Download or read book The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon written by Richard Zimler and published by Abrams. This book was released on 2000-03-15 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: International Bestseller: “A moody, tightly constructed historical thriller . . . a good mystery story and an effective evocation of a faraway time and place.” —The New York Times After Jews living in sixteenth-century Portugal are dragged to the baptismal font and forced to convert to Christianity, many of these New Christians persevere in their Jewish prayers and rituals in secret and at great risk; the hidden, arcane practices of the kabbalists, a mystical sect of Jews, continue as well. One such secret Jew is Berekiah Zarco, an intelligent young manuscript illuminator. Inflamed by love and revenge, he searches, in the crucible of the raging pogrom, for the killer of his beloved uncle Abraham, a renowned kabbalist, discovered murdered in a hidden synagogue along with a young girl in dishabille. Risking his life in streets seething with mayhem, Berekiah tracks down answers among Christians, New Christians, Jews, and the fellow kabbalists of his uncle, whose secret language and codes by turns light and obscure the way to the truth he seeks. A marvelous story, a challenging mystery, and a telling tale of the evils of intolerance, The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon both compels and entertains. “The story moves quickly . . . a literary and historical treat.” —Library Journal ''Remarkable . . . The fever pitch of intensity Zimler maintains is at times overwhelming but never less than appropriate to the Hieronymous Bosch-like landscape he describes. Simultaneously, though, he is able to capture, within the bedlam, quiet moments of tenderness and love.” —Booklist (starred review)
Download or read book Hunting Midnight written by Richard Zimler and published by Parthian Books. This book was released on 2023-02-08 with total page 579 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Zimler is an honest, powerful writer' The Guardian 'pacey and accessible... deeply moving' The Observer At the dawn of the nineteenth century, John Stewart Zarco lives out an inquisitive, naive childhood in his idyllic Porto community. But societal prejudices against his family's Jewish faith shatter his innocence and even come to threaten his life. Following the tragic death of his dearest friend, it is only his unlikely bond with Midnight, an African healer and freed slave, that restores a sense of safety. But this fragile, fleeting peace is destroyed when Napoleon's armies invade Portugal and John suffers another devastating loss – one rooted in unspeakable betrayal and authored by those closest to him. The revelation sets John on course for antebellum America, in what might ultimately prove to be a doomed quest for hope amid unspeakable cruelty and sin. Rich in historical detail and mysticism, Hunting Midnight is Richard Zimler's mesmerising tale of deception, guilt, forgiveness and devotion, played out against a backdrop of war, slavery and religious oppression. 'I defy anyone to put this book down. It is a wonderful novel; a big, bold-hearted love story that will sweep you up and take you, uncomplaining, on a journey full of heartbreak and light.' Nicholas Shakespeare 'A gripping adventure story, which can also be read at deeper levels' The Independent 'Zimler packs his tale with exotic detail... absorbing' Publishers Weekly
Download or read book Guardian of the Dawn written by Richard Zimler and published by Penguin Books India. This book was released on 2005 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From The Highly Acclaimed Author Of The Last Kabbalist Of Lisbon And Hunting Midnight Comes A Sweeping Tale Of Devotion, Persecution And Vengeance In Colonial India By The Time The 16Th Century Was Drawing To A Close In The Portuguese Colony Of Goa, The Catholic Inquisition Was Making Excellent Progress In Its Mission To Keep All Sorcerers Whether Native Hindus Or Immigrant Jews From Practising Their Traditional Beliefs. Those Who Refused To Denounce Others And Give Up Their Ways Were Either Strangled By Executioners Or Burnt Alive In Public Autos-Da-Fé. By Living Just Outside Colonial Territory, The Zarco Family Manages To Stick Firm To Its Portuguese Jewish Roots. Tiago And His Sister Sofia Enjoy A Peaceful Childhood Learning To Illustrate Manuscripts With Their Father, And Secretly Dipping Into The Heady Chaos Of The Hindu Festivals Celebrated By Their Beloved Cook Nupi. As The Children Reach Adulthood, The Family Is Torn Apart When First The Father And Then The Son Are Imprisoned By The Inquisition. But Who Could Have Betrayed Them? Impeccably Researched, Guardian Of The Dawn Is Both A Riveting Historical Mystery And, In Its Profound Exploration Of The Nature Of Evil, A Powerful Reinterpretation Of Othello. This Is Richard Zimler At His Imaginative, Energetic, And Insightful Best. Praise For The Last Kabbalist Of Lisbon Zimler [Is] A Present-Day Scholar And Writer Of Remarkable Erudition And Compelling Imagination, An American Umberto Eco. Francis King, Spectator Drenched In Atmosphere And Period Detail. Wall Street Journal A Riveting Literary Murder Mystery, His Novel Is Also A Harrowing Picture Of The Persecution Of 16Th-Century Jews, And In Passing, The Atmospheric Introduction To The Hermetic Jewish Tradition Of The Kabbalah. Independent On Sunday A Fascinating Novel With Spellbinding Subject Matter. Elle Praise For Hunting Midnight Enthralling&Hunting Midnight Is A Shamelessly Sprawling Historical Novel, Spanning Continents, Napoleonic Wars, A Secret Jewish Family, Kalahari Magic, And Slavery In South Carolina. Sydney Morning Herald Zimler Is Always An Exhilaratingly Free Writer, Free Of Ordinary Taboos&Hunting Midnight Shows Zimler At The Height Of His Powers. London Magazine This Is An Epic Melodrama, Spanning Three Continents And More Than Twenty-Five Years, Building Up To A Genuinely Moving Climax. Literary Review This Is A Rousing Roaring Roller Coaster Of A Read. Climb Aboard And Have Zimler Rattle You Off Into The Sort Of Expansive Imaginative Realm That Readers Dream Of And Lesser Writers Steer Clear Of&Bracing, Spine-Tingling Stuff. Australian Reading Hunting Midnight Was Like Discovering A Rare Gem. Richard Zimler Is A Brilliant Author With A Touch Of Genius. Rendezvous Magazine (Usa)
Download or read book The Gospel According to Lazarus written by Richard Zimler and published by Peter Owen Publishers. This book was released on 2019-07-01 with total page 468 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the international best-selling author of The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon comes a dazzling new work of historical fiction, retelling the story of the Passion from the point of view of Lazarus. According to the New Testament, Jesus resurrected his friend, but the Gospel of John omits details of how he achieved this miracle and whether he had any special purpose in doing so. The acclaimed novelist Richard Zimler takes up the tale and recreates the story of the Passion from Lazarus' point of view. Restored to physical health, he has difficulty picking up his former existence; his experience of death has left him fragile and disoriented, and he has sensed nothing of an afterlife. Meanwhile he has become something of a local celebrity, even though he and Jesus are increasingly reviled by the Temple's high priests. As he turns more and more to Jesus for guidance, while observing his friend's growing mystical powers and influence through his spiritual activities, he finds their lives becoming dangerously entwined, which tests to the limit their friendship and affection. In this compelling work of fiction the author places Jesus in the historical context of ancient Jewish practice and tradition; he is at once a charismatic rabbi and a political activist who uses his awareness of a transcendent reality—culminating in the Kingdom of Heaven—to try to bring justice to his people and a broader compassion for humankind. With The Gospel According to Lazarus, Richard Zimler brings the familiar story vividly to life and finds fresh meaning in the Passion and Crucifixion.
Download or read book The Seventh Gate written by Richard Zimler and published by Parthian Books. This book was released on 2023-02-08 with total page 607 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'A gripping, heartbreaking and beautiful thriller... unforgettable' Simon Sebag Montefiore 'capitvating... stark and unflinching' Publishers Weekly BERLIN, 1932 Intelligent, artistic and precocious, fourteen-year-old Sophie Riedesel dreams of nothing more than becoming an actress and spending time with her beloved Jewish neighbour, Isaac Zarco. But when her father and boyfriend become Nazi collaborators and Hitler's meteoric rise to power gathers momentum, she is forced to lead a double life to protect those closest to her. Invited by Isaac into the Ring, a secret circle of underground activists working against the government, Sophie soon learns the ways of espionage and subterfuge. But when a series of sterilisations, murders and disappearances threatens to destroy the group, Sophie must fight to expose the traitor in their midst and save all that she loves about Germany – whatever the price. Thrilling, suspenseful and evocative, The Seventh Gate is at once a love story, a tale of fierce heroism and a horrifying study of the Nazis' war against the disabled. 'The Seventh Gate is not only a superb thriller but an intelligent and moving novel about the heartbreaking human condition.' Alberto Manguel 'gripping, consuming, and shocking... The reader will be haunted by these brave characters and the stirring murder mystery.' New York Journal of Books '[A] powerfully understated saga' Kirkus Reviews
Download or read book Jewish People Jewish Thought written by Robert M. Seltzer and published by Prentice Hall. This book was released on 1980 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This classic survey of the main features of the Jewish historical landscape exposes students to the rich scholarly literature on Jewish history, theology, philosophy, mysticism, and social thought that has been produced in the last century and a half. It shows Judaism as a creative response to ultimate issues of human concern by members of a group that has faced a unique concatenation of political, economic, and geographical circumstances. -- From product description.
Download or read book The Warsaw Anagrams written by Richard Zimler and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2011-02-24 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Autumn 1940. The Nazis seal 400,000 Jews inside a small area of the Polish capital, creating an urban island cut off from the outside world. Erik Cohen, an elderly psychiatrist, is forced to move into a tiny apartment with his niece and his beloved nine-year-old nephew, Adam. One bitterly cold winter's day, Adam goes missing. The next morning, his body is discovered in the barbed wire surrounding the ghetto. The boy's leg has been cut off, and a tiny piece of string has been left in his mouth. Soon, another body turns up - this time a girl's, and one of her hands has been taken. Evidence begins to point to a Jewish traitor luring children to their death... In this profoundly moving and darkly atmospheric historical thriller, the reader is taken into the most forbidden corners of Nazi-occupied Warsaw - as well as into the most heroic places of the heart. Praise for Richard Zimler: 'A riveting literary murder mystery, [The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon] is also a harrowing picture of the persecution of 16th-century Jews and, in passing, an atmospheric introduction to the hermetic Jewish tradition of the Kabbalah.' Independent on Sunday 'Zimler [is] a present-day scholar and writer of remarkable erudition and compelling imagination, an American Umberto Eco.' Spectator 'Zimler has this spark of genius, which critics can't explain but readers recognise, and which every novelist desires but few achieve.' Independent 'Zimler is an honest, powerful writer.' Guardian
Download or read book The Angelic Darkness A Novel written by Richard Zimler and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 1999-09-17 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A divorced man living in San Francisco is guided by his roommate deep within the Tenderloin neighborhood of prostitutes and transvestites, down a perilous sexual and spiritual path.
Download or read book Night Train to Lisbon written by Pascal Mercier and published by Open Road + Grove/Atlantic. This book was released on 2008-10-07 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The bestselling novel of love and sacrifice under fascist rule, and “a treat for the mind. One of the best books I have read in a long time” (Isabel Allende). Raimund Gregorius, a professor of dead languages at a Swiss secondary school, lives a life governed by routine. Then, an enigmatic Portuguese woman stirs his interest in an obscure, and mind-expanding book of philosophy that opens the possibility of changing Raimund’s existence. That same night, he takes the train to Lisbon to research the book’s phantom author, Amadeu de Prado, a renowned physician whose principles led him to confront Salazar’s dictatorship. Raimund, now obsessed with unlocking the mystery behind the man, is determined to meet all those on whom Prado left an indelible mark. Among them: his eighty-year-old sister, who maintains her brother’s house as if it were a museum; an elderly cleric and torture survivor confined to a nursing home; and Prado’s childhood friend and eventual partner in the Resistance. The closer Raimund comes to the truth of Prado’s life, and eventual fate, an extraordinary tale takes shape amid the labyrinthine memories of Prado’s intimate circle of family and friends, working in utmost secrecy to fight dictatorship, and the betrayals that threaten to expose them. “A meditative, deliberate exploration of loneliness, language and the human condition” (The San Diego Union-Tribune), Night Train to Lisbon “call[s] to mind the magical realism of Jorge Amado or Gabriel Garcia Marquez . . . allusive and thought-provoking, intellectually curious and yet heartbreakingly jaded,” and inexorably propelled by the haunting mystery at its heart (The Providence Journal). Night Train to Lisbon was adapted into Bille August’s award-winning 2013 film starring Jeremy Irons, Lena Olin, Christopher Lee, and Charlotte Rampling.
Download or read book The Seventh Gate written by Margaret Weis and published by Spectra. This book was released on 2007-12-18 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Seventh Gate is the thrilling conclusion to the New York Times bestselling Death Gate Cycle by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. In this tale of treachery, power, and heroism, Alfred, Haplo, and Marit embark on a journey of death and discovery as they seek to enter the dreaded Seventh Gate. Encountering enemies both old and new, they unleash a magic no power can control, damning themselves to an apocalypse of unimagined proportion in a final struggle between good and evil.
Download or read book The Night Watchman written by Richard Zimler and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2014-06-19 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chief Inspector Henrique Monroe of the Lisbon Police Department is not your usual cop. Eccentric, elliptical – and stunningly observant – his peculiar behavior at crime scenes is legendary. But his colleagues put up with it because, in the end, Monroe’s the best of the best. But he has a double-sided secret. And when he’s called to investigate the brutal slaying of well-connected Portuguese businessman Pedro Coutinho, it’s not just the murder case that will unravel – but his own identity, too. As Monroe’s investigations lead him deep into a torrid world of shady political corruption and sexual violence, the details of the case trigger memories from his childhood in rural Colorado – memories he has travelled far, and worked hard, to hide. His behavior becomes even more upsetting and inappropriate than usual, and even his family – his wife, his brother and his two young boys – start to fear for the man they thought they knew. Henrique struggles to move his investigation forward whilst keeping the walls of his identity from crumbling. And then, another violent crime changes his life forever, destroying any chance he has of continuing to keep his secret . . . A chilling psychological mystery, The Night Watchman is a uniquely moving portrait of a troubled police detective and his family when a single crime reveals the damaging impact of abuse and the tragic truth about an entire nation.
Download or read book Love s Voice written by Richard Zimler and published by TarcherPerigee. This book was released on 2011 with total page 77 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Here is the doorway to Kabbalah for readers at all levels of experience: these aphoristic gleanings of ancient and mystical philosophy - written in the form of haiku by award-winning novelist Richard Zimler - capture the heart of the tradition in ways that are personally awakening"--
Download or read book A Conspiracy of Paper written by David Liss and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2001-01-30 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Benjamin Weaver, a Jew and an ex-boxer, is an outsider in eighteenth-century London, tracking down debtors and felons for aristocratic clients. The son of a wealthy stock trader, he lives estranged from his family—until he is asked to investigate his father’s sudden death. Thus Weaver descends into the deceptive world of the English stock jobbers, gliding between coffee houses and gaming houses, drawing rooms and bordellos. The more Weaver uncovers, the darker the truth becomes, until he realizes that he is following too closely in his father’s footsteps—and they just might lead him to his own grave. An enthralling historical thriller, A Conspiracy of Paper will leave readers wondering just how much has changed in the stock market in the last three hundred years. . . .
Download or read book Parallel Lines written by Peter Lantos and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the story of a young boy's journey from a sleepy provincial town in Hungary during the Second World War to the concentration camp in Bergen-Belsen. Peter Lantos revisits his past from the perspective of the present and finally lays to rest the ghosts of his past.
Download or read book The Return written by Dulce Maria Cardoso and published by MacLehose Press. This book was released on 2016-07-07 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Everyone has gone away... We too should no longer be here. Luanda, 1975. The Angolan War of Independence has been raging for at least a decade, but with the collapse of the Salazar dictatorship, defeat for the Portuguese is now in sight. Thousands of settlers are fleeing back to Portugal to escape the brutality of the Angolan rebels. Rui is fifteen years old. He has lived in Luanda all his life and has never even visited the far-away homeland - although he has heard many stories. But now his family are finally accepting that they too must return, and Rui is filled with a mixture of excitement and dread at the prospect. But just as they are leaving for the airport, his father is taken away by the rebels, and the family must leave without him. Not knowing if the father is alive or dead - or if they will ever find out what has become of him, Rui, his mother and sister try to rebuild their lives in their new home. This turns out to be a five star hotel in a quiet, seaside suburb of Lisbon, where returnee families are crammed into luxurious rooms by the dozen. These palatial surroundings are a cruel contrast with the reality of returnee life. The hotel becomes a curious form of purgatory as the families wait to discover what will become of them - ever conscious of the fact that they are hardly welcome back in their homeland. Rui has his own personal struggle with his new life: growing up, dropping out of school, facing discrimination, and the ever-present worry over his mother's deteriorating health and his father's fate. And then one night Rui's father returns from the dead. Translated from the Portuguese by Ángel Gurría-Quintana
Download or read book Distant Music written by Lee Langley and published by Random House. This book was released on 2012-02-29 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A richly imaginative novel of love, loss, time and the rise and fall of a great maritime empire, that sends two thwarted lovers spiralling through the chaos of history. The story begins in 1429 on Madeira, when a peasant girl meets a boy- a Jewish outsider- from a Portuguese sailing ship. Esperança and Emmanuel know they must part when the ship sails. From that first meeting and parting, others follow... Emmanuel is in turn sailor, mapmaker, bookseller, jazz musician; Esperança an illiterate peasant, a rich girl in Faro and a clever, bookish recluse who confronts a murderer in nineteenth-century Lisbon. In twentieth-century London, Esperança is faced with a double incarnation, one of the true Emmanuel and the other a shadow. Over the centuries the couple face peril and tenderness. Each life is short. What survives is love.
Download or read book Rossio Square N 59 written by Jeannine Johnson Maia and published by . This book was released on 2020-03-27 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In WWII Lisbon, Claire, a newly arrived refugee, searches for two missing children. Antonio, a young Portuguese cafe waiter, is determined to find out who killed a friend. In a city filled with spies and betrayal, 'Rossio Square N.°59' is a story of lost dreams, infinite hope, and two people caught up in change they never sought or wanted.
