Download or read book A Curable Romantic written by Joseph Skibell and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2011-11-07 with total page 778 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: I fell in love with Emma Eckstein the moment I saw her from the fourth gallery of the Carl Theater, and this was also the night I met Sigmund Freud.” So goes the life, times, and loves of Dr. Jakob Sammelsohn, a fairly incurable romantic venturing optimistically through modern history. In this inventive and satiric tour de force, Joseph Skibell, award-winning author of A Blessing on the Moon, presents a picaresque novel of exile that could spring only from the imagination of a virtuoso.
Download or read book A Blessing on the Moon written by Joseph Skibell and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2010-09-07 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Joseph Skibell’s magical tale about the Holocaust—a fable inspired by fact—received unanimous nationwide acclaim when first published in 1997. At the center of A Blessing on the Moon is Chaim Skibelski. Death is merely the beginning of Chaim’s troubles. In the opening pages, he is shot along with the other Jews of his small Polish village. But instead of resting peacefully in the World to Come, Chaim, for reasons unclear to him, is left to wander the earth, accompanied by his rabbi, who has taken the form of a talking crow. Chaim’s afterlife journey is filled with extraordinary encounters whose consequences are far greater than he realizes. Not since art Spiegelman’s Maus has a work so powerfully evoked one of the darkest moments of the twentieth century with such daring originality.
Download or read book My Father s Guitar and Other Imaginary Things written by Joseph Skibell and published by Algonquin Books. This book was released on 2015-10-27 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Often comic, sometimes tender, profoundly truthful, the pleasure in these nonfiction pieces by award-winning novelist Joseph Skibell is discovering along with the author that catastrophes, fantasies, and delusions are what give sweetness and shape to our lives. “As a writer,” Skibell has said, “I feel about life the way the people of the Plains felt about the buffalo: I want to use every part of it.” In My Father’s Guitar and Other Imaginary Things, his first nonfiction work, he mines the events of his own life to create a captivating collection of personal essays, a suite of intimate stories that blurs the line between funny and poignant, and between the imaginary and the real. Often improbable, these stories are 100 percent true. Skibell misremembers the guitar his father promised him; together, he and a telemarketer dream of a better world; a major work of Holocaust art turns out to have been painted by his cousin. Woven together, the stories paint a complex portrait of a man and his family: a businessman father and an artistic son and the difficult love between them; complicated uncles, cousins, and sisters; a haunted house; and—of course—an imaginary guitar. Skibell’s novels have been praised as “startlingly original” (the Washington Post), “magical” (the New Yorker), and the work of “a gifted, committed imagination” (the New York Times). With his distinctive style, he has been referred to as “the bastard love child of Mark Twain, I. B. Singer, and Wes Anderson, left on a doorstep in Lubbock, Texas.”
Download or read book The Incurable Romantic written by Frank Tallis and published by Abacus. This book was released on 2019-02-07 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Frank Tallis brings a lifetime's clinical experience and wise reflection to a condition that, by its own strange routes, leads us into the very heart of love itself. This is a brilliant, compelling book' Ian McEwan Love is a great leveller. Everyone wants love, everyone falls in love, everyone loses love, and everyone knows something of love's madness. But the experience of obsessive love is no trivial matter. In the course of his career psychologist Dr Frank Tallis has treated many unusual patients, whose stories have lessons for all of us. A barristers' clerk becomes convinced that her dentist has fallen in love with her and they are destined to be together for eternity; a widow is visited by the ghost of her dead husband; an academic is besotted with his own reflection; a beautiful woman searches jealously for a rival who isn't there; and a night porter is possessed by a lascivious demon. These are just some of the people whom we meet in an extraordinary and original book that explores the conditions of longing and desire - true accounts of psychotherapy that take the reader on a journey through the darker realms of the amorous mind. Drawing on the latest scientific research into the biological and psychological mechanisms underlying romance and emotional attachment, The Incurable Romantic demonstrates that ultimately love dissolves the divide between what we judge to be normal and abnormal.
Download or read book Brooklyn Love written by Yael Levy and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-09-17 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For any young woman, it can be hard to follow the rules . . . especially when you’re falling in love. But for Rachel, Hindy, and Leah, it’s especially hard. Because as Orthodox Jews, they live by a whole different set of rules. No touching a guy - any guy! - before marriage. No dating - unless they are considering marriage - and then, only marrying a man who rates high on their parents’ checklists. All Rachel’s mother wants for her daughter is to see that her daughter marries well. Naturally, this is where the rich, Columbia U educated lawyer comes in. The problem is, Rachel’s already found a guy who makes her heart race. A Rabbi. But how could a struggling Rabbi possibly give Rachel the security her mother demands? Hindy is very pious and only wants to marry a Talmud scholar. The problem is, she’s in love with an Orthodox Jewish guy she works with. How long can she keep saying no when her heart says yes? And will she be able to stick to her values amidst temptation? Leah wants to be a doctor, but her mother insists she study computers even though she hates computers. Her mom, a struggling immigrant, has fixed ideas about the course to success and marriage - which doesn’t include any of Leah’s wishes. What will it take for Leah to break out of her mom’s - and community’s - expectations and follow her dreams? In Brooklyn Love, three Orthodox Jewish women who are caught between crushing guilt of defying their mothers and their desire to be ''normal'' are there for each other as they try to figure out who they really are . . . and what they really want. Sensuality Level: Behind Closed Doors
Download or read book When We Were Bad written by Charlotte Mendelson and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2007 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Critics in Britain are already raving about Charlotte Mendelson’s excoriatingly funny yet deeply humane novel about a glamorous London family that happens to be falling apart. The Rubins are the perfect family. They’re wonderfully happy and very glamorous. The mother, Claudia, is the ultimate Jewish matriarch: a powerful rabbi known for her charm, brains, and determination. Now this dynastic Jewish family is getting ready to marry off the perfect eldest son. History, community, and even gastronomy unite the guests lucky enough to attend this joyous occasion. But when the groom -- one minute before exchanging vows -- bolts with the wrong woman, the myths that have defined this family take on darker overtones. Mendelson’s astonishing eye for detail, as well as her just-right balance of plot and character, makes the unfolding of this story an uncommon treat. In a marvelously compressed style that also bursts with life, she reveals how all four adult Rubin children, and their parents, struggle with huge secrets, sexual frustration and sexual experimentation, and many betrayals. Charlotte Mendelson opens a window on a realm rarely explored in British society: the complicated world of English Jewry. But to watch this seemingly blessed family drastically, disastrously fall apart before regaining balance is to understand that their struggles -- like all of ours -- are universal ones.
Download or read book All Our Worldly Goods written by Irene Nemirovsky and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2014-12-17 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In haunting ways, this gorgeous novel prefigures Irène Némirovsky’s masterpieceSuite Française. Set in France between 1910 and 1940 and first published in France in 1947, five years after the author’s death, All Our Worldly Goods is a gripping story of war, family life and star-crossed lovers. Pierre and Agnes marry for love against the wishes of his parents and his grandfather, the tyrannical family patriarch. Their marriage provokes a family feud that cascades down the generations. This brilliant novel is full of drama, heartbreak, and the telling observations that have made Némirovsky’s work so beloved and admired.
Download or read book Sand in My Eyes written by Christine Lemmon and published by Emerald Book (Distributor). This book was released on 2010-07-01 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sand in My Eyes is the story of Anna Hott, who is so overwhelmed by life that hardly is she seeing the beauty around her.
Download or read book Class Mom written by Laurie Gelman and published by Henry Holt and Company. This book was released on 2017-08-01 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Laurie Gelman’s clever debut novel about a year in the life of a kindergarten class mom—a brilliant send-up of the petty and surprisingly cutthroat terrain of parent politics. Jen Dixon is not your typical Kansas City kindergarten class mom—or mom in general. Jen already has two college-age daughters by two different (probably) musicians, and it’s her second time around the class mom block with five-year-old Max—this time with a husband and father by her side. Though her best friend and PTA President sees her as the “wisest” candidate for the job (or oldest), not all of the other parents agree. From recording parents’ response times to her emails about helping in the classroom, to requesting contributions of “special” brownies for curriculum night, not all of Jen’s methods win approval from the other moms. Throw in an old flame from Jen’s past, a hyper-sensitive “allergy mom,” a surprisingly sexy kindergarten teacher, and an impossible-to-please Real Housewife-wannabe, causing problems at every turn, and the job really becomes much more than she signed up for. Relatable, irreverent, and hilarious in the spirit of Maria Semple, Class Mom is a fresh, welcome voice in fiction—the kind of novel that real moms clamor for, and a vicarious thrill-read for all mothers, who will be laughing as they are liberated by Gelman’s acerbic truths.
Download or read book The Last Ember written by Daniel Levin and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2009-08-06 with total page 414 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jonathan Marcus, a young American lawyer and former doctoral student in classics, is summoned to Rome for a case and stumbles across a message hidden inside an ancient stone fragment. The discovery propels him and UN preservationist Dr. Emili Travia into a coldblooded modern plot to erase every remnant of Jewish and Christian presence from Jerusalem's Temple Mount, in the process redefining history itself.
Download or read book Six Memos from the Last Millennium written by Joseph Skibell and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2016-04-19 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A storyteller’s take on the Talmud and the timeless wisdom contained within its tales provides “a fresh look at an ancient source” (Kirkus Reviews). A thief-turned-saint, killed by an insult. A rabbi burning down his world in order to save it. A man who lost his sanity while trying to fathom the origin of the universe. A beautiful woman battling her brother’s and her husband’s egos to preserve their family. Stories such as these enliven the pages of the Talmud, the great repository of ancient wisdom that is one of the sacred texts of the Jewish people. Comprised of the Mishnah, the oral law of the Torah, and the Gemara, a multigenerational metacommentary on the Mishnah dating from between 3950 and 4235 (190 and 475 CE), the Talmud presents a formidable challenge to understand without scholarly training and study. But what if one approaches it as a collection of tales with surprising relevance for contemporary readers? In Six Memos from the Last Millennium, Joseph Skibell, critically acclaimed author of A Blessing on the Moon and other novels, reads some of the Talmud’s tales with a storyteller’s insight, concentrating on the lives of the legendary rabbis depicted in its pages to uncover the wisdom they can still impart to our modern age. He unifies strands of stories that are scattered throughout the Talmud into coherent narratives or “memos,” which he then analyzes and interprets from his perspective as a novelist. In Skibell’s imaginative and personal readings, this sacred literature frequently defies our conventional notions of piety. Sometimes wild, rude, and even bawdy, these memos from the last millennium pursue a livable transcendence, a way of fusing the mundane hours of earthly life with a cosmic sense of holiness and wonder.
Download or read book Sex and Cancer written by Saketh R. Guntapalli and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2017-06-29 with total page 183 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An intimate partnership has physical and psychological components, both of which often take a hit when cancer enters the union. The prospect, and then the process, of treatments tend to alter the way the two people relate to each other. When the diagnosis is one of gynecologic or reproductive cancer for a woman, questions of sexual intimacy and function often color relationships, confuse partners, and raise concerns that other cancers might not. With an estimated 83,000 women a year added to the roles of those battling gynecologic cancers and 300,000 women a year added to roles of those battling breast cancer, Sex and Cancer focuses on surviving and thriving—more than 70 percent of women with gynecologic cancers now survive!—and helps readers mitigate outcomes and overcome challenges of sexual dysfunction after a cancer diagnosis; reassess the priorities in an intimate relationship to support the patient’s struggle, healing, and libido; and learn to interact with the professionals tasked with saving lives and enhancing those areas affected by cancer diagnosis and treatment. Sex and Cancer features stories that illuminate insights about the impact of gynecologic and reproductive cancers on relationships. The stories give life to guidance that’s critical in shaping the effect that gynecologic cancer has on intimate relationships. And readers will find insight, comfort, and suggestions for addresses the questions about intimacy and sexual function that are often left unexpressed.
Download or read book Love Sense written by Dr. Sue Johnson and published by Little, Brown Spark. This book was released on 2013-12-31 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The bestselling author of Hold Me Tight presents a revolutionary new understanding of why and how we love, based on cutting-edge research. Every day, we hear of relationships failing and questions of whether humans are meant to be monogamous. LOVE SENSE presents new scientific evidence that tells us that humans are meant to mate for life. Dr. Johnson explains that romantic love is an attachment bond, just like that between mother and child, and shows us how to develop our "love sense"--our ability to develop long-lasting relationships. Love is not the least bit illogical or random, but actually an ordered and wise recipe for survival. LOVE SENSE covers the three stages of a relationship and how to best weather them; the intelligence of emotions and the logic of love; the physical and psychological benefits of secure love; and much more. Based on groundbreaking research, LOVE SENSE will change the way we think about love.
Download or read book Big Guns written by Steve Israel and published by Simon & Schuster. This book was released on 2019-04-23 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Steve Israel, the Congressman-turned-novelist who writes “in the full-tilt style of Carl Hiaasen” (The Washington Post), a comic tale of the mighty firearm industry, a small Long Island town, and Washington politics: “Congress should pass a law making Big Guns mandatory reading for themselves” (Nelson DeMille). When Chicago’s Mayor Michael Rodriguez starts a national campaign to ban handguns from America’s cities, towns, and villages, Otis Cogsworth, the wealthy chairman and CEO of a huge arms company in Asabogue, Long Island, is worried. In response, he and lobbyist Sunny McCarthy convince an Arkansas congressman to introduce federal legislation mandating that every American must own a firearm. Events soon escalate. Asabogue’s Mayor Lois Leibowitz passes an ordinance to ban guns in the town—right in Otis Cogsworth’s backyard. Otis retaliates by orchestrating a recall election against Lois and Jack Steele, a rich town resident, runs against her. Even though the election is for the mayor of a small village on Long Island, Steele brings in the big guns of American politics to defeat Lois. Soon, thousands of pro-gun and anti-gun partisans descend on Asabogue, and the bucolic town becomes a tinderbox. Meanwhile, Washington politicians in both parties are caught between a mighty gun lobby and the absurdity of requiring that every American, with waivers for children under age four, carry a gun. What ensues is a discomfiting, hilarious indictment of the state of American politics. “New York congressman-turned-novelist Steve Israel delivers a second brilliant political satire” (Booklist, starred review). “An entertaining satire” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review), Big Guns is “a wonderfully irreverent satire about the fractured and fractious American political and lobbying system…a rollicking comedic trip” (Publishers Weekly).
Download or read book Leave Me written by Gayle Forman and published by Algonquin Books. This book was released on 2016-09-06 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “This surprising, compassionate story brings to life the secret, guilty fantasy of many overworked moms.” —People “In an enthralling novel reminiscent of Anne Tyler’s Ladder of Years, a woman who recently suffered a heart attack runs away to recover her equilibrium.” —O, The Oprah Magazine Every woman who has ever fantasized about driving past her exit on the highway instead of going home to make dinner, and every woman who has ever dreamed of boarding a train to a place where no one needs constant attention--meet Maribeth Klein. A harried working mother who’s so busy taking care of her husband and twins, she doesn’t even realize she’s had a heart attack. Surprised to discover that her recuperation seems to be an imposition on those who rely on her, Maribeth does the unthinkable: she packs a bag and leaves. But, as is often the case, once we get where we’re going we see our lives from a different perspective. Far from the demands of family and career and with the help of liberating new friendships, Maribeth is able to own up to secrets she has been keeping from herself and those she loves. With bighearted characters--husbands, wives, friends, and lovers--who stumble and trip, grow and forgive, Leave Me is about facing the fears we’re all running from. Gayle Forman is a dazzling observer of human nature. She has written an irresistible novel that confronts the ambivalence of modern motherhood head on and asks, what happens when a grown woman runs away from home?
Download or read book Pictures at an Exhibition written by Sara Houghteling and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2009-02-17 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A sweeping and sensuous novel of a son’s quest to recover his family’s lost masterpieces, looted by the Nazis during the occupation. Max Berenzon’s father is the most successful art dealer in Paris, owner of the Berenzon Gallery, home to both Picasso and Matisse. To Max’s great surprise, his father forbids him from entering the family business, choosing instead to hire a beautiful and brilliant gallery assistant named Rose Clément. When Paris falls to the Nazis, the Berenzons survive in hiding, but when they return in 1944 their gallery is empty, their priceless collection vanished. In a city darkened by corruption and black martketers, Max chases his twin obsessions: the lost paintings and Rose Clément.
Download or read book The Book of Samson written by David Maine and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2007-10-30 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the highly acclaimed author of "The Preservationist" and "Fallen" comes another unique and astonishing biblical retelling.
