and the American Jewish experience of modernity is in some ways paradigmatic of that of modern man. One dilemma of modernity is: What of tradition? Of the experience of the past? For the Jew it is this: how to mediate between the claims of classical Judaism, the work of ages of faith, archaic, supernatural, sacred, and the equally ineluctable demands of contemporaneity, secularity, unbelief, and worldliness? What happens to religion beyond the age in which men take ritual for reality and myth for granted, tell as fact the stories meant to convey the essential structure of being in highly symbolic form and to reveal the truth of life? What happens to their imaginative life? How do they mediate between the claim of contemporaneity and the demands of their vast inheritance of institutions, rituals, myths and theologies, social and cultural patterns, derived from the archaic age? Clearly, that inheritance remains very present in the modern world. But what of that presence? Is it a wraith or an augury?"-From the Preface.

Out of Thin Air is the story of the news behind the news. Studded with personal anecdotes, this is the inside story of the people and events that shaped the way TV reports the news. Frank gives readers a revealing look at how hit-or-miss the development of TV news was--and what a seat-of-the-pants adventure creating the news turned out to be.

(Applause Books). "The best way I know to resuscitate the theatre is to produce dangerous new works." Stuart Ostrow. Producer Stuart Ostrow's manifesto of how intelligent life might be restored to the theatre is also a unique personal memoir of the producer-creator relationship and an evaluation of the essentials that can make a show fly, or remain earthbound. As a solo producer, Ostrow's many productions include M. Butterfly , which won the Tony Award for Best Play; Pippin ; and 1776 , which received both the New York and London Drama Critics Awards as well as the Tony Award for Best Musical. He produced the original Broadway production of the critically acclaimed La Bete , which won the Olivier Award in London for Best Comedy. Ostrow was brought in to fix the original production of Chicago , collaborated with Anthony Hopkins on a London production of M. Butterfly , that was not meant to be, and even had his own play, Stages , directed on Broadway by the avant-garde theatrical pioneer Richard Foreman. He riffs about the heroes and heels he's met along the way and that great cast includes Frank Loesser, Meredith Willson, Mel Brooks, Mike Nichols, Bob Fosse, David Geffen, Andrew Lloyd Webber, David Henry Hwang, John Kander, Fred Ebb, and many more.

From the author of The Last Testament comes the true love of Bonnie Prince Charlie, her adventures in America and her lasting legacy. In the page-turning popular genre trail-blazed by Antonia Fraser and Phillippa Gregory, The Pretender’s Lady , Alan Gold’s meticulously researched novel, accurately opens history’s pages on a peerless woman who helped change the course of history and whose legend lives on in Scotland today—Flora MacDonald. She was the most famous Scotswoman of her day, single handedly saving Bonnie Prince Charlie. This is her fictionalized life story—her relations with the Prince, her flight to America, Ben Franklin’s influence, and her return to Britain to lobby for peace But what’s hidden from history, revealed now for the first time in Gold’s dazzling new work of fiction, is the result of Flora’s and Charlie’s love: a beautiful and talented boy raised on an American farm. But only she knows his true heritage and his claim to the world’s greatest throne. And only the genius of Ben Franklin understands how to use this naïve boy to change the history of America. Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade, Yucca, and Good Books imprints, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in fiction—novels, novellas, political and medical thrillers, comedy, satire, historical fiction, romance, erotic and love stories, mystery, classic literature, folklore and mythology, literary classics including Shakespeare, Dumas, Wilde, Cather, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

"At last, National Geographic's award-winning photobiography of Annie Oakley bursts into paperback. This stirring story of an enduring American heroine has won widespread acclaim and was named a School Library Journal Best Book of the Year. Annie's amazing life comes sharply into focus in a compelling narrative, period photography, and in her own words. Two historical maps and a chronology ground the legend in time and place. Readers ride through a life filled with adventure. Annie grows up in the backwoods of Ohio, hunting game to feed her family. Discovered by Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show, she wows crowds with target shooting and daring horse riding. Annie's hardships are examined too, as is her inspirational status as a role model for women. Awards include:"American Library Association Notable BookBest Book of the Year―School Library JournalTexas Bluebonnet Award Master List

This JPS Guide chronicles the extraordinary history of American Jewry. Finkelstein tells the dramatic 350-year story of the people and events that shaped the lives of today's American Jews. Divided into six time periods, American Jewish History describes Jewish life from the time of the early settlers, to the period of massive immigration that flooded the cities, to the incredible growth of Jews in positions of influence in business, politics, and the arts. This is a story of a people who affected not only the lives of Jews in the U.S. today, but also the course of American history itself. There are over 70 black and white photographs, maps, and charts and more than 120 feature boxes and biographies throughout, as well as timelines, notes, a bibliography, and index. Finkelstein has made the saga of American Jewry much more than a compilation of historical facts. This is wonderfully stimulating journey--a worthwhile adventure for readers of all ages.

Howard Fast's life, from a rough-and-tumble Jewish New York street kid to the rich and famous author of close to 100 books, rivals the Horatio Alger myth. Author of bestsellers such as Citizen Tom Paine, Freedom Road, My Glorious Brothers, and Spartacus, Fast joined the American Communist Party in 1943 and remained a loyal member until 1957, despite being imprisoned for contempt of Congress. Gerald Sorin illuminates the connections among Fast's Jewishness, his writings, and his left-wing politics and explains Fast?s attraction to the Party and the reasons he stayed in it as long as he did. Recounting the story of his private and public life with its adventure and risk, love and pain, struggle, failure, and success, Sorin also addresses questions such as the relationship between modern Jewish identity and radical movements, the consequences of political myopia, and the complex interaction of art, popular culture, and politics in 20th-century America.

An eye-opening account of time served in the great battles of our century - for workers' rights, against Fascism, Communism, and racism - Jumping the Line is the life story of an American original. William Herrick relates his adventures and misadventures on the front lines of the Spanish Civil War, in (and very much out of) the Communist Party, driving a tractor on a communal farm in Michigan, jumping the line as a hobo, organizing African American sharecroppers in Georgia, at work with Orson Welles, and immersed in his own writing. When Paul Berman interviewed Herrick in the Village Voice in 1986, for the fiftieth anniversary of the Spanish Civil War, Herrick's remarks so incensed other veterans of the Abraham Lincoln battalion that they picketed the paper. What William Herrick has to say doesn't always go down easily. But for those who like the truth, with a dash of wit and a healthy dose of history, it can be exhilarating.

(Limelight). From Booklist: Actor-director-producer Leonard has a real gift for storytelling that he displays to the fullest in a breezy, readable memoir of his life in show business. Starting out as an actor in 1930s New York in such forgotten hit plays as Hotel Alimony, Fly Away Home , and Kiss the Boys Goodbye , Leonard had the foresight and financial need to leap first to radio and movies, then to television, in which he created or produced such rerun perennials as Make Room for Daddy, The Andy Griffith Show , and the controversial (for its time) I Spy . Along the way, Leonard met lots and lots of fascinating people--John Garfield, Jack Benny, Danny Thomas, Carl Reiner, and Bill Cosby, to mention a few of the dozens about whom Leonard has a funny story or three to tell. Some of these stories are well known, such as those of the closeness of the writers, actors, and staff of The Dick Van Dyke Show ; others are not, such as those of Leonard's various, sometimes dangerous, adventures around the world while filming I Spy . Jack Helbig

David Amram has played and rambled and galloped and staggered through a remarkably broad sweep of American life, experience, and creative struggle. The Boston Globe has described him as "the Renaissance man of American Music." Amram and Jack Kerouac collaborated on the first-ever jazz poetry reading in New York City in 1957 as well as the subsequent legendary film Pull My Daisy in 1959, combining Amram's music with Kerouac's narration. Amram, honored as the first Composer-in-Residence of the New York Philharmonic, has composed more than 100 orchestral and chamber works, written two operas, and has collaborated with Leonard Bernstein, Dizzy Gillespie, Lionel Hampton, Charles Mingus, Dustin Hoffman, Thelonious Monk, Willie Nelson, Nancy Griffith, Johnny Depp, and more. Vibrations is the story of one boy's adventures growing up on a farm in Pennsylvania, working odd jobs, misfitting in the U.S. Army, barnstorming through Europe with the famous Seventh Army Symphony, exiling in Paris, scuffling on the Lower East Side, day-laboring-often down but never out-finally emerging as a major musical force. With its stage-setting foreword by Douglas Brinkley and a new afterword by Kerouac biographer Audrey Sprenger, this new edition is not to be missed.

The President of the Federation of American Scientists describes his work in the areas of disarmament and human rights, and recounts interactions with international leaders

A father and son travel across North America in a pick-up truck--talking, laughing, fighting, and bonding. After years of thinking he'd never have kids, Lee Gutkind became a father at forty-seven and, following his divorce, soon found himself taking over more and more of the primary care responsibilities for his son, Sam. As one of a growing number of "old new dads" (recent studies have shown that one in ten children are born to fathers over forty), Gutkind realized that he faced challenges-both mental and physical-not faced by younger dads, not the least of which was how to bond with a son who was so much younger than himself. For the past five years, Gutkind's approach to this challenge has been to spend several weeks of every summer "truckin'" with Sam, a term they define as a metaphor for spontaneity, a lack of restriction: "Truckin' means that you can what you want to do sometimes; you don't always need to do what's expected." What began as long, cross-country journeys in a pick-up truck, including one memorable trip up the Alaska-Canadian Highway en route to a writer's conference in Homer, Alaska, have in more recent years ranged farther afield, to Europe, Australia, and Tibet. Whether listening to rock and roll music, entertaining themselves with their secret jokes and code words, fishing for halibut, or fighting over tuna fish sandwiches and how best to butter one's toast, Lee and Sam have learned to respect one another. In the process of their travels and their adventures, Lee has also come to grips with the downside of middle age and the embarassment of "senior moments," while Sam has inevitably begun to assert himself and shape his own life. Interspersed with Sam's own observations and journal entries, Truckin' with Sam is an honest, moving, and often hilarious account of one father's determination to bond with his son, a spontaneous travelogue that will appeal to old dads, new dads, and women who want to know more about how dads (and sons) think and behave.

Innocence rounds the bend to experience in these beautifully shaped stories of Moscow and Brooklyn, which take up the worldview of the young and overlooked. The stunning Second World War story that opens the book is a masterpiece of ambivalence—about the simultaneous generosity and hypocrisy of Galina, a gentile Russian woman who offers safe harbor to a Jewish friend and her daughter during the German occupation. In “Love Lessons—Mondays, 9 A.M.,” a young math teacher is assigned to teach a girls’ sex education class, even though she herself is still awaiting her first kiss. And in “Mistress,” a boy newly arrived in this country bears witness to the intimate details of his grandparents’ new and diverging lives: his grandmother’s doctors’ appointments, where he is charged with translating her myriad complaints into English, and his grandfather’s clandestine courtship of another woman. Adept at both snapshots and long exposures, Lara Vapnyar, herself a recent immigrant, writes of life’s adventures and possibilities, its disappointments and unexpected turns, with delicate humor, brilliant timing, and striking emotional honesty. She is a writer to relish and to watch.

David Amram-composer, jazz artist, conductor, and world music pioneer-has been described by the Boston Globe as "the Renaissance man of American music." From early collaborations with Kerouac and Sinatra, chosen by Leonard Bernstein as the New York Philharmonic's first composer in residence, Amram's artistry has taken him from concerts with Willie Nelson to jamming with the Massai tribe of Kenya. In Upbeat: Nine Lives of a Musical Cat, Amram recounts his extraordinary adventures in the many worlds of music he calls home, all told in a rollicking anecdotal style that makes you feel that you are at home around the world. He writes, "Everywhere I have been in the world, music transcends politics. As musicians, we were able to go beyond all that and just be fellow human beings." Threading through Amram's tale of music, hard work, respect, and friendship are unforgettable stories of fellow great artists-Dizzie Gillespie, Hunter S. Thompson, Janet Gaynor, George Plimpton, Lyle Lovett, Zoe Caldwell, Willie Nelson, and many more.

An enterprising kid from the Bronx, Howard had one simple - but smart - idea that revolutionized telecommunications. He pioneered what is now an over-a-billion-dollar-a-year-industry, successfully fought off AT&T's aggressive attempts to pull the plug on his operation - then took his own start-up company public, to net over $100 million for himself. And it all began with a hot dog stand, as Jonas relates in this effervescent account of how he became the milionaire nextdoor. "Mr. Jonas enjoys playing David to any Goliath in sight." - The Economist "An Edisonian visionary" - New York Mag. "Score one for the little guy." - Forbes "The advice should prove illuminating and the adventure inspirational to anyone following, or contemplating, a similar self-made journey." - Howard Rothman "Readers won't fail to admire the author's drive, and some will enjoy his humorous approach..." - Publisher's Weekly This book is an entertaining, enlightening, occasionally intense first-person glimpse at Howard's take on life. Look at the world through his eyes and you're guaranteed to see things differently. For readers who enjoyed: Trump: The Art of the Deal (9780345479174) The Warren Buffett Way (9780471743675) Over the Top (9780785271192) Rich Dad, Poor Dad (9780446567404)

Alfred Bader's achievements—as the founder of one of the most important companies in its field in the world, as a collector and dealer in Old Master paintings, and as a legendary philanthropist—make for fascinating reading. This book begins where Alfred Bader's first autobiography, Adventures of a Chemist Collector, ended: with the boardroom coup in which he was dismissed from the chemical company he had built up from the ground. Bader now turns his enormous energy to Old Master paintings, in which he had become interested at a young age and in which he by now has the means to invest. The chapters that follow are roughly chronological, with some devoted to particularly meaningful paintings or groups of paintings, memorable auctions, mysteries, or discoveries relating to the artworks in the Bader Collection, while others are dedicated to friends, family, love, religion, charity, and, occasionally, chemistry.

Louis Lozowick (1892-1973), an American painter and printmaker most noted for his depictions of the urban scene, was in many ways a typical cultural figure of the early twentieth century. Born in Ukraine in an era of revolutionary ferment, involved in the artistic adventures of Paris, Berlin, and Moscow in the 1920s, he was one of the earliest links between the international machine aesthetic and the nascent American Precisionist movement. Set almost wholly in Russia and.

Stanley G. Weinbaum's classic horror novel, originally entitled "The Mad Brain". When an unassuming man's personality changes dramatically toward the sinister, the woman he loves seeks help from a psychologist, leading to a disturbing discovery.

"Big Slide," (116 pp.) by James Howard Kunstler, is a three-act play set in the autumn of an unspecified near-future year, at an Adirondack "great camp" where three generations of the Freeman family have taken refuge from New York and Boston during a severe national political maelstrom. We are never fully apprised of the exact nature of this upheaval, but it appears to involve a coup d'etat in the White House and the uprising of local militias all over the nation in response. The estate at Big Slide is isolated from these events, but news dribbles in by radio. The electricity has stopped working and law enforcement seems to have been suspended, making it dangerous to travel even to the nearest town for food and necessities. The thirteen members of the family, ranging from the dying patriarch, Clifford Freeman, to his grown children and their spouses, to the two teenage step-siblings, Raven and Zach, struggle to work out how they will organize themselves for survival in the months ahead against a background of old and deep personal grievances with each other.