Scholars agree that the first strand in Genesis, Exodus, and Numbers was written by an author whom they call J, who lived in the tenth century before Christ. In The Book of J, accompanying David Rosenberg's startling new translation, America's greatest literary critic, Harold Bloom, asserts that J was a writer of the stature of Homer, Shakespeare, and Tolstoy and puts forth the revolutionary idea that J was very likely a woman. J was a genius with unmatched powers of irony and characterization, as shown in her unforgettable and very human portraits of Abram and Sarai, Rebecca, Jacob and Rachel, Joseph, Tamar, and Moses -- and, above all, God, or Yahweh. The Book of F reclaims the Bible's first and greatest author and presents us with the full grandeur of her creation. From the Trade Paperback edition.

Formerly one of the largest and most militant Islamic organizations in the Middle East, Egypt's al-Gama'ah al-Islamiyah is believed to have played an instrumental role in numerous acts of global terrorism, including the assassination of President Anwar Sadat and the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. In later years, however, the organization issued a surprising renunciation of violence, repudiating its former ideology and replacing it with a shari'ah -based understanding and assessment of the purpose and proper application of jihad. This key manifesto of modern Islamist thought is now available to an English-speaking audience in an eminently readable translation by noted Islamic scholar Sherman A. Jackson. Unlike other Western and Muslim critiques of violent extremism, this important work emerges from within the movement of Middle Eastern Islamic activism, both challenging and enriching prevailing notions about the role of Islamists in fighting the scourge of extremist politics, blind anti-Westernism, and, alas, wayward jihad.

One of America's foremost political columnists ties the Book of Job to the news of the day in a provacative exploration of how we can reshape politics by following Job's empowering example. "From the Trade Paperback edition.