O, The Oprah Magazine, Time Magazine, Financial Times, Esquire, Bustle, Lit Hub, Electric Literature, Library Journal, Brooklyn Based, Avenue BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR New York Times Editors' Choice "Superb. . . . Krauss's depictions of the nuances of sex and love, intimacy and dependence, call to mind the work of Natalia Ginzburg in their psychological profundity, their intellectual rigor. . . . Krauss's stories capture characters at moments in their lives when they're hungry for experience and open to possibilities, and that openness extends to the stories themselves: narratives too urgent and alive for neat plotlines, simplistic resolutions or easy answers." --Molly Antopol, New York Times Book Review "From a contemporary master, an astounding collection of ten globetrotting stories, each one a powerful dissection of the thorny connections between men and women. . . . Each story is masterfully crafted and deeply contemplative, barreling toward a shimmering, inevitable conclusion, proving once again that Krauss is one of our most formidable talents in fiction." --Esquire In one of her strongest works of fiction yet, Nicole Krauss plunges fearlessly into the struggle to understand what it is to be a man and what it is to be a woman, and the arising tensions that have existed from the very beginning of time. Set in our contemporary moment, and moving across the globe from Switzerland, Japan, and New York City to Tel Aviv, Los Angeles, and South America, the stories in To Be a Man feature male characters as fathers, lovers, friends, children, seducers, and even a lost husband who may never have been a husband at all. The way these stories mirror one other and resonate is beautiful, with a balance so finely tuned that the book almost feels like a novel. Echoes ring through stages of life: aging parents and new-born babies; young women's coming of age and the newfound, somewhat bewildering sexual power that accompanies it; generational gaps and unexpected deliveries of strange new leases on life; mystery and wonder at a life lived or a future waiting to unfold. To Be a Man illuminates with a fierce, unwavering light the forces driving human existence: sex, power, violence, passion, self-discovery, growing older. Profound, poignant, and brilliant, Krauss's stories are at once startling and deeply moving, but always revealing of all-too-human weakness and strength.

"Zurich, 1917. As Europe is torn asunder by war, three of the twentieth century's great revolutionaries--James Joyce, the Dadaist Tristan Tzara, and Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, better known as Lenin--have made the city their home. Travesties follows these three great men, and another lesser-known resident of Zurich at this time, a British consular official called Henry Carr. Taking Carr as the core of his play, Stoppard spools this constellation of characters into a masterful and riotously funny play, a speculative portrait of what could have happened at a meeting of these influential men. With characteristic brio, Stoppard tells the story through the lurid, self-aggrandizing, and riveting memory of an aging Henry Carr, whose turn in the theater with James Joyce goes awry, leading to a lawsuit concerning a pair of trousers. Appearing in a new definitive edition with a preface by the author, Travesties is a historical tour de force by one of the world's most brilliant contemporary writers."--Page 4 of cover.

In order to explore the vexed emotional and legal question of a writer's right to create art from biographical material of another person's life, playwright Donald Margulies creates two of the most vivid and moving fictional characters of his career--Ruth Steiner, an aging author with a romantic past, and her young student Debra Messing, who exploits what she knows about her mentor's life. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.

A dinner party in an ornate mansion on the fashionable Upper East Side of Manhattan provides the scene for this witty and incisive play. Set in two eras--the early 1900s and our own Gilded Age--the characters move effortlessly from one period to the other. The host, a contemporary master of high-risk arbitrage, steps in and out of character as a robber baron of an earlier time. His guests of today include a Hollywood director, a not-so-cutting-edge sculptor, an online lingerie designer, an aggressive publicist, and an aging historian. Their counterparts from the past are the great man's rebellious son, a grand dame of New York society, the architect who built the mansion originally, and the maids and servants who maintain it. In this dance of rich storytelling and social commentary, it becomes strikingly clear that while old money has become new, little else has changed over the years. Children still rebel against their controlling parents, women still hope for love, and greed, snobbery, and angst persist.

Crime doesn't pay—or does it? When a con makes you rich, life gets a lot more complicated. For generations, the Voysey family business has been secretly cheating its clients. Edward, a junior partner who plans to take over the company from his aging father, is horrified when he discovers the embezzlement that has been keeping his relatives in the lap of luxury. But nobody wants Edward to dismantle the firm's criminal legacy—not his associates, not the woman he loves, and certainly not his large, pampered family. As the risk of exposure looms larger, and his sense of right and wrong becomes increasingly distorted, Edward comes to fully understand the consequences of his "inheritance." THE VOYSEY INHERITANCE is a witty, impeccably crafted portrait of a family in the midst of a surprisingly modern moral dilemma.

When the playwright is Paul Rudnick, expectations are geared for a play both hilarious and smart, and THE NEW CENTURY is no exception. It is a provocative and outrageous comedy, featuring a collection of hilarious characters. In PRIDE AND JOY, Helene is a Long Island matron, the self-proclaimed "most loving mother of all time" to her three gay children, whom she brags about at the Massapequa chapter of Parents of Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals, The Transgendered, The Questioning, The Curious, The Creatively Concerned and Others (1 man, 1 woman). The flamboyant MR. CHARLES, CURRENTLY OF PALM BEACH is described by Mr. Rudnick as "an aging homosexual hounded out of New York City by younger gay men, who find his theatrical style a threatening throwback to an earlier, tougher time." Mr. Charles spends his exile in the company of the hunky Shane, with whom he produces a cable television show, Too Gay (2 men, 1 woman). In CRAFTY, Barbara Ellen is a Midwestern craftswoman and competitive cake-decorator who has lost a son to AIDS (1 woman). In THE NEW CENTURY, all of these hilarious and poignant people collide under surprising and comical circumstances, providing evidence of just where our new century might be heading (2 men, 3 women).

The Ladies of the Corridor is a novel written by Dorothy Parker, an American writer, poet, and critic. The book is a story about a group of elderly women living in a retirement home called the Tamarack Lodge. The main character, Mrs. Laura Sheridan, is a widow who has been living in the lodge for several years. She is bored with her life and feels trapped in the routine of the home. However, she finds solace in the company of her fellow residents, who are all women of a certain age.The novel explores the lives of these women and their experiences of aging, loneliness, and the loss of independence. The ladies of the corridor are portrayed as strong and resilient, despite their physical limitations. They find comfort in each other's company and support each other through the challenges of growing old.The story takes a dramatic turn when a new resident, Mrs. Pearl Jewett, arrives at the lodge. Mrs. Jewett is a vibrant and outspoken woman who challenges the status quo of the home. She encourages the other women to stand up for themselves and demand better treatment from the staff. Her arrival causes tension and conflict among the residents and staff, and the novel explores the dynamics of power and control in the home.Overall, The Ladies of the Corridor is a poignant and insightful novel about aging, friendship, and the resilience of the human spirit. Dorothy Parker's writing is sharp and witty, with a deep understanding of the human condition. The book is a must-read for anyone interested in the experiences of older women and the challenges they face in society.This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the old original and may contain some imperfections such as library marks and notations. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions, that are true to their original work.

As Reagan enters the White House, five aging practitioners of the oldest profession are faced with a diminishing clientele, increased competition for their niche market, and aching joints. With wit, compassion, and humor, they struggle to find and learn new tricks as they fight to stay in the Life.

The lives of a cantankerous soap opera star and his makeup artist collide with the those of his biggest fan and her father with the discovery of a piece of fan mail that changes everything -- though perhaps not in the ways they once expected. A charming and witty play about aging and human connection from Winnie Holzman, writer of the hit Broadway musical Wicked and TV's My So-Called Life, and Second City alum Paul Dooley.