Paul Dry Books

"Edith Bruck tells the story of the 'Lager' with the inherent strength of a wounded animal and in confronting the unbearable sadness of it closes the account and does not surrender to the void…Unforgettable testimony."—Primo Levi

"With a style both warm and spare, Edith Bruck recreates the hardships of her existence as a Jewish child in Hungary before the Holocaust, the horrors of her time in the camps, and the protracted pain and disorientation of her lonely return to 'normal' life after the war. Her readers will marvel at her ability to perceive good as well as evil in those who preyed upon her. This is a beautiful book."—Susan Zuccotti, author of The Italians and the Holocaust

Passover, 1944. Edith Bruck's family sits in a darkened kitchen isolated from the other villagers by the black cloth on the window, their poverty, and their Judaism. Her mother explains that the Germans have reached their Hungarian village—that they will soon have to endure more than the cries of "Jewstink" and the deprivations that have been their lot for months. The next morning twelve-year-old Edith is roused by shouts of "Wake up! Outside! Quickly! I give you five minutes, you animals!"

In this memoir, Bruck tells the story of her imprisonment in Auschwitz, Dachau, and Bergen-Belsen. She and her older sister endure almost untellable horrors, and hunger so savage that the author tells of ripping bread from another's teeth. The end of the war brings freedom but little security. With no parents and no home, she moves from country to country, from household to household, and from relationship to relationship. In search of peace she and other family members immigrate to Israel, but even there peace eludes her. Bruck avoids both sentimentality and cynicism; she sees with clarity and passion, learns what she needs to survive, and catalogs other lessons for future use. At the end of Who Loves You Like This, she leaves Israel for Rome, where she lives today. In another country and in a foreign language, she finds the words to describe her life—without homeland, family, or native language.

Edith Bruck has lived in Rome since 1954. She is the author of several novels, collections of short stories, and volumes of poetry. She writes for radio and television and has directed several films. Bruck's works—for which she has won numerous literary prizes—have been translated from the original Italian into Dutch, German, Swedish, and Hungarian.

Who Loves You Like This is Bruck's first work to be translated into English.

"With its humor and its fancy and its wistfulness, [Desert Islands] is such a fountain of youth as no Ponce de Leon ever discovered." —New York Times

"A vast treasure chest…to dazzle and fascinate everyone who lifts the lid."—Geoffrey Grigson

"One of those cabinets of curiosities," Michael McKeon writes in his new foreword, Desert Islands is "filled with randomly juxtaposed artifacts and devices rare and wonderful and far-flung, which long ago graced the homes of the Renaissance patriciate and then, in the hands of natural historians, became the model for the modern museum." Join Walter de la Mare as he surveys the world of islands (symbols of man's love of adventure and longing), both fictional and real, romantic and not—along with shipwrecks, castaways, and solitude; pirates, explorers, and treasure; Shakespeare, Swift, Columbus, Darwin, Utopia, England; and particularly (of course), Daniel Defoe and Robinson Crusoe.

"One begins to fall under the spell, by way of Mr. De la Mare's fine sinuous prose and fanciful comments, of those distant places, those buccaneers' islands and remote wave-washed ocean rocks, by which he himself is so strongly fascinated." —Spectator

Walter de la Mare (1873–1956) wrote numerous novels, short stories, essays, and poems. His Memoirs of a Midget, which won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, is also available from Paul Dry Books.

Center City Philadelphia contains a concentration and diversity of religious places unmatched by any other area of similar size in the country. Sacred Sites of Center City describes the history and architecture of these landmarks. The guide includes color photographs of each building and offers five walking tours that enable the visitor to experience the neighborhood environments in which these distinctive properties are located. Two churches located in the commercial shopping district are also included.

William Penn described the founding of the colony of Pennsylvania in 1682 as a "holy experiment." Central to that experiment was freedom of worship for all religions, something unavailable in any other part of the British Empire at that time. Penn hoped that tolerance of religious differences would lead to a society in which all individuals, of all backgrounds—including the local Native American population—would be able to live in peace and harmony. This was the second aspect of his holy experiment.

The opportunity for freedom of worship encouraged people of many different faiths to come to the Philadelphia and construct places of worship. Many early settlers were, like Penn, members of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), but Anglican, Catholic, and various Protestant churches, and Jewish synagogues quickly joined the Quaker meetinghouses. As the growth of the city moved south and then west from its original settlement in what is now called Old City, religious congregations followed, erecting larger and more sumptuous religious structures.

These buildings stand as landmarks in every section of Center City to remind us of Penn's vision.

John Andrew Gallery has been a member of Philadelphia's community development and historic preservation community for close to fifty years. From 2002 to 2013, he was Executive Director of the Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia, where he advocated for the city's historic built environment. He is the author of Philadelphia Architecture, A Guide to the City, and The Planning of Center City Philadelphia, also available from Paul Dry Books.

"A dazzling wealth of stimulating reflection and wise insight. To read Feeling Our Feelings is to relive one's own early moments of intellectual awakening, with the all the advantages of age and experience. Eva Brann proves to be a most steady and enlightening guide on an inquiry into the relation between life and thought that few have pursued so thoroughly."—Susan Shell, Department of Political Science, Boston College

In Feeling Our Feelings, Eva Brann considers what the great philosophers on the passions and feelings have thought and written about them. She examines the relevant work of Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, Aquinas, Descartes, Spinoza, Adam Smith, Hume, Kierkegaard, and Heidegger, and also includes a chapter on contemporary studies on the brain. Feeling Our Feelings provides a comprehensive look at this pervasive and elusive topic.

"'Feeling our feelings' comes from the words a little boy called Zeke said to me some thirty years ago when he was four. I was swinging him in a park in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and not doing it right. 'Swing me higher,' he said, 'I want to feel my feelings.' The phrase stuck with me; you might say it festered in my mind; it agitated questions: Why do we all want to feel our feelings, so generally that people 'not in touch' with them are thought to be in need of therapy? What feeling was swinging high inducing? Was it an exultation of the body or an exhilaration of the soul? When he wanted to be feeling his feelings, was there a difference between the general feeling, the mere consciousness of being affected, and his particular feelings, the distinguishable affects?—as, when you sing a song, there is a difference between the singing done and the song sung—or is there?"—Eva Brann, from her Preface

Eva Brann is a member of the senior faculty at St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland, where she has taught for fifty years. Brann holds an M.A. in Classics and a Ph.D. in Archaeology from Yale University. She is a 2005 recipient of the National Humanities Medal.

"Anyone interested in how language calls to language, and heart to heart, will find these pages irresistible." —The Philadelphia Inquirer

"In this quirky, resonant, and necessary book, generously edited by Stephen Berg, a wide range of American poets at all stages of their writing lives offer their poems and choose their precursors, meditating with great humility and insight on the dual mysteries of influence and mastery, on the reading that fosters writing, on the shimmering nobility of poetry itself." —Edward Hirsch, Author of How to Read a Poem

Twenty-eight distinguished contemporary American poets provide a multifaceted view of the creative process. Each poet has contributed a poem and chosen several poems by other poets that have influenced it. In an essay, each poet then describes how those influences have led to a sense of poetic mastery.

The Contributors:

• A.R. Ammons
• L.S. Asekoff
• Stephanie Brown
• Hayden Carruth
• Gillian Conoley
• Amy Gerstler
• Judith Hall
• Hunt Hawkins
• Jane Hirshfield
• Claudia Keelan
• Yusef Komunyakaa
• Lisa Lewis
• Dana Levin
• Laurence Lieberman
• Thomas Lux
• Jane Mead
• Jack Myers
• Donald Revell
• Len Roberts
• Michael Ryan
• Ira Sadoff
• Hugh Seidman
• Jennifer Snyder Gerald Stern
• Lucien Stryk
• Karen Volkman
• Ted Weiss
• Joe Wenderoth

"[A]n intimate and diverse look at the interactive processes of reading and writing: at its best, a compelling revelation of the ways in which the lifeblood of the poetic tradition seeps into the veins of the maker and is remade by this process in as much as it molds it."—Rain Taxi

"My Business is Circumference will intrigue apprentice poets, teachers, and readers fascinated by writers creatively exploring their own material and philosophical foundations."—Foreword Magazine

"The collection's abundance should last you several seasons at the very least."—The Jewish Exponent

"The younger poets male and female steal the show here; while many skirt the topic of mastery with respect to their own work, they are passionate about their influences, which range from Sei Shonagon to Walt Whitman to Sharon Olds."—Library Journal

"The poems selected are a delight. Placed with the work of the moderns they are sometimes a surprise. The juxtaposition invites the reader to puzzle out what the connection is between the two. It is a veritable Rorschach text touching on subtle and sometimes mysterious associations. The poets are generous in their description of their creative processes and revisit their first contact with the poems that inspired them, go on to share with us what touched them, what techniques influenced them and what they struggled with…With the encouragement of the editor, the poets in this book have generously offered to us their insight and art. For this they deserve a place of honor on our book shelves."—Small Press Review

Philosopher Eva Brann describes the concept of doublethink/doubletalk as "a flanking approach toward comprehending a pervasively duplex world, a world that sometimes flashes fleeting signs of covert wholeness." In this, her second collection of aphorisms and observations, Brann shines a light on our world—on "the way things are"—and she does it with characteristic wit and insight.

Eva Brann is a member of the senior faculty at St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland, where she has taught for fifty-seven years. She is a recipient of the National Humanities Medal. This is her ninth book with Paul Dry Books.

"One of our finest writers."—Annie Dillard

"What a pleasure, and how much there is to learn from this short book!" —Denise Levertov

"A deeply moving, exquisitely written book."—Washington Post Book World

"Exceptionally serene prose…leveled with sharp observation and subtle wit…neither history nor fiction , but rather a kind of reimagining of the past."—Michael Dirda, Smithsonian Magazine

"We have had many straight biographies of writers in recent years…that leave their subjects curiously diminished. Mr. McConkey's achievement…is to send the reader back to the Russian master with renewed wonder."—Harvey Shapiro, The New York Times

In 1890 Anton Chekhov—thirty years old and already a famous writer—left his home and family in Moscow to travel 6,500 miles across Russia, over frozen land and sea, by train, ferry, and troika, to visit the island of Sakhalin, a penal colony off the coast of Siberia.

What was Chekhov seeking by undertaking such a harrowing journey to that God-forsaken island? Ostensibly, he went in his role of physician, to observe the medical conditions and to collect statistical information (Indeed, Chekhov wrote that during his stay he filled out more than 10,000 census cards based on interviews with prisoners and exiles.) But his motivation, as James McConkey reflects, was more likely escape: escape from the sense of confinement that fame, fortune, and family had brought—a search, in other words, for freedom in a place where no one was free.

In To a Distant Island, McConkey recreates Chekhov's remarkable journey in all of its complexity, while interweaving a journey of his own. As McConkey guides us through the Russian wilderness and into the soul of this great writer, he uncovers the peculiar and hidden forces that shaped two lives.

"The genre in which McConkey does his best writing has no name. He invented it…What McConkey does is to create meaning out of ordinary life. He'll take a tiny incident…and by linking it through memory with a series of past events, he'll create what is not exactly a story but a pattern in time. By then the incident is no longer small; it has become the focus for a revelation…His books should be famous." —Noel Perrin, U.S.A. Today

James McConkey is the author of Crossroads, The Tree House Confessions, The Novels of E.M. Forster, and Court of Memory (a continuing biography that appeared serially in various magazines, primarily The New Yorker), and many other books. He is Goldwin Smith Professor of English Literature Emeritus at Cornell University.

Jay Parini is Axinn Professor of English at Middlebury College. He is the author of The Last Station: A Novel of Tolstoy's Last Year and Robert Frost: A Life and many other works of fiction, criticism, poetry, and biography.

"Clear, accessible, and very informative…a successful and inviting text."—Review of Metaphysics

"If only there were more books like this one! Jacob Howland's The Republic: The Odyssey of Philosophy opens up the wealth of the experience of reading Plato's Republic by carefully demonstrating how the dialogue cuts across the boundaries of philosophy and literature…[It] will be an invaluable aid to those teachers who want to introduce their students to a Plato that goes beyond the shopworn problems of Platonism."—Peter Warnek, University of Oregon

In the Republic, Plato addresses the deepest questions about the human soul and human community, the proper objects of worship and reverence, the nature of philosophy, and the relationship between the philosopher and the political community. As presented in the Republic, Socratic philosophizing is eternally unfinished, paradoxical, and ambiguous. According to Jacob Howland, this openness allows for ever-fresh approaches to the questions Plato raises.

"Jacob Howland's book is an engaging, readable, and extremely suggestive addition to the literature on Plato's magnum opus."—Ancient Philosophy

"In this concise, stimulating and provocative book Howland is in effect dealing with the central and persistent problem about the interpretation of the Republic : what is its purpose, and how do we establish what that is?"—Polis

"I know of no other book devoted to the Republic that so straightforwardly furnishes a healthy orientation to Plato's philosophic intentions. It will be of unqualified interest both to first-time students of the Republic and to their teachers. Yet it will also intrigue those looking for further, responsible light on apparently well-worn paths. A most inviting, helpful reading."—St. John's Review

Jacob Howland is McFarlin Professor of Philosophy at the University of Tulsa, where he teaches in the Honors Program as well as in philosophy. He has written and lectured on the work of Plato, Aristotle, Xenophon, and Hegel, among others. He is the author of The Paradox of Political Philosophy: Socrates' Philosophic Trial, Kierkegaard and Socrates, and Plato and the Talmud.

"The interpolations tying mathematics into human life and thought are brilliantly clear."—Booklist

"Her presentation…is conversational and humorous, and should help to simplify some complex concepts."—Kirkus

Infinity. It sounds simple…but is it? This elegant, accessible, and playful book artfully illuminates one of the most intriguing ideas in mathematics. Lillian Lieber presents an entertaining, yet thorough, explanation of the concept and cleverly connects mathematical reasoning to larger issues in society. Infinity includes a new foreword by Harvard professor Barry Mazur.

"Another excellent book for the lay reader of mathematics…In explaining [infinity], the author introduces the reader to a good many other mathematical terms and concepts that seem unintelligible in a formal text but are much less formidable when presented in the author's individual and very readable style."—Library Journal

"Mrs. Lieber, in this text illustrated by her husband, Hugh Gray Lieber, has tackled the formidable task of explaining infinity in simple terms, in short line, short sentence technique popularized by her in The Education of T.C. MITS."—Chicago Sunday Tribune

Lillian Lieber was the head of the Department of Mathematics at Long Island University. She wrote a series of lighthearted (and well-respected) math books in the 1940s, including The Einstein Theory of Relativity and The Education of T.C. MITS (also published by Paul Dry Books).

Hugh Gray Lieber was the head of the Department of Fine Arts at Long Island University. He illustrated many books written by his wife Lillian.

Barry Mazur is a mathematician and is the Gerhard Gade University Professor at Harvard University. He is the author of Imagining Numbers (particularly the square root of minus fifteen). He has won numerous honors in his field, including the Veblen Prize, Cole Prize, Steele Prize, and Chauvenet Prize.

"Cries in the New Wilderness presents a completely new view of the spiritual life of Russian society…The book is full of tragicomic tension and brings to mind the multivoiced novels of Dostoevsky."—Ilya Kabakov

Inside the disintegrating Soviet Union, a professor compiles "The New Sectarianism," a classified manual of manifestos, articles, and sermons by members of banned religious sects—from the mystical Thingwrights and the absurdist Folls to the messianic Khazarists and the doomsday Steppies. Cries in the New Wilderness is filled with the voices of these groups. As a counterpoint to this medley of comic, grotesque, poetic, banal, poignant, and harrowing voices is the voice of the commentator, Professor Gibaydulina, who struggles to maintain the objectivity of her scientific atheism in the face of an amazing variety of religious experiences. Epstein's depiction of the inner drama of Gibaydulina's response to the crumbling of the Soviet Union and her quest for a new, creative atheism adds a tragic note to his polyphonic work.

Mikhail Epstein's Cries in the New Wilderness is a work of extraordinary artistic and philosophical imagination, begun in Moscow in the mid-1980s and now available for the first time in English translation in an expanded version. Drawing on his own participation in Moscow's intellectual associations and in expeditions to study popular religious beliefs in southern Russia and Ukraine, Epstein recreates the spiritual experience of a whole Russian generation. His is not a documentary book, however, but a "comedy of ideas," in which he constructs from the voices he hears in the culture around him the religious and philosophical worldviews of Foodniks and Domesticans, Arkists and Bloodbrothers, Atheans and Good-believers, Steppies and Pushkinians.

An award-winning essayist and critic, Mikhail Epstein has been compared to Jorge Luis Borges for his literary inventiveness and to Walter Benjamin for his acute observation of cultural phenomena. Transcending genres and disciplines, Cries in the New Wilderness is a brilliantly original work, a "virtual document" that illuminates the spiritual condition of the Soviet Union as it reveals unsuspected affinities between Russian and American culture. In the mirror of Soviet society, we recognize our own enthusiasm for alternative spiritual experiences, our worship of technology, our doomsday cults. We may also recognize that we ourselves are participants in many of the sects Mikhail Epstein describes, sects that seem at first fantastic and outlandish, but prove to be the religious basis of our own lives.

"The prolific, inexhaustibly inventive Mikhail Epstein has produced a novel—almost. Cries in the New Wildnerness is fiction, but (according to Epstein's own philosophy of 'possibilism') not untrue: it has merely realized some of the vital potentials of post-atheistic Russian culture, where people thirst for a faith that can sacralize everyday practices while at the same time endorse a transcendent Whole. Whether you do Russia for a living or simply love the spectacle of dullness broken up into a thousand crazy glittering points of light, you will recognize, in reading it, a passion of your own."—Caryl Emerson, Princeton University

"Mikhail Epstein is probably the most important figure in Russian literary theory in the post-Bakhtin, post-Lotman era. What he has to say is of great interest to everyone interested in cultural studies."—Walter Laqueur, Chairman, Center for Strategic and International Studies

"Borgesian in its design, Cries in the New Wilderness is the best example of that rare genre of theological fantasy that strikes a precise equilibrium between search for God and struggle against God."—Alexander Genis, author of Red Bread

"Highly recommended"—Library Journal

"In this account of the world adventures of two splendid jazz artists, Bill Zinsser has given us one of the most exciting books about America's original art form that I've ever read. It's a revelation."—Studs Terkel

Since 1955, Dwike Mitchell and Willie Ruff have been playing, teaching, and sharing jazz around the U.S. and around the world. William Zinsser, one of our finest chroniclers of American life, tells their story as he travels with the duo to China, to Davenport, Iowa, to New York City, and—with Willie Ruff—to St. Mark's Basilica in Venice, where Ruff journeys back to the roots of Western music in order to understand jazz's musical legacy.

Zinsser also accompanies Mitchell and Ruff as they visit their hometowns in Florida and Alabama. We listen as the two men tell of growing up in small towns in the American South of the 1930s and 40s; as they tell about the teachers, community leaders, and family members who believed in two young black men with talent but no formal musical training; as they tell of their struggles, their perseverance, and their ultimate success.

Jazz is indeed a uniquely American musical tradition, and there are no better guides to this inspiring art than Dwike Mitchell and Willie Ruff.

"[This is a] thoughtful, adept, and satisfyingly unusual book of reportage…Though its contents are entirely factual, it concerns lives that give the sense of being but fatefully, imaginatively, arranged, and it constantly suggests improvisation—that is, 'something created during the process of delivery,' as Mr. Ruff explains the term to the Chinese…He also tells them improvisation is 'the lifeblood of jazz.' William Zinsser's book reminds us that improvisation is the lifeblood of life, too. [This book is also] about difficult passages that end in victorious arrival. Mitchell & Ruff is a deservedly happy book."—New York Times Book Review

"A highly infectious, Studs Terkel-like chronicle about the unorthodox development of two distinguished musicians."—Publishers Weekly

"Jazz came to China for the first time on the afternoon of June 2, 1981, when the American bassist and French-horn player Willie Ruff introduced himself and his partner, the pianist Dwike Mitchell, to several hundred students and professors who were crowded into a large room at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. Probably they were not surprised to find that the two musicians were black…What they undoubtedly didn't expect was that Ruff would talk to them in Chinese."—from Chapter 1, "Shanghai"

William Zinsser is a lifelong journalist and nonfiction writer—he began his career on the New York Herald Tribune in 1946—and is also a teacher, best known for his book On Writing Well, a companion held in affection by three generations of writers, reporters, editors, teachers, and students. His 17 other books range from memoir (Writing Places) to travel (American Places), jazz (Mitchell & Ruff), American popular song (Easy to Remember), baseball (Spring Training) and the craft of writing (Writing to Learn). During the 1970s he was at Yale University, where he was master of Branford College and taught the influential nonfiction workshop that would start many writers and editors on their careers. He has taught at the New School, in New York, his hometown, and at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

Albert Murray is a cultural critic, biographer, essayist, and novelist. He has taught at several colleges, including Colgate, Barnard, and Tuskegee. Mr. Murray's works include The Omni-Americans, South to a Very Old Place, Train Whistle Guitar, The Blue Devils of Nada, and The Seven League Boots.

"If you like Hank, you'll like Wilder Good, too."—John R. Erickson, author of Hank the Cowdog

"I am a big fan of this series. Last fall I included The Elk Hunt in my list of favorite books of 2013, and Texas Grit is every bit as insightful and positive as the first one."—Glenn Dromgoole

"Dahlstrom writes about ranch life with flair and specific detail."—WORLD magazine

Will Rogers Medallion Gold Medal Winner - 2015

In Texas Grit, Wilder spends a week in West Texas at his grandfather's ranch, while his mother and father travel to Denver to see her doctors.

Wilder finds it hard to leave his parents. Papa Milam is a cowboy, gruff and sometimes a bit intimidating, yet grandfather and grandson care for each other very much—and find they actually have lots to learn from each other, too.

Wilder works cattle on horseback and explores the rough ranch country with Papa. One night they start out to hunt for whitetail deer in the cottonwood bottoms but end up encountering a rattlesnake instead. A few days later, four cowboys arrive at the ranch to help with the branding of Papa's new calves. Wilder gets the opportunity to join the crew and takes his place alongside the grown men in the strenuous and sometimes dangerous work of herding, roping, and branding.

Wilder does a lot of growing up over the week, and together he and Papa experience the kind of adventures that only a place like Texas can provide.

S. J. Dahlstrom lives and writes in west Texas. He has numerous magazine credits for his writing and photography. The Adventures of Wilder Good is his first series. His writing draws on his experiences as a cowboy, husband, father, and founder of a boys' ranch.

"Juliet Capulet would find a worthy BFF in Beatrice Bunson."—Cordelia Frances Biddle, author of the Martha Beale mystery series

"Cohen has made an essential classic cool."—Beth Kephart, author of Going Over

High school begins, and to Beatrice Bunson nothing is the same, not even her best friend, Nan. The "new" Nan doesn't hang out with Bea; she's running for Student Council and going to parties and avoiding Bea at lunchtime. The boys who were gross in middle school have become surprisingly polite, while the "cool" kids are still a mystery. Bea's older sister, meanwhile, acts like she's living in a soap opera.

On the bright side, there's English class with Mr. Martin, where Beatrice discovers that Shakespeare has something to say about almost everything—and that nothing in life is as dramatic as Romeo and Juliet.

But when Nan gets in over her head in her new social life, it's up to Beatrice to restore her reputation—and she may need to make a few new friends to pull it off. One of them, the slightly brainy guy that Beatrice meets at her grandmother's retirement home, is definitely kind of cute, and probably dateable. (Fortunately, nothing is the same in high school.)

As Beatrice and her classmates tackle Romeo and Juliet, they unveil the subtleties of the play as well as broader lessons of love, family, honor, and misunderstandings. Guided by Mr. Martin, these ninth-graders help us to understand Shakespeare, as Shakespeare helps them begin to understand themselves.

"Warning to teachers of high school Shakespeare classes: be prepared to revise your lesson plan."—Gillian Murray Kendall, Smith College

"Ideal for those who are charmed by the romance of Shakespeare. And who isn't?"—Kirkus Reviews

"Teens shouldn't be without a copy of this sparkling novel."—Foreword Reviews

"An entertaining work for those who enjoy quick reads with realistic characters. For fans of Meg Cabot's books"—School Library Journal

"A deftly crafted novel...highly recommended addition to both high school and community library YA Fiction collections."—Midwest Book Review

Paula Marantz Cohen's novels include Suzanne Davis Gets a Life (Paul Dry Books 2014), Jane Austen in Scarsdale or Love, Death and the SATs, and What Alice Knew. She teaches English at Drexel University.

"A work of astonishing illumination and delight . . . so edgy, bright and subversive about women's inner lives and experience."—Francine Prose, New York Times Book Review

"The subtlety of James, the comedy of Spark, the penetrating—and the deep, unflinching—eye of Jane Austen."—Kirkus Reviews

*A New York Times Notable Book*

In The Summer House trilogy, three very different women, with three very distinct perspectives, narrate three very witty novels concerning one disastrous wedding in the offing.

The Clothes in the Wardrobe: Nineteen-year-old Margaret feels more trepidation than joy at the prospect of her marriage to forty-year-old Syl.

The Skeleton in the Cupboard: Syl’s mother, Mrs. Monro, doesn’t know quite what to make of her son’s life, but she knows Margaret should not marry him.

The Fly in the Ointment: And then there’s Lili, the free spirit who is determined that the wedding shall not happen, no matter the consequences.

"The psychiatrist's insight and the storyteller's skill offer an absorbing tale."—Elie Wiesel

"A book to read again and again with the same piety with which it has been written. A rare event in publishing: at once an accurate and documented historical study, and in the interpretation made by one of today's greatest psychologists of a strange and symbolic disease."—Primo Levi

The Parnas recreates the final days of Giuseppe Pardo Roques, the lay leader, or parnas, of the Sephardic Jewish community of Pisa, Italy, who was killed in his home by the Nazis in August, 1944. Pardo was a mentor to the author, and, indeed, he was a figure adored and celebrated not only by the Jews of Pisa but by the Christians as well. He was learned and generous, but he was also profoundly phobic. Animals terrified him: so much so that he almost never left his house—except to go to the synagogue—for fear of encountering stray dogs or cats. At the outbreak of World War II, Arieti fled to America where he became a renown psychiatrist. But the parnas, despite a wealth of connections that could have helped him escape, was too phobic to flee Pisa. On the morning of August 1, 1944, Nazi soldiers, searching for Pardo's fabled riches, entered his home. The soldiers found neither gold nor silver, but they did find the parnas, along with six fellow Jews whom he was sheltering and five Christian neighbors. All were murdered. In The Parnas, Arieti imagines what took place in the home, and in the mind, of this devout, kindly, and tormented man in the last days of his life, providing, in the process, an overview of Italian Jewry. Arieti hopes to show "that tragic times have a perfume of their own, and smiles of hope, and traces of charm, and offer olive branches and late warnings that may not be too late."

"This is one of the most extraordinary stories yet to reach us from the bitter ashes of Nazism…Dr. Arieti weaves his story so beautifully that to unravel it would mean losing its dramatic effect. Suffice it to say that God, Jews, Christians, fascism, cowardice, and bravery are discussed throughout the story in such a way that the reader is at once shaken and enlightened as the plot unfolds. It is like a parable, suffused with the dignity of both the parnas and the author…a work of art."—New York Times Book Review

From the Foreword by Rabbi Harold S. Kushner: "In this brief, deceptively simple narrative, Arieti has told the story of Giuseppe Pardo, parnas (lay leader) of his native community of Pisa, and of his death at the hands of the Nazis. Pardo was the leading citizen of a small Jewish community that produced more that its share of distinguished Jews. He was a learned man, familiar with Bible, Talmud, and secular subjects. He was a wealthy man, and charitable to Jew and non-Jew alike. (He ultimately met his death together with six fellow Jews and five gentiles who had sought the protection of his home.) And he was a profoundly neurotic man, who had an irrational fear of animals, especially dogs. When he walked in the streets of Pisa—which was not often because of his fears—he would swing a cane from side to side behind him to drive away the imaginary animals. The distinguished psychiatrist tells of his strange life and equally strange death."

“In this extraordinary meditation, Eva Brann takes us to the fierce core of Heraclitus's vision and shows us the music of his language. The thought and beautiful prose in The Logos of Heraclitus are a delight.”—Barry Mazur, Harvard University

“An engaged solitary, an inward-turned observer of the world, inventor of the first of philosophical genres, the thought-compacted aphorism,” “teasingly obscure in reputation, but hard-hittingly clear in fact,” “now tersely mordant, now generously humane.”

Thus Eva Brann introduces Heraclitus—in her view, the West’s first philosopher.

The collected work of Heraclitus comprises 131 passages. Eva Brann sets out to understand Heraclitus as he is found in these passages and particularly in his key word, Logos, the order that is the cosmos.

“Whoever is captivated by the revelatory riddlings and brilliant obscurities of what remains of Heraclitus has to begin anew—accepting help, to be sure, from previous readings—in a spirit of receptivity and reserve. But essentially everyone must pester the supposed obscurantist until he opens up. Heraclitus is no less and no more pregnantly dark than an oracle…The upshot is that no interpretation has prevailed; every question is wide open.”

Eva Brann is a member of the senior faculty at St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland, where she has taught for fifty-seven years. She is a recipient of the National Humanities Medal. Her other books include Then and Now, Un-Willing, Feeling Our Feelings, Homage to Americans, Open Secrets / Inward Prospects, The Music of the Republic, and Homeric Moments (all published by Paul Dry Books).

"Frighteningly fascinating."—Booklist

"Gripping stories, filled with details that are in equal part delicious and disgusting, but always fascinating."—Lisa Sanders, MD, author of Every Patient Tells a Story and the New York Times Magazine "Diagnosis" column

“To reproduce promiscuously and to wreak havoc wherever they can find a home,” this is the sole raison d'être of viruses writes Dr. Warren Andiman, an HIV/AIDS researcher who has been on the front lines battling infectious diseases for over forty years. In Animal Viruses and Humans: A Narrow Divide, Andiman traces the history of eight zoonotic viruses —deadly microbes that have made the leap directly from animals to human populations: Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), Swine influenza, Hantavirus, Monkeypox, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), Rabies, Ebola, and Henipaviruses (Nipah and Hendra). He also illustrates the labor intensive and fascinating detective work that infectious disease specialists must do to uncover the source of an outbreak.

Andiman also looks to the future, envisioning the effects on zoonoses (diseases caused by zoonotic viruses) of climate change, microenvironmental damage, population shifts, and globalization. He reveals the steps that we can, and must, take to stem the spread of animal viruses, explaining, “The zoonoses I've chosen to write about . . . are meant to describe only a small sample of what is already out there but, more menacingly, what is inevitably on its way, in forms we can only imagine.”

Warren Andiman, MD is professor emeritus of pediatrics and epidemiology at the Yale Schools of Medicine and Public Health.

In 14th-century England, Stephen de Beauville dreams of becoming a knight—not a promising ambition for a contemplative boy with a talent for drawing. Quiet and solitary, Stephen must endure the bitter torments of his brothers and cousins until he finds his first true friend; through that friendship Stephen gains courage to endure the lack of kindness in his life. But believing that Stephen will never possess the valor to be a knight, his father abruptly sends him away to spend the rest of his life in a monastery.

After a harsh apprenticeship in the monastery, Stephen realizes he must flee its confines. In a twist of fortune, he becomes squire to a wise knight and then attains knighthood himself. The death of his own young squire causes the twenty-six-year-old Stephen to re-examine his ambitions. In doing so, he makes an important discovery: His journey through dangerous times has instilled in him the strength and self-confidence to find his true place in the world. One is One portrays a man ready to heed his mentor's maxim: "Do not be afraid to do what you want to do."

Several of Barbara Leonie Picard’s many books, including One Is One, have been shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal, Britain’s oldest children’s book award.

Praise for One Is One and Barbara Leonie Picard:

"Her narratives have the ring of tales told by skald and bard, and her choice of words would fill great halls. Her literary fairy tales are lushly romantic, with poetic language and an almost other-worldly knowledge that informs and enriches them. Open one of her books and read it aloud. See how her words will still echo in the storytelling rooms and libraries that have become our great halls."—Janice M. Del Negro

"In One is One …there is a large cast of entirely credible characters and a good contrast is pointed between fourteenth-century courtly and monastic life. The strength of this book derives from its concern with important themes—loneliness, loyalty, courage and love; above all, self-knowledge."—The Spectator

"Miss Picard has been bold in choosing for her hero a weakling and a coward. The final resolution of Stephen's doubts, though not unexpected, is most beautifully handled."—The Times Literary Supplement

Barbara Leonie Picard (1917–2011) was the author of over twenty-five books, all of which have received praise for the mature and thought-provoking fare they offer young readers. Her first book was published in 1949. Her works include five historical novels for young adults, many retellings of myths and epics—including the Odyssey and the Iliad, the story of King Arthur, and legends of the Norse gods—and collections of fairy tales. Several of her books have been shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal, the oldest children's book award in the UK. Paul Dry Books also publishes Picard's book Ransom for a Knight.

"A compelling thriller."—Los Angeles Times

"Zift is like a flaming shot of rotgut smuggled in from the old country…Vladislav Todorov adroitly uses the American genre of noir to excoriate the political villains of his homeland's past…Zift is gritty and brisk."—Matt Jakubowski, City Paper

"Todorov's raw, hard-boiled parody takes dead aim at noir and leaves it gasping for breath."—Michael Pinker, Review of Contemporary Fiction

December 21, 1963: Having served 20 years for a murder he didn't commit, "Moth" exits Central Sofia Prison anticipating his first night of freedom. Instead he steps into a new and alien world—the nightmarish totalitarianism of Communist Bulgaria. In his first hours of freedom he traverses the map of a diabolical city, full of decaying neighborhoods, gloomy streets, and a bizarre parade of characters.

A novel of grave wit, Zift unfolds in the course of a single, frenetic night, offering a fast-paced, ghoulish, even grotesque—but also enchanting—tour of shadowy, socialist Sofia. To achieve his depiction of totalitarian absurdity, Vladislav Todorov combines the methods of hardboiled American crime fiction and film noir with socialist symbols and communist ideological clichés.

"Todorov was obviously raised on a steady diet of American noir, and it shows in the pacing, the language, and the shadowy depths of every alleyway, every street corner."—Jessa Crispin

"…stalking its genre with the meticulousness of an assassin, while simultaneously parodying it. A novel that unfolds over a single night, in a single breath—and also reads that way…a black-and-white cinematographic vision of early-1960s Sofia by Night."—Georgi Gospodinov, author of Natural Novel

"The novel interweaves the key tropes of Soviet socialist realism and American hard-boiled detective fiction to produce a richly intertextual portrayal of a nightmarish—yet comical—Bulgarian communist society in late 1963."—Three Percent

"Pulp fiction by a historian of ideas."—Literary Weekly

"Tongue flambé."—Kultura

"Zift is a play on the pulp noir genre, in book and film, and Todorov has fun playing it to the hilt."—The Complete Review

"Zift is part noir, part crime story, part social satire, part black comedy (extremely black), part absurdist fairy tale."—BiblioBuffet

Zift, Vladislav Todorov's debut novel, was a finalist for the 2007 Vick Prize as Bulgarian Novel of the Year and a nominee for the Elias Canetti National Literary Prize. Todorov also wrote the screenplay for the 2008 film version of Zift. Variety hailed the movie as "an instant midnight fest fave." Todorov teaches film and literature at the University of Pennsylvania.

Joseph Benatov holds a BA and an MA from Sofia University and a PhD in comparative literature from the University of Pennsylvania, where he currently teaches.

"One of the great books of the Second World War"—Antony Beevor

"Hide and Seek, first published in 1954 and unavailable for many years, is surely among the best wartime memoirs. It is narrated in a vivid close-up style…by a man who spent two years in caves and other hideouts in the White Mountains, venturing to the coast only to guide a supply submarine with flashing torch, or to smuggle endangered or exhausted colleagues to safety in Cairo…It is remarkable that he lived to tell the tale; that he does so with such modesty, grace and humour is extraordinary."—James Campbell, Times Literary Supplement

"Xan Fielding was a gifted, many-sided, courageous and romantic figure, at the same time civilized and Bohemian, and his thoughtful cast of mind was leavened by humour, spontaneous gaiety, and a dash of recklessness. Almost any stretch of his life might be described as a picaresque interlude."—Patrick Leigh Fermor

In January 1942, Xan Fielding landed on German-occupied Crete with orders to disrupt the resupply of Rommel's Afrika Korps and establish an intelligence network in cooperation with the Cretan resistance movement. Working with bands of Cretan partisans, he succeeded magnificently. In this memoir of his wartime exploits, Fielding presents a portrait of the quintessential English operative—amateur, gifted, daring, and charming.

From the new foreword by Robert Messenger:

"Hide and Seek is a classic of British war literature, an understated account of a man's coming-of-age thanks to the sudden shouldering of great responsibility. Fielding is deprecating about the dangers and his own achievements. It is typical of the quiet and reticent man who preferred to live outside the limelight and wrote matter-of-factly about the war rather than with a gloss of adventure or heroism. There's a scene, late in 1943, when Fielding and a group of partisans study the German's list of 'wanted' men. He notes 'with regrettable but only human pride that the entry under my local pseudonym, which outlined in detail my physical characteristics, aliases and activities for a period of eighteen months, took no less than three-quarters of an octavo page in closely-set small-point type.' The Germans had surely measured his worth."

Xan Fielding (1918–1991) was a British writer and traveler, and a lifelong friend of Patrick Leigh Fermor, who served with him in Crete during World War II. (The introduction to Fermor's A Time of Gifts is written as a "Letter to Xan Fielding.") Fielding also translated many novels from French, most notably, The Bridge on the River Kwai and The Planet of the Apes.

Robert Messenger is the books editor of the Wall Street Journal.

"Where does happiness lie?" "What is the best life?" Aristotle ponders these abiding questions in his Nicomachean Ethics—a work which has profoundly influenced Western thinking on ethical matters. A book of apparent obviousness, the Ethics possesses a depth and complexity that a reader at first may overlook or not grasp. In his study, In Pursuit of the Good, Eric Salem guides and deepens the reader's understanding of Aristotle’s masterpiece, thus helping him to decide what the Good Life should be.

The choice for Aristotle is between the life of action and the life of contemplation. Salem writes that for Aristotle:

Happiness does not lie in the enjoyment of bodily pleasures, in the "childish amusement" so prized by most men, including "those in power." Nor does it lie in the exercise of the moral virtues; although Aristotle is careful to say that the happy man will practice the moral virtues as occasion dictates, the life of action is not, it seems, the happy life. Happiness rather lies in contemplation, in knowing, in "seeing" for its own sake; happiness is the activity of the intellect in accordance with wisdom.

Eric Salem has taught at St. John's College in Annapolis since 1990. He collaborated with Peter Kalkavage and Eva Brann on translations of Plato's Sophist and Phaedo. They are currently working on the Statesman.

Boston Boy is Nat Hentoff's memoir of growing up in the Roxbury section of Boston in the 1930s and 1940s. He grapples with Judaism and anti-Semitism. He develops a passion for outspoken journalism and First Amendment freedom of speech. And he discovers his love of jazz music as he follows, and is befriended by, the great jazz musicians of the day, including Duke Ellington and Lester Young among others.

"This memoir of [Hentoff's] youth should be appreciated not only by adults who grew up through the fires of their own youthful rebellion, but by those restless young people who are now bringing their own views and questions to the world they are inheriting. They could learn from this example that rebels can be gentle as well as enraged and compassionate in their commitment."—New York Times Book Review

"Nat Hentoff knows jazz. And it comes alive in this wonderful, touching memoir."—Ken Burns, creator of the PBS series Jazz

"[A] charmingly bittersweet memoir."—Boston Globe

"This is a touching book about a painful, wonderful time in Boston…I loved it."—Anthony Lewis

Nat Hentoff was born in Boston in 1925 and lived there until he moved to New York City at the age of twenty-eight. For many years he has written a weekly column for the Village Voice. His column for the Washington Times is syndicated in 250 newspapers, and he writes regularly about music for the Wall Street Journal. For twenty-five years, he was a staff writer for the New Yorker and for many years was a columnist for the Washington Post. His numerous books cover subjects ranging from jazz music and musicians to civil rights and civil liberties, on which he is a recognized authority. He was jazz critic at Down Beat and has written liner notes for many important jazz recordings. His work has won him honors not only from the music industry, but also from the American Bar Association and the American Library Association.

"Two extraordinarily talented journalists, Michael Vitez and Tom Gralish, have captured this uniquely American phenomenon with whimsy, poignancy, and utter charm."—John Grogan, author of Marley & Me

"Rocky Stories captures the sprawling complexity of life. It's a delight."—Mark Bowden, author of Black Hawk Down

"A book that is an absolute joy and an absolute blast and quintessentially American in its hopes and dreams and sweetness."—Buzz Bissinger, author of Friday Night Lights and A Prayer for the City

Pulitzer Prize-winners Michael Vitez and Tom Gralish of the Philadelphia Inquirer spent a year visiting the Philadelphia Museum of Art to capture the stories of "Rocky runners," who come from all over the world to run up America's most famous steps—just as Sylvester Stallone did in Rocky. People make the pilgrimage to mark a new beginning, to seek inspiration, to celebrate an accomplishment, to find the perfect backdrop for romance, or simply because they love the movie. As one runner says, "It gives you the feeling that anything is possible."

The authors have uncovered an enduring cultural phenomenon, one that centers on Philadelphia, and yet, as Michael Vitez writes in his introduction, is a true American, and even international, rite of passage.

The book includes fifty-two profiles and one hundred color photographs, together with a foreword by Sylvester Stallone, and interviews with Rocky's Academy Award-winning director John G. Avildsen, composer Bill Conti, and cameraman Garrett Brown.

In his foreword, Sylvester Stallone sums up his thoughts on the phenomenon: "You can't borrow Superman's cape. You can't use the Jedi laser sword. But the steps are there. The steps are accessible. And standing up there, you kind of have a piece of the Rocky pie."

"[C]harming photo essay of people who retraced Rocky's steps and felt their own exhilaration doing it."—San Francisco Chronicle

"The extent to which the Rocky myth—that of the perennial loser who proves he's 'not just another bum from the neighborhood'—has resonated is documented in this winning book."—Sports Illustrated

"I've only skimmed it, and already I'm in love with the book Rocky Stories. (It had me at the title.)…It may sound like a movie tie-in, but it's not. It's just a fascinating testament to how the words 'Rocky' and 'underdog' are still interchangeable 30 years after the film's release."—Entertainment Weekly's PopWatch column

"The Rocky steps have become a special place for tourists and Philadelphians alike. Virtually everyone who lives here or comes here wants to say that they ran up the Rocky steps and saw the incredible view down the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. When I was Mayor, the city planned 24 hours of millennium celebrations, one each hour. Of course we had to kick it off at the Rocky steps and we did so with 2,000 people all dressed like Rocky running up the steps at the same time. It was awesome."—Former Pennsylvania Governor Edward G. Rendell

Michael Vitez has been a staff writer at the Philadelphia Inquirer since 1985. For his series on end-of-life issues, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Journalism.

Tom Gralish has been at the Philadelphia Inquirer since 1983, working as both an editor and photographer. For his photo essay on the homeless, he won both the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography and the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award.

In Teaching Particulars, Helaine Smith engages her students, grammar school through twelfth grade—and any avid reader—in the questions that great literature evokes. Included are chapters on Homer and Genesis; plays by Sophocles, Shakespeare, and Beckett; poems by Jonson, Donne, Coleridge, Browning, Hopkins, Yeats, Bishop, Hecht, Dove, and Lowell; essays by Baldwin, Lamb, and White; and fiction by Flannery O’Connor, Dickens, Joyce, Poe, Tolstoy, Mann, and Kafka. Whether Helaine Smith is talking to young or older students, she shows how any devoted reader can uncover all sorts of subtle beauty and meaning by reading closely and by assuming that virtually every word and phrase of a great text is deliberate. The question-and-answer form of these jargon-free dialogues creates the feeling of a vibrant classroom where learning and delight are the watchwords.

“After her forty years of teaching, Smith’s keen understanding of the literary canon makes her the perfect candidate to write this humorous and insightful book." —Foreword Reviews

“Teaching Particulars is an exemplary series of literary conversations by a master teacher on a great variety of important, life-shaping books. The guidance is unfailingly humane, the essays thoughtfully presented by someone who cares as much for the written word as she does about her classroom and her subject matter. Her commentary on Hecht’s ‘Rites and Ceremonies,’ the poet’s complex response to Eliot’s ‘The Waste Land,’ ranks among the very best anywhere, as is true for her reading of Hecht’s ‘Devotions of a Painter,’ which has the further advantage of illuminating that work in light of Elizabeth Bishop’s profound meditation on painting in her ‘Poem.’ Reading Teaching Particulars makes me wish that all of my students could have had Helaine Smith as their teacher.” —Jonathan F. S. Post, Distinguished Professor of English and former Chair of the Department, UCLA

“There’s simply nothing else like Teaching Particulars, a book packed with so much wisdom and practical advice about teaching literature that every instructor of grades 6 to 12—and of college classes, too—will want to get a copy right now. Even if you’re not a teacher, I highly recommend it. The love of books pulses through every page Helaine Smith writes, and her passion is infectious. She opens our eyes to the pleasures of reading in a way that few critics can, and she does it all in a book whose style is both elegant and friendly.” —David Mikics, John and Rebecca Moores Professor of English, University of Houston, and author of Slow Reading in a Hurried Age

“Teaching Particulars…is a bounteous resource for all teachers, as well as a pleasure just to curl up with and read away.” —Susan J. Wolfson, Professor of English, Princeton University

“Helaine Smith is a genius of a teacher: witty, imaginative, precise, intuitive, and gracefully learned. Now anyone who opens her Teaching Particulars can have the rare privilege of learning from her how to read, in the truest sense. It’s never too late to be startled into delight by the power of language, and that is the experience offered on every page of this book. It’s a book not only for the schoolroom, but for the school of life.” —Rosanna Warren, Hanna Holborn Gray Distinguished Service Professor, The Committee on Social Thought, The University of Chicago

For forty years, Helaine L. Smith has taught English to grades 6 through 12 at Hunter College High School and at The Brearley School in Manhattan.

"One of the great and lasting books about Greece."—Patrick Leigh Fermor

"An intense and compelling account of an educated, sensitive archaeologist wandering the back country during the civil war. Half a century on, still one of the best books on Greece as it was before 'development.'"—The Rough Guide to the Greek Islands

"He also is in love with the country…but he sees the other side of that dazzling medal or moon…If you want some truth about Greece, here it is."—Louis MacNeice, The Observer

"One of the best and most honest books about the modern Greeks."—E. R. Dodds

"Kevin Andrews experienced the dangers of the countryside during the civil war. The Flight of Ikaros, the book he produced from his travels, remains not only one of the greatest we have about postwar Greece—memorializing a village culture that has almost vanished—but also one of the most moving accounts I have ever read of people caught up in political turmoil…Flight was first published in 1959 and last reprinted by Penguin in 1984. For too many years, this rare account has languished out of print."—Wall Street Journal

In 1947, at the age of twenty-three, Kevin Andrews received a Fulbright Fellowship to study medieval fortresses in the Peloponnese. Andrews spent the long summers of 1948 to 1951 traveling through the region and the winters writing in Athens. This opportunity to travel through little-frequented areas during Greece’s postwar civil war—and before the advent of tourism, industrialization, or easy communications—brought Andrews into immediate contact with village populations, shepherd clans, and the paramilitary vigilantes who kept their own kind of order in the provinces, as well as with the displaced peasants of the Athenian slums. The close experience of all these lives took shape in The Flight of Ikaros, first published in 1959. Paul Dry Books is pleased to return to print this modern travel classic.

Kevin Andrews (1924–1989) was a writer and archaeologist. After serving in the U.S. Army during World War II, he attended Harvard University and then traveled to Greece on a Fulbright fellowship. In addition to The Flight of Ikaros, he wrote many other books about Greece, where he became a citizen in 1975.

James Rahn has led the Rittenhouse Writers' Group since he founded it in 1988, making it one of America's longest-running independent fiction workshops. Hundreds of writers and would-be writers have sought out the group for its remarkable level of instruction and collaboration. Rittenhouse Writers is Rahn's memoir of the workshop and how his own evolution as both a teacher and a writer—and as a son, husband, and (somewhat reluctant) father—has been intertwined with the establishment and growth of the RWG. In addition, Rahn includes ten short stories written by current and former members of the workshop.

Rahn graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and earned an MFA at Columbia. He then began to imagine a future that included more than just writing, one that would also tap his aspiration to offer other writers support and motivation, tough but gentle—his self-described "Iron Fist in the Velvet Glove" approach. After all, as he says more than once, "Writing is hard."

Over the years, James Rahn has witnessed every imaginable writing-group scenario, from awkward flirtations to suicide scares, catty critiques, near fistfights, and of course the satisfaction of watching someone's writing soar. With insight gained through years of observation and participation, and a discerning eye for amusing detail, he takes us along for the journey. Rahn's struggle to perfect his role as instructor runs throughout the narrative, as does his effort to balance that role with the friendships he forms in the group, and to keep up with his own writing while still giving the group the attention it needs to flourish. Through his eyes, we catch the spark of the workshop's spirit and get to meet various spirits who have invigorated Rittenhouse Writers' Group.

Rahn cuts back and forth, reflecting, not only on the workshop, but also on his days as a high school dropout in Atlantic City, dead-end jobs and hopeless moves, the difficulty of his mother's decline and death, and his own unexpected plunge into parenthood—when, at age 51, he and his wife took on the responsibility of raising her two young nieces.

His memoir serves, in a way, as an introduction to the short stories that follow; and the stories—as surprising and varied as the writers Rahn describes working with—stand as a fitting coda to Rahn's tale and offer another window onto his life's work.

"James Rahn, Jersey boy and Philadelphia treasure, has written a moving and insightful book about what happens when you create something vibrant and necessary and stick around for the long haul, whether it's teaching, writing, friendships, or love. The answers aren't always simple, and Rahn explores them with the same gusto, honesty, wry humor, and generosity of spirit he brings to his fiction and his famous workshops. This book is a powerful reminder of the importance of community and mentorship in the making of literature."—Sam Lipsyte

The 10 short stories included in Rittenhouse Writers:

"On Fire" by Gwen Florio

"Mother—6/7 Months" by Romnesh Lamba

"Moon Penitent" by Diane McKinney-Whetstone

"The Last Confession" by Tom Teti

"Ivory Is Wrong About Me" by Caren Litvin

"The Conference Rat" by Samantha Gillison

"Dropping a Line into the Murky Chop" by Saral Waldorf

"What She Missed" by Lisa Paparone

"Kingdom of the Sun" by Alice Schell

"The Letters of Hon. Crawford G. Bolton III" by Daniel R. Biddle

James Rahn has published stories in many literary magazines, taught for fifteen years at the University of Pennsylvania, and has an MFA in Writing from Columbia University. His first novel, Bloodnight, was published in 2012.

"A delightful book."—New York Times

"I have studied with pleasure [this] new book…Beautiful examples…Illuminating. I am convinced that [Lieber's] original enterprise will get the recognition it so richly deserves."—Albert Einstein

"The Liebers have written an ingenious, entertaining, and illuminating book."—Saturday Review of Literature

"The book should be 'required reading' especially for non-mathematicians."—E.T. Bell, author of The Development of Mathematics

First published in 1942, this whimsical exploration of how to think in a mathematical mood continues to delight math-lovers of all ages.

Do you know that two times two is not always four; that the sum of the angles in a triangle does not always equal 180°; that sometimes it is possible to draw two parallel lines through the same point? InThe Education of T. C. MITS, Lillian Lieber opens the door to the wonder of mathematical thinking and its application to everyday life. Lieber uses simple language and fanciful illustrations drawn by her husband, Hugh, to present fundamental mathematical concepts with a deft touch.

The new foreword by Harvard University mathematics professor Barry Mazur is a tribute to the Liebers' influence on generations of mathematicians.

Lillian Lieber was the head of the Department of Mathematics at Long Island University. She wrote a series of lighthearted (and well-respected) math books in the 1940s, including The Einstein Theory of Relativity, Infinity, and Mits, Wits & Logic.

Hugh Gray Lieber was the head of the Department of Fine Arts at Long Island University. He illustrated many books written by his wife Lillian.

Barry Mazur Barry Mazur is a mathematician and is the Gerhard Gade University Professor at Harvard University. He is the author of Imagining Numbers (particularly the square root of minus fifteen). He has won numerous honors in his field, including the Veblen Prize, Cole Prize, Steele Prize, and Chauvenet Prize.

"The happiness of childhood is the Golden Age, and the recollection of it has power to move the old man's heart with pleasure and with pain. Happy the man who once possessed it and is able to recall the memory of it in later years!"

Thus Sergei Aksakov recalls the "magic world" of youth, as he portrays the delights and tumults of Russian country life at the turn of the 18th century.

In 1856 at the age of 64, Aksakov sat down to write the story of his long-ago student life. A Russian Schoolboy is the result. As the older man thinks back to that time more than fifty years earlier, unbidden memories come to him, some painful and others sweet. Under the spell of Aksakov's writing, we can imagine we are listening to the child himself as he suffers the anguished separation from his mother or thrills to his developing capacities as a student. We grow fond of the boy and dearly appreciate the man—and because these two happily share the stage, A Russian Schoolboy will please readers of all ages.

Acclaimed for his realistic prose, Sergei Aksakov (1791–1859) captured the essence of Russian life in his trilogy of reminiscences—A Russian Gentleman, Years of Childhood, and A Russian Schoolboy. He also wrote literary sketches, and appreciations of hunting and fishing. Nikolai Gogol, a friend and correspondent, once wrote to Aksakov: "Your birds and fishes are more real than my men and women."

"Joe Sachs's translation brings the reader quickly and deeply into The Odyssey."—Nickolas Pappas

This new translation powerfully presents The Odyssey with a modern clarity that suits the vigorous narrative of Odysseus's perilous ten-year voyage home to Ithaca. Joe Sachs, whose translations are known for being faithful to the original Greek, brings new layers of depth, understanding, and interest to the epic.

"I have never met a translation of The Odyssey I didn't like." Thus Joe Sachs invites us to partake in his new rendering of Homer's epic.

"The poem appears in as many guises as Odysseus himself…There is so much power and grace in Homer's poetry that a reader responsive to a few partial strands of it can find in them a wholly satisfying experience and every translator whose work I have read has detected and magnified something in the original that I had not found by other means…Any newly encountered translation of a poem is an opportunity to participate in a fresh reading through a new pair of eyes, and while those readings cannot all be taken in at one view, each one adds something to the sight that occupies the foreground at any moment. It is not because a new translation is needed that I now offer this one, but because every new translation is a contribution that enhances the self-revelation of a poem of boundless variety…The friction of one translation against another can be the quickest way for a path to light up for a reader's own entry into the work. And this invitation to use the available translations not as rivals but in partnership gives license to any single translator to sacrifice part of the meaning and weight of any word or phrase to capture more effectively whatever seems to matter most in it…There comes a point when your best recourse is to rely on no one's judgment but your own, to confront the intelligence, imagination, and heart we know as Homer on your own, and to join the fun."—from the Introduction by Joe Sachs

"The transparent, natural language of Joe Sachs's translation brings the reader quickly and deeply into The Odyssey. Behind that language, both intimate and clear, we sense his sure feel for The Odyssey's people and places. And as much as the scenes of the poem vary, and the language with them, we detect the idea of The Odyssey that Sachs articulates in his valuable afterword: that Homer can begin his story in the middle of things because we are always in the midst of The Odyssey's action no matter where we start reading—because the poem's sub­ject is the discovery of what is essentially human, a discovery that humans are always, wonderingly, in the middle of."—Nickolas Pappas, Professor of Philosophy at City College and the Graduate Center, CUNY

"Joe Sachs’s translation of Aristotle's Poetics is to me the most vibrant version of a well-thumbed text that is still the screenwriter's bible. So I am not surprised that he brings the same freshness to the world’s greatest long-voyage-home-to-a-lost-love story. This Odyssey is exciting reading for the general reader and essential reading for teachers and students who can now 'hear' how Homer’s epic might have been heard by listeners in times past. Let's hope Joe Sachs is now working on the Iliad."—Eoghan Harris, Irish National Film School (Dun Laoghaire Institute)

Joe Sachs taught for thirty years in the Great Books program at St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland. He has translated numerous works by Aristotle and Plato.

"Children of all ages will delight in its song and story." —Charles Martin, author of Signs & Wonders

"Davey McGravy, Davey McGravy,
a name to conjure with,
to dream with by the cedar trees
out in the rainy woods."

In a misty, faraway-feeling "land of rain," Davey McGravy lives with his father and brothers, but mourns his missing mother. He follows the rhymes in his head into a forest of ferns, moss, and cedar trees where he meets animals wise and strange. A coaxing crow urges him onwards. A consoling peacock tells him that nothing is really lost. A fierce lioness frightens him. Following their voices, Davey travels deeper and deeper into the mysterious woods. Then he must find his way home, to a father who is sad but loving, and brothers who care for him no matter how they fight.

Caught between his forest-world and the world of school, shopping, and family life, Davey wanders his way through grief. With playful and evocative verse, poet David Mason delivers him back to his boyhood but leaves the mysteries of love intact. Full of humor and melancholy, Davey McGravy movingly captures the longing of a child for his lost mother.

"Across a series of poems, accompanied by early-Sendakesque etchings by artist Grant Silverstein, we meet a little boy named Davey McGravy living in the tall-treed forest with his father and brothers. A few tender verses in, we realize that Davey is caught in the mire of mourning his mother. Without invalidating the deep melancholy that has set in, Mason makes room for the mystery of life and death, inviting in the miraculous immortality of love…Only a rare poet can merge the reverence of Thoreau with the irreverence of Zorba the Greek to create something wholly unlike anything else — and that is what Mason accomplishes in Davey McGravy." —Brain Pickings

"From his first full-length narrative poem, The Country I Remember, to his extraordinary verse novel, Ludlow, David Mason's ambition to expand the realm of narrative in contemporary verse has been central to his poetic project, even as successive collections revealed him as one of the best lyric poets of his generation. The latest proof of Mason's necessity, Davey McGravy, is both a vibrant celebration of language as play and the moving tale of how a young boy discovers, through heartbreaking loss, the transformative powers of the imagination. Children of all ages will delight in its song and story." —Charles Martin, author of Signs & Wonders

David Mason is the author of numerous books of poetry and the verse-novel Ludlow. He was poet laureate of Colorado from 2010 to 2014, and he now divides his time between Colorado and Oregon.

Grant Silverstein, the illustrator, specializes in etchings.

"Where is human nature so weak as in the bookstore?"—Henry Ward Beecher

The Book Shopper is a spirited and witty guide to the world of disheveled used bookstores and dusty basements where shelves sag under the burden of so many books. In the limitless sea of books, here's one that will make you laugh as it helps you find your way to titles and authors you'll really want to read.

"This predilection [for browsing used bookstores] has grown into a real (albeit quirky) passion for thinking about the many ways books affect our lives—how and where we shop for them, the people we know who read them, the small passages that stick in our heads for years only to reappear at the oddest moments. The minds of book people are mosaics of ideas, thoughts, and phrases that have originated in books…I'm fascinated by how we hold and shape these fragments, how they coalesce into what I call my book shopper state of mind."—from Chapter 1 of The Book Shopper

In chapters such as "Book Lovers Are Not Necessarily People Lovers," "Prerequisites: What Every Good Bookstore Should Have," "Books as Gifts," and "The Classic Book Group," Murray Browne offers a lifeline to readers who love to browse for books and are always looking for that next great read—and a good deal—but who may be swamped by the vast offerings.

Murray Browne has published numerous essays, book reviews, newspaper articles, feature stories, and technical articles. He holds a BA in English and Radio-Television and an MS in Information (Library) Sciences from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Though he grew up in the Midwest, Browne now lives in Atlanta, where he works as a media content analyst.

Gary Borjesson explores what it means to be friends — really friends — with a dog, and how that relationship can illuminate and inform the other friendships in our lives.

"We can learn much about friendship by examining our relationships with dogs, partly because of what we have in common with them, but also because of what we do not. Our differences put friendship and its terms in striking relief. The resulting perspective is especially valuable given how easy it is for dogs, friendship, and other familiar aspects of our experience to escape our notice." —from the Preface

Dogs are remarkable creatures. More than any other animal, they share with humans a deep interest in friendship, cooperation, and justice. (That's probably why we love them so much.) In Willing Dogs & Reluctant Masters, Gary Borjesson explores the source of—and justification for—our authority in the master-dog relationship, while inviting readers to ponder the role of authority in friendships among people, as well.

Willing Dogs & Reluctant Masters will delight dog owners as they see themselves and their dogs in Gary Borjesson's account of human-canine relations. And it will encourage all readers to wonder anew about how friendship enriches our lives.

Since 1999, Gary Borjesson has taught at St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland, where he and his wife, Cindy Boersma, live with their German shepherd, Atkis.

"Mason reveals a glorious passion for literature, as well as an almost Whitmanesque openness to the ideas and emotions that inspire creative acts at all levels."—Library Journal (starred review)

"An illuminating literary cartography with many fascinating ports of call.”—Kirkus Reviews

"Mason expertly weaves the stories of great writers and places both ancient and new together into an imaginative literary odyssey."—Publishers Weekly

“How are voices like places? They move through us as we move through them.”

Celebrated poet David Mason explores surprising connections in geography and time, considering writers who traveled, who emigrated or were exiled, and who often shaped the literature of their homelands. He writes of seasoned travelers (Patrick Leigh Fermor, Bruce Chatwin, Joseph Conrad, Herodotus himself), and writers as far flung as Omar Khayyam, Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, James Joyce, and Les Murray. In the end, he turns to his own native region, the American West, with Wallace Stegner, Edward Abbey, Robinson Jeffers, Belle Turnbull, and Thomas McGrath.

These essays are about familiarity and estrangement, the pleasure and knowledge readers can gain by engaging with writers’ lives, their travels, their trials, and the homes they make for themselves.

David Mason is the author of numerous books of poetry, most recently Sea Salt and Davey McGravy; a memoir, News from the Village; and a novel, Ludlow. A former Fulbright fellow to Greece, he lives in Colorado and Oregon and teaches at Colorado College.

"Two fascinating fictions."—Wall Street Journal

"Rich and intriguing."—Kirkus Reviews on The Last of All Possible Worlds

"Convincing and haunting."—Publishers Weekly on The Temptation to Do Good

Best-selling author Peter F. Drucker wrote just two novels. Here for the first time in paperback are both.

In The Last of All Possible Worlds, royalty, bankers, lovers, and wives intertwine to create a vivid portrait of Europe in the early 1900s. We meet wise and worldly Prince Sobieski, Vienna’s ambassador in London, his enchanting wife, her English lover, and her enigmatic lifelong companion, Josefa. When Sobieski’s illegitimate daughter makes a demand of her influential father, the unspoken rules of the family are challenged. Sobieski’s world is further upset when two powerful merchant bankers, the tragic McGregor Hinton and the ambitious Julius von Mosenthal, arrive in London—both with their own requirements of the prince.

The Temptation to Do Good tells the story of Father Heinz Zimmerman, the well-regarded president of an American Catholic university. When he attempts to help a chemistry teacher who has been denied tenure he accidentally opens the door to the underlying tensions in the university.

Peter F. Drucker (1909–2005) was a writer, teacher, and management consultant. Born and raised in Austria, he lived in Germany and England before immigrating to the United States in 1937. His thirty-nine books have been published in more than thirty languages and have sold tens of millions of copies worldwide. His writing and teaching were unique for their focus on the human impact of business decisions. Drucker was the Honorary Chairman of the Peter F. Drucker Foundation for Nonprofit Management and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

"A splendid new edition."—James Campbell, Times Literary Supplement

"Xan Fielding was a gifted, many-sided, courageous and romantic figure, at the same time civilized and Bohemian, and his thoughtful cast of mind was leavened by humour, spontaneous gaiety, and a dash of recklessness. Almost any stretch of his life might be described as a picaresque interlude."—Patrick Leigh Fermor

During the Second World War, Xan Fielding served for two years as an officer in the British Special Operations Executive on German-occupied Crete, where he ran an intelligence network in cooperation with the Cretan resistance movement.

Seven years later, Fielding returned to Crete to spend a year traveling in the island's White Mountains (the "stronghold" of the title), revisiting sites of his wartime exploits and seeking out former comrades who had returned to their peacetime lives. His sojourn resulted in this remarkable memoir, a documentary-like record of days spent among Cretan peasants blended with history and literature—a travelogue like no other.

The Stronghold is a blending of "history and culture with experience, but one wedded to fidelity. Fielding never arrives; there is no great journey of self. There is just a question answered about the war and youth…he can't shake Crete, as no man can shake the formative experience of his youth."—from the new foreword by Robert Messenger

"This book of mine does not claim to be a serious sociological work; it is simply the account of a more or less carefree year spent among people who seem to fit so perfectly into their startling surroundings that at times I imagined it was not the landscape that conditioned their lives but their personalities that had conditioned the landscape."—Xan Fielding

Xan Fielding (1918–1991) was a British writer and traveler, and a lifelong friend of Patrick Leigh Fermor, who served with him in Crete during World War II. (The introduction to Fermor's A Time of Gifts is written as a "Letter to Xan Fielding.") Fielding also translated many novels from French, most notably, The Bridge on the River Kwai and The Planet of the Apes.

Robert Messenger is the books editor of the Wall Street Journal.

From a short lyric to a complex novel, follow Reuben Brower's lead through the attentive reader's fields of light.

In this classic study, Harvard professor Reuben Brower guides the reader from noticing the alluring details of a well-made poem, novel, or play to attending to the encompassing ways in which the writing achieves its greatness.

Part One: THE DISCOVERY OF DESIGN
I. The Speaking Voice (Dramatic Design)
II. The Aura Around a Bright Clear Centre (Design in Imagery)
III. Saying One Thing and Meaning Another (Design in Metaphor and Irony)
IV. The Figure of Sound (Design in Sound)
V. The Sinewie Thread (Key Designs)

Part Two: IN LARGE LETTERS
VI. The Mirror of Analogy 'The Tempest'
VII. Something Central Which Permeated: Virginia Woolf and 'Mrs. Dalloway'
VIII. The Groves of Eden: Design in a Satire by Pope
IX. Light and Bright and Sparkling: Irony and Fiction in 'Pride and Prejudice'
X. The Twilight of the Double Vision: Symbol and Irony in 'A Passage to India'
XI. The Flower of Light: Integrity of Imagination

"Not only does Brower begin his book with a lyric, but he deliberately chooses a very short one indeed, as if to show how much can be said about the smallest of poetic 'figures' looked at closely. The poem is 'The Sick Rose,' one of William Blake's best-known songs of experience…Brower's task is to show how the poem is 'imaginatively organized,' by which he means that, to read it, we must sense the 'extraordinary interconnectedness among a relatively large number of different items of experience.'" –From the Foreword by William H. Pritchard

Reuben Arthur Brower (1908–1975) was a professor of classics and English at Amherst College before he moved to Harvard University, where he became Cabot Professor of English. He is perhaps best (and most fondly) remembered for a course he created at Harvard, Humanites 6: Interpretation of Literature, known familiarly to students as "Hum 6."

"Experiencing a change of aspect is characterized by our recognition that something has altered and nothing has altered."—from Fat Wednesday

In Fat Wednesday, John Verdi probes how the inexplicable connections of words can help us understand the ever-changing connections of things that we actually see in everyday experience. In his preface he writes, "I explore two related concepts: aspect-seeing and experiencing the meaning of a word."

Verdi considers how our experience of seeing aspects, wherever they appear, helps us imagine possible meanings for philosophy's opening question: "What is there?" He illuminates Ludwig Wittgenstein's ideas on language and perception while challenging readers to think through for themselves the different ways in which we see.

A major influence in the development of analytic philosophy, Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) was a leading thinker in the study of logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. Bertrand Russell described him as "the most perfect example I have ever known of genius as traditionally conceived, passionate, profound, intense, and dominating."

"A representational painting is essentially ambiguous: it is both paint on canvas and a representation of people and objects. We are not fooled by the painting; we see that it is both paint and picture. We take an interest in it because we take an interest in aspects."—from Fat Wednesday

John Verdi has taught at St. John's College in Annapolis and Santa Fe since 1975. His areas of special interest have included the writings of Wittgenstein and Nietzsche, the foundations of mathematics, and the common ground between psychology and philosophy.

"[The Magic Lantern of Marcel Proust] reduces the ungainly and intricately designed masterpiece to its shape, and with hardly a wasted word...The paragraphs on habit and memory are truly wonderful—wonderful as explication, as psychology, and as philosophy."—John Updike

"Almost everything Moss says seems to me right, illuminating, and new. This is the book of a mature and individual mind and sensibility, with a deep experience of moral, social, psychological, and aesthetic values which is rare among critics." —George D. Painter

"A moving and inspiring book. Moss clears away dark corners, clarifies motivations, and places the huge work within the reader's perspective. A book of great value to the scholar and the general reader." —Publishers Weekly

"Remembrance of Things Past is more than a novel; it is a work in which a single person's life is transformed into a mythology, with its own pantheon of gods, its own religious rituals, and its own moral laws. A total vision, it does not rely on any system outside itself for support. It is as if Dante had set out to write the Paradiso and the Inferno utilizing only the facts of his own existence without any reference to Christianity...Other novelists describe or invent worlds. Remembrance of Things Past is an entire universe created and interpreted by Marcel Proust." — from Chapter 1

"Moss lays out the sweeping claims and overarching structure of Remembrance of Things Past—the significance of Swann's Way and the Guermantes Way, or why there are such long party scenes—and is equally good at bringing to light all sorts of tiny, revealing details." — from the new Foreword by Damion Searls

Howard Moss was poetry editor of the New Yorker for almost forty years. He also wrote more than a dozen books of poetry, plays, criticism, and a book of arch parody-microbiographies of cultural figures, Instant Lives, illustrated by Edward Gorey.

Damion Searls is the author of What We Were Doing and Where We Were Going (stories) and has written for Harper’s, Bookforum, n+1, and The Believer. As a translator—of authors including Marcel Proust (On Reading)—he received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2012.

"[A] delightfully literary and eclectic memoir about the manifold joys of birding…Cashwell is a storyteller. A very literate, observant, insightful storyteller."—The Bloomsbury Review

"Reading this book was the next best thing to wandering in the woods with Peter Cashwell hoping to add a rufous-capped warbler to my life list. No, it was better—I could laugh out loud in delight as I turned the pages without fear of scaring the birds."—Katharine Weber, author of The Music Lesson

"An entertaining and witty meditation on birding."—Library Journal

All around the world, birds are the subject of intense, even spiritual, fascination, but relatively few people see the word bird as a verb. Peter Cashwell is one who does, and with good reason: He birds (because he can't help it), and he teaches grammar (because he's paid to). An English teacher by profession and an avid birder by inner calling, Cashwell has written a whimsical and critical book about his many obsessions—birds, birders, language, literature, parenting, pop culture, and the human race.

Cashwell lovingly but irreverently explores the practice of birding, from choosing a field guide to luring vultures out of shrubbery, and gives his own eclectic travelogue of some of the nation's finest bird habitats. Part memoir, part natural history, part apology, The Verb 'To Bird' will enlighten and entertain anyone who's ever wandered around wet fields at the crack of dawn with dog-eared field guides crushed against the granola bars in their pockets. But you don't have to know the field marks of an indigo bunting to appreciate Cashwell's experiences with non-lending libraries, venomous insects, sports marketing, and animated Christmas specials.

"Birders as well as all others interested in birds will enjoy this witty and informative meditation. Declaring himself a victim of birding compulsive disorder, Cashwell, an English teacher in Virginia, does an excellent job of describing his fascination with observing and listening to birds."—Publishers Weekly

"Peter Cashwell possesses one of the rarest of all qualities in a nature writer: an intelligent wit."—Robert Finch, co-editor of The Norton Book of Nature Writing

"A fine literary ramble and a good laugh to boot—no mean feat in a genre that perhaps takes itself to seriously."—John Hanson Mitchell, Editor of Sanctuary, Journal of the Massachusetts Audubon Society

"Writing with humor and gentle environmental rants, Cashwell does for his beloved birds what Bill Bryson did for the Appalachian Trail in his best-selling A Walk in the Woods."—Fredericksburg Free-Lance Star

"[Cashwell] does not stint on the details that matter to birders, but it's his ability to translate the joy of the experience for the non-birder that extends the book's appeal beyond the Nature/Ornithology shelves."—The Charlotte Observer

"Cashwell plays with the language as joyfully and skillfully as a musician coaxes melodies from his instrument."—Rocky Mount Telegram

Birds first captured Peter Cashwell's attention when his mother hung an avian mobile over his crib. He was born in Raleigh, N.C., grew up in Chapel Hill, and graduated from the University of North Carolina, where he took every creative writing course permitted by the English department (and one that wasn't). Cashwell has worked at lots of different jobs—radio announcer, rock musician, comic-book critic, improv comedy accompanist. Now he teaches English and speech at Woodberry Forest School in the foothills of Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains.

“John Vine says he wrote this book for people who have been newly diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. Well, I was diagnosed 24 years ago, and I still learned something new on every page.”—Michael Kinsley, Vanity Fair columnist and author of Old Age: A Beginner’s Guide

Here is the book that John Vine and his wife, Joanne, wish they could have consulted when John was first diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease—a nontechnical, personal guide written from the patient’s perspective. Relying on his experiences over the past 12 years, John writes knowledgeably about all aspects of the disease. John also interviewed other Parkinson’s patients and their partners, whose stories and advice he includes throughout the book.

“I wish we’d had John Vine’s book when my brother-in-law was diagnosed. The book is highly informative, unflinchingly honest, and reassuringly optimistic. It’s just what the doctor should have ordered.”—Cokie Roberts, best-selling author and political commentator on ABC News and NPR

“John Vine details, in a compelling and accessible way, his experience with Parkinson’s disease. His book is an extraordinary guide to living successfully with Parkinson’s, and a must read for all who want to better understand the condition. Although diagnosed with Parkinson’s, my father lived an active and productive life until his death at age 94. As the book makes clear, while each patient’s journey is unique, common approaches are indispensable in treating the symptoms of the disease.”—Eric H. Holder, Jr. served as the 82nd Attorney General of the United States from 2009 to 2015

“John Vine has written the best primer I’ve ever read for newly diagnosed Parkinson’s patients and their families. It helps them cope with the shock of diagnosis, gives them (jargon-free) the scientific basics they need to know, describes the symptoms they may experience (making clear that every case is different) and catalogs the resources available to navigate living with Parkinson’s. John humanizes the book by describing his own experience and that of 22 other patients and their partners. I’d urge every neurologist to have copies of Vine’s primer on hand to help new PD on their journey forward.”—Morton Kondracke, author of Saving Milly: Love, Politics and Parkinson’s Disease and a member of the Founders' Council of the Michael J. Fox Foundation

“My husband has PD, and I devoured this book. It’s wise, wonderfully readable, and, above all, helpful. Since John Vine has PD, he speaks with great authority about the challenges, both physical and psychological. If you have Parkinson’s, live with someone who has it, or just know someone battling the disease, A Parkinson’s Primer is for you.”—Lesley Stahl, award-winning television journalist on the CBS News program 60 Minutes

“This is a remarkable book describing the personal experiences of many individuals, including the author, living with Parkinson’s disease. It captures the fact that although there are many possible symptoms in this disease, each person experiences different symptoms and copes with them in various ways. The thoughtful and insightful comments and coping strategies should be helpful for persons with PD, and their partners, regardless of the stage of the disease.”—Stephen Grill, MD, PhD, Director of the Parkinson’s & Movement Disorders Center of Maryland

John M. Vine is a lawyer at Covington & Burling LLP in Washington, DC, where he is the senior member and former head of the firm’s employee benefits group. He was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 2004.

Winner of the Western Heritage Award for Juvenile Book

Winner of the Will Rogers Medallion Award for Young Readers

Finalist, Western Writers of America Spur Award for Juvenile Fiction

"The Green Colt is told beautifully, with grace and quiet power, and shows S. J. Dahlstrom to be a big new talent. I highly recommend this wonderful book."—Nancy Plain, award-winning author and vice-president of Western Writers of America

Twelve-year-old Wilder Good likes basketball, 4-H club, hanging out with his friends, and reading. But, more than anything, he loves to be outdoors.

In this fourth book of the series, Wilder is back at his grandfather's ranch in West Texas. Papa Milam gives him an unexpected gift—his very own 'green' colt to break. Wilder is excited to begin, but he quickly realizes that even getting near the colt is much harder than he expected. So Papa hires Tequito, a Mexican vaquero, to help. Tequito doesn't speak much English, and at first Wilder is intimidated. But the vaquero is both gentle and firm with the colt, and soon they're making good progress. Wilder sees how skilled Tequito is with horses, and learns that American cowboying has its roots in a much older Mexican tradition.

Breaking his new colt is a challenge, but—as Wilder discovers—it's only the beginning of the joy and pain of owning a horse.

Award-winning author S. J. Dahlstrom delivers a powerful story with a timeless theme. A welcome addition to any child's bookshelf.

S. J. Dahlstrom lives and writes in West Texas. He has numerous magazine credits for his writing and photography. The Adventures of Wilder Good is his first series. His writing draws on his experiences as a cowboy, husband, father, and founder of a boys' ranch.

"This whimsical Italian fantasy, originally published in 1922, belongs on the shelf next to The Little Prince and Alice and Wonderland. Simple language by translator Gilson gives the novel a poetic tone, while STO's charming black-and-white illustrations add humor."—VOYA

Alone in a room with nothing but an old mirror and a chess set, a young boy anticipates a boring afternoon. But like Alice just before she fell down the rabbit hole—and wound up in Wonderland—this boy is about to embark on a marvelous adventure. Gazing at the mirror, he discovers that the chess pieces (the reflections, not the real ones) are alive! When the White King invites him into the world on the other side, the excitement begins. There, all the rules of the real world are reversed. There, you can have a perfectly reasonable conversation with a perfectly unreasonable chess piece. There, you can meet anyone who's ever looked into the mirror (even a hundred years ago). This bewildering experience leads to some odd questions: What goes on inside a mirror when no one is looking at it? What if the reflected world is more real than the one where we live? And speaking of our world, how will our hero get back to this side of the mirror?

Join him on his fantastic journey where nothing is more absurd than reason or more important than freedom of imagination.

"[A] story told in a voice that's charmingly direct, sweetly self-referential…and more than a little trippy…Like all good books for children, it also has unusual insights into childhood itself: '…when you're ten years old, standing or sitting are exactly the same.'"—Philadelphia Inquirer

"The narrator's dry wit, reminiscent of P. G. Wodehouse, makes for an appealing journey and, coupled with the whimsical pen-and-ink drawings, a charming package with a timeless air."—Publishers Weekly

"Motherhood is the theme of these two intimate novellas by Italian writer Bontempelli, who preceded such better-known authors of 'magic realism' as Jorge Luis Borges and Alejo Carpentier by more than two decades in his fusion of the miraculous and the matter-of-fact…The elegantly restrained passion of these two tales, penned in Bontempelli's delicate prose, proves yet again the writer's literary genius."—Publishers Weekly (review of Separations)

"Separations is a complete triumph. Bontempelli's work prefigured the magic realism popularized by many Latin American writers, andSeparations is an excellent example of this style. Elegant, superbly crafted, and masterfully written, these tales are not easily forgotten; the heroines are haunting and the plots finely honed. Bontempelli is truly a 'fantastic' writer."—Library Journal (review of Separations)

A protégé of Pirandello, Massimo Bontempelli (1878–1960) was a prolific writer of poetry, plays, and prose fiction. Bontempelli now occupies a major place in 20th century Italian letters, and his works are translated in every major European language.

Sergio Tofano, also known as STO, was an Italian illustrator, actor, director, and playwright. For fifty years his illustrated work appeared in the children's supplement of Corriere della Sera, one of the oldest and most widely read newspapers in Italy.

Estelle Gilson's translation of Umberto Saba's Stories and Recollections won both the Italo Calvino and PEN Renato Poggioli awards, and the MLA's first Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione award in 1994 as the best literary translation of the previous two years. Her fiction, essays, and articles appear in many publications. She translated Bontempelli's Separations.

Martin Heidegger’s Being and Time (1927) challenged earlier thinking about the basic structures of human being, our involvement in practical affairs, and our understanding of history, time, and being. Blitz clarifies Heidegger’s discussions, offers alternative analyses of phenomena central to Heidegger’s argument, and examines the connection between Heidegger’s position in Being and Time and his support of Nazism.

As Blitz explains in his new afterword, “When I began to study Martin Heidegger nearly fifty years ago, my goal was to explore the meaning of Being and Time for political philosophy. I wished to discover what it might offer for clarifying the grounds on which the basic concepts and alternatives of political philosophy rest. Would a close reading of it help us understand the questions of justice, freedom, the common good, natural rights, virtue, human happiness, and the philosophic life? These questions are as important today as they were then.”

Although Blitz often questions and criticizes Heidegger’s views, he presents them with scrupulous care and clarity. Specialists and students in the areas of political theory, phenomenology, metaphysics, and moral philosophy will find Heidegger’s Being and Time & the Possibility of Political Philosophy an invaluable resource.

Mark Blitz has been a professor of political philosophy at Claremont McKenna College for twenty years. He has also taught at the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard, Georgetown, and Indiana University. He serves as Director of the Salvatori Center for the Study of Individual Freedom at Claremont McKenna. He is author of Plato’s Political Philosophy, Duty Bound: Responsibility and American Public Life, and Conserving Liberty.

Pageants of Despair is a story of a boy caught in a battle between good and evil. After unknown assailants attack his mother, Peter is sent by train to stay with his grandparents. On that ride an uncanny figure leads him back in time to the fourteenth century village of Dunfield, where Peter will take part in a mysterious play in which the actors become the characters they portray. Peter believes he has been brought there to counter an unearthly, menacing influence, but a succession of terrifying experiences leads him to suspect, instead, that he might be destined to cause the disaster he is trying to avert. He needs courage to face the crisis and intelligence to solve the mystery. In this tale where ancient pageants morph into horrific realities, the author draws on the actual medieval Townley Cycle of Mystery Plays—which were performed annually at Wakefield, England—to give Peter's experience in the imaginary village of Dunfield a vivid true-to-life.

"The history is fascinating…Hamley has hit on the right road back to such lace-edged, antique virtues as honesty, gentleness, vision, and love."—Best Sellers

"The ancient tussle between God and the Devil seems to lie at the heart of this tale of sinister skullduggery in the Middle Ages. A good deal of background information on the Mystery Plays and extracts from some of the performances crystallise the setting; the atmosphere of religious superstition and its hold over simple folk are captured with a grim reality and a sense of lurking foreboding. [Readers who]…allow the tensions of time and mystery to work will share a strange experience in an unfamiliar world."—The Junior Bookshelf

"Hamley does create a lively picture of how the audiences and actors must have responded to the powerful messages of the miracle plays."—Kirkus Reviews

"The pageants are a frightening battleground—replete with medieval images of corporeal and spiritual corruption—from which Peter and his friends emerge triumphant."—Booklist

Dennis Hamley was born in 1935 in Kent, England. He read English at Cambridge University and worked for many years as a teacher, a teacher-trainer, and an adviser to schools. He also founded the Lending Our Minds Out creative writing courses for children. Hamley's first book was published in 1962, a modern version of three Miracle Plays. Pageants of Despair, his first children's novel, was originally published in 1974. In 1992 Hamley turned to writing full-time. His latest title, Ellen's People, is published in the UK by Walker Books. In between, he wrote more than fifty other books, including short stories, books for schools, and non-fiction for all ages. Hamley lives with his wife in Hertford, England.

Since ancient times, philosophers have written about "the will." But the will is more than a philosophic and scholarly topic. In our everyday speech, what do we mean when we speak of the "will"? Will-words turn up everywhere in the English language. We make wills. We exert our willpower. We are willful at times but merely willing at others. Above all, will is there a hundred times a day, when we use the auxiliary verb "will" to express our intentions or expectations for the future, or simply to indicate the future tense.

Yet it takes only a moment's reflection to see that there's a tremendous range of meaning here, and so something to think about. Moreover, all of us have wondered now and then, probably both as children and as adults, whether we are really free, and whether being free means being able to do what we want or being free of wants and desires or something else entirely. That is, we've all wrestled with the issue of free will in our informal, non-scholarly ways. Finally, we've probably all asked ourselves whether people who talk about will and willpower are all talking about the same thing or even talking sense.

These are all among the issues that Eva Brann puts at the center of Un-Willing. She takes the whole range of questions about the will that are implicit in our everyday lives and everyday thinking, articulates them, shows us how they have been dealt with within the philosophic tradition and contemporary scientific thought—and then wrestles with them herself.

"Eva Brann has a true aptitude for felicitous expression, and one can feel through her prose the presence of a great and patient teacher."—Dennis L. Sepper, University of Dallas, author of Understanding Imagination

Eva Brann is a member of the senior faculty at St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland, where she has taught for fifty-seven years. She is a recipient of the National Humanities Medal. Her other books include The Logos of Heraclitus, Feeling Our Feelings, Homage to Americans, Open Secrets / Inward Prospects, The Music of the Republic, and Homeric Moments (all published by Paul Dry Books).

"Part detective story, part social commentary, part intellectual autobiography, part philosophical analysis, this is a jury book unlike any other."—Anthony Kronman, Sterling Professor of Law and former dean, Yale Law School

"[Norma Thompson] teaches us, brilliantly and painlessly, why judging, as opposed to simply knowing, is an essential part of a responsible human existence, recounting the trials and crimes and moral dilemmas of antiquity and classical tradition in a stunningly original reading."—Abraham D. Sofaer, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and former United States district judge

In 2001, Norma Thompson served on the jury in a murder trial in New Haven, Connecticut. In Unreasonable Doubt, Thompson dramatically depicts the jury's deliberations, which ended in a deadlock. As foreperson, she pondered the behavior of some of her fellow jurors that led to the trial's termination in a hung jury. Blending personal memoir, social analysis, and literary criticism, she addresses the evasion of judgment she witnessed during deliberations and relates that evasion to contemporary political, social, and legal affairs. She then assembles an imaginary jury of Alexis de Tocqueville, Plato, and Jane Austen, among others, to show how the writings of these authors can help model responsible habits of deliberation.

Norma Thompson is senior lecturer in humanities and associate director of the Whitney Humanities Center at Yale University. She is the author most recently of The Ship of State: Statecraft and Politics from Ancient Greece to Democratic America.

Shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal

"A fine, authentic, historical tale, valuable for its picture of medieval times."—New York Herald Tribune

In 14th-century England, Alys de Renneville sits alone in the loft of her manor house mourning her father and brother who are thought to have been killed in battle in Scotland. Late one evening, a strange knight appears and tells Alys that her father and brother are alive and being held for ransom by the Scots. When no one believes her story, she sets off secretly to rescue them herself.

Traveling on horseback across the lush countryside and dense cities of medieval England, Alys is accompanied only by her friend and servant, Hugh. Alys and Hugh show great courage and determination, but the journey is arduous and they encounter many delays and hardships along the way. Will they reach Scotland in time to save Alys’s father and brother?

"Her narratives have the ring of tales told by skald and bard, and her choice of words would fill great halls. Her literary fairy tales are lushly romantic, with poetic language and an almost other-worldly knowledge that informs and enriches them. Open one of her books and read it aloud. See how her words will still echo in the storytelling rooms and libraries that have become our great halls."—Janice M. Del Negro

Barbara Leonie Picard (1917–2011) was the author of over twenty-five books, all of which have received praise for the mature and thought-provoking fare they offer young readers. Her first book was published in 1949. Her works include five historical novels for young adults, many retellings of myths and epics—including the Odyssey and the Iliad, the story of King Arthur, and legends of the Norse gods—and collections of fairy tales. Several of her books have been shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal, the oldest children's book award in the UK. Paul Dry Books also publishes Picard's book One Is One.

"Surpassingly eloquent."—Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, New York Times

"This is a remarkable book with extraordinary insights about the inner life of Abraham Lincoln. It will be read and studied for years to come, for Charles Strozier brings to every chapter the very qualities that Lincoln himself possessed—empathy, wisdom, balance, and creativity."—Doris Kearns Goodwin, Author of No Ordinary Time

"When Lincoln's Quest for Union was first published, it was immediately recognized as the best-informed and most perceptive analysis of Lincoln's inner life. This new edition, extensively revised and expanded, is even more rewarding. This is a basic book in the Lincoln canon—a work of great intelligence, written with sensitivity and literary grace. I cannot recommend it highly enough."—Prof. David Herbert Donald, Author of Lincoln

"Provocative and persuasive when it originally appeared in 1982, this new edition is even better. Strozier incorporates recent scholarship, fortifies his arguments, answers his critics, and offers a compelling psychological portrait of our most admired and enigmatic president."—Cullom Davis, University of Illinois at Springfield

"Eighteen years after it first appeared, Lincoln's Quest for Union still does what only the very best books about Lincoln do: It makes us think afresh about how so great a man could have grown from such meager beginnings."—from Geoffrey Ward's Foreword

In Lincoln's Quest for Union, Charles Strozier gives the most probing account available of Lincoln's inner life—from the time he was a young man in Illinois, just finding himself, through his ascent to the presidency when he guided the nation and articulated for the country the meaning of the Civil War. With the probity of an open-minded historian and the skills of a trained therapist (he is both), Strozier examines Lincoln's relationships to women: his mother, stepmother, two young loves, and Mary Todd. He also considers Lincoln's feelings toward his father and male friends and colleagues.

For this revised edition, Professor Strozier has incorporated new sources—most important, the writings of William Herndon, Lincoln's long-time law partner—to update and expand his psychological portrait of our 16th president.

Charles B. Strozier, a historian and practicing psychoanalyst, is a professor of history at John Jay College and the Graduate Center, CUNY, and faculty and Training and Supervising Psychoanalyst at TRISP in New York. Strozier is the author of Until The Fires Stopped Burning: 9/11 in the Words and Experiences of Survivors and Witnesses; Heinz Kohut: The Making of a Psychoanalyst; and Apocalypse: On the Psychology of Fundamentalism in America, among other books. His forthcoming book is Young Man Lincoln: Joshua Speed and the Crucible of Greatness.

“Mary Jane Myers skillfully paints the many shades of loneliness. . . A highly thought-provoking collection.”—Daniel M. Jaffe, editor of With Signs and Wonders: An International Anthology of Jewish Fabulist Fiction; author of The Genealogy of Understanding

“The personal, the artistic, and the spiritual collide with small, perfect explosions in these entrancing stories. Mary Jane Myers writes with great subtlety and poignancy, offering plenty of delights and surprises.”—Ross King, author of Mad Enchantment: Claude Monet and the Painting of the Water Lilies

Bitter, joyful, worn down, filled with wonder, acutely self-aware, and often deeply in need of perspective—such are the women at the center of Mary Jane Myers' compelling debut short story collection. Lonely and stuck in lives that have begun to feel stale, these ordinary women—administrative assistants, typists, accountants—awake unto themselves after brushes with the surreal. While light and playful in tone, the stories reflect the hollowness and toxicity that can come from ascribing too strictly to the popularly held values of our contemporary society and the confusion caused by wobbly religious beliefs in a secular world.

Louise, an unassuming tourist, is accosted in a museum in Florence by the voice of Galileo’s finger bone promising to grant her greatest wish in return for a simple favor. Diane narrowly escapes a toxic relationship and sinks into a depression when she becomes convinced the gods are speaking to her through a stone from the lava fields of Maui. Helen, who has always wanted someone with whom to appreciate classical music, ends up playing host to Franz Schubert, when she meets the young composer wandering in the woods near her home in the Santa Monica Mountains.

Witty, revelatory―and at times chilling―Curious Affairs allows us to see the strangeness in the ordinary.

Mary Jane Myers lives in Los Angeles. Curious Affairs is her debut collection of short stories.

"A well-written, well-researched, and engaging introduction to contemporary Syria."—Library Journal (starred review)

"American travel writing at its most generous and intrepid."—Adam Kirsch

"A nuanced appreciation of the sights, sounds, and historical densities that make Syria one of the most rewarding countries on Earth. Like the great cities of Damascus and Aleppo, The Other Side of the Mirror is a thing of layered beauty and a source of endless surprise and stimulation."—Ben Downing

"Engaging…I can vouch for the accuracy of her descriptions."—Malise Ruthven, New York Review of Books

"Brooke Allen's The Other Side of the Mirror is a hugely welcome piece of travel literature…Anyone with a curiosity about this fascinating nation will be well served."—Tom Bissell

Brooke Allen first traveled to Syria in 2009, expecting it to be much as American news media routinely depicted it—an ultra-conservative Muslim society, a rogue nation committed to an anti-American stance. She found, instead, a welcoming and captivating country where she and her family were treated with courtesy and gentleness.

She soon returned for a more leisurely trip through Syria's rich historical and archaeological treasures: the ancient cities of Aleppo and Damascus, the great Crusader castles, the Bronze Age ruins of Ebla and Mari, the Greco-Roman cities of Palmyra and Apamea. With her keen and appreciative eye (and ear) Allen introduces us to Syria's people, culture, and history.

Published in spring of 2011 at the beginning of the Syrian Civil War, the book has taken on a new resonance.

Brooke Allen's critical writings appear frequently in the New York Times Book Review, the Atlantic, and the Nation. Her Twentieth-Century Attitudes was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Her most recent book is Moral Minority: Our Skeptical Founding Fathers.

“Oh, what a delightful book! This is the clearest explanation of relativity available—and the most fun. It’s great to have it available again. Whether or not you’re a scientist, you will relish this book.”—Walter Isaacson, author of Einstein: His Life and Universe

Using “just enough mathematics to help and not to hinder the lay reader,” Lillian R. Lieber provides a thorough explanation of Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity. Her delightful style, in combination with her husband’s charming illustrations, makes for an interesting and accessible read about one of the most celebrated ideas of all times.

“A clear and vivid exposition of the essential ideas and methods of the theory of relativity…can be warmly recommended especially to those who cannot spend too much time on the subject.”—Albert Einstein

“If you know high-school math, are not afraid of equations, and want to find out what Einstein really said, read Lillian Lieber’s book. She will lead you through special and general relativity, helping you at every step to understand the essential equations, including tensors, with amazing clarity and conciseness. This uniquely charming book remains as vivid as ever and even more helpful, thanks to the excellent new foreward and notes by David Derbes and Robert Jantzen.”—Peter Pesic, author of Abel’s Proof: An Essay on the Sources and Meaning of Mathematical Unsolvability and Sky in a Bottle

“Does the nature of time fascinate you? Does gravity seem a mysterious subject? Are you interested in learning just what it is that Einstein actually did that made him so famous? Then this wonderful book is just the thing. I read the original 1945 edition when I was a high-school student in the 1950s, and it had a tremendous impact on me. I predict the same experience for you, or perhaps a young friend, with this new, updated edition.”—Paul J. Nahin, author of Time Machines, Oliver Heaviside, and Dr. Euler’s Fabulous Formula

Lillian R. Lieber was a professor and head of the Department of Mathematics at Long Island University. She wrote a series of lighthearted (and well-respected) math books, many of them illustrated by her husband, Hugh Gray Lieber.

David Derbes teaches physics at the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools.

Robert Jantzen is a professor of mathematics at Villanova University.

"Funny, poignant, sad and wistful…This is a very fine book—about a person, and a city, growing up."—Philadelphia Inquirer

"This delightful yet poignant memoir is highly recommended for both public and academic libraries."—Library Journal (starred review)

"The charming Hotel Kid is as luxurious as the lobby in a five-star hotel."—San Francisco Chronicle

A Manhattan landmark for fifty years, the Taft in its heyday in the 1930s and '40s was the largest hotel in midtown, famed for the big band in its basement restaurant and the view of Times Square from its towers. As the son of the general manager, Stephen Lewis grew up in this legendary hotel, living with his parents and younger brother in a suite overlooking the Roxy Theater. His engaging memoir of his childhood captures the colorful, bustling atmosphere of the Taft, where his father, the best hotelman in New York, ruled a staff of Damon Runyonesque house dicks, chambermaids, bellmen, and waiters, who made sure that Stephen knew what to do with a swizzle stick by the time he was in the third grade.

The star of this memoir is Lewis's fast-talking, opinionated, imperious mother, who adapted so completely to hotel life that she rarely left the Taft. Evelyn Lewis rang the front desk when she wanted to make a telephone call, ordered all the family's meals from room service, and had her dresses sent over from Saks. During the Depression, the tough kids from Hell's Kitchen who went to grade school with Stephen marveled at the lavish spreads his mother offered her friends at lunch every day, and later even his wealthy classmates at Horace Mann-Lincoln were impressed by the limitless hot fudge sundaes available to the Lewis boys.

Lewis contrasts the fairy-tale luxury of his life inside the hotel with the gritty carnival spirit of his Times Square neighborhood, filled with the noise of trolleys, the smell of saloons, the dazzle of billboards and neon signs. In Hotel Kid, lovers of New York can visit the nightclubs and movie palaces of a vanished era and thread their way among the sightseers and hucksters, shoeshine boys and chorus girls who crowded the streets when Times Square really was the crossroads of the world.

"[T]his postcard from a vanished age nicely captures a special childhood rivaling Eloise's"—Kirkus Reviews

"Charming."—New York Times

"A colorful and nostalgic snapshot of a vanished era."—Bloomsbury Review

"Chockfull of history and wit, Stephen Lewis' account of his charming yet preposterous childhood spent in a suite at the Taft Hotel ordering from room service and playing games like elevator free fall is a five-star read. Hotel Kid pays tribute to an elegant time long ago that was very elegant and is very gone. It's a book we've been waiting for without realizing it: at long last, an Eloise for grown ups."—Madeleine Blais, author of Uphill Walkers: Portrait of a Family

"[A] thoughtful and lucid tale of love, companionship, and heartbreaking illness." —Lydia Davis

In 2004 Rachel Hadas's husband, George Edwards, a composer and professor of music at Columbia University, was diagnosed with early-onset dementia at the age of sixty-one. Strange Relation is her account of "losing" George. Her narrative begins when George's illness can no longer be ignored, and ends in 2008 soon after his move to a dementia facility (when, after thirty years of marriage, she finds herself no longer living with her husband). Within the cloudy confines of those difficult years, years when reading and writing were an essential part of what kept her going, she "tried to keep track…tried to tell the truth."

"If only all doctors and nurses and social workers who care for the chronically ill could read this book. If only patients and family members stricken with such losses could receive what this book can give them. While Strange Relation relates one illness and the life of one family, it is also, poetically, about all illnesses, all families, all struggles, all living. The art achieves the dual life of the universal and the particular, marking it as timeless, making it for us all necessary."—Rita Charon, MD, PhD, Program in Narrative Medicine, Columbia University

"Rachel Hadas's own wonderfully resonant poems, along with the rich collection of verse and prose by other writers that she weaves into her story, clarify and illuminate over and over again this thoughtful and lucid tale of love, companionship, and heartbreaking illness—illness that, as she shows us so well, is at once frighteningly alien and also deeply a part of our unavoidable vulnerability as mortal beings. Beautifully written, totally engrossing, and very sad."—Lydia Davis

"Strange Relation is a deeply moving, deeply personal, beautifully written exploration of how the power of grief can be met with the power of literature, and how solace can be found in the space between them."—Frank Huyler

"A poignant memoir of love, creativity and human vulnerability. Rachel Hadas brings a poet's incisive eye to the labyrinth of dementia."—Danielle Ofri, MD, PhD, author of Medicine in Translation and Singular Intimacies

"Like an elegy, Strange Relation is about loss and grief. Like all elegies, it also memorializes and celebrates. Rachel Hadas, in the course of her personal narrative, cites accounts of dementia, in its social and personal meanings."—Robert Pinsky

"Brilliant and tough-minded, poignant but clear-headed, Rachel Hadas shines a steady light on her experience as the wife of an accomplished composer who, at a comparatively early age, descended into dementia. Strange Relation never sacrifices truth for easy answers. Instead, Hadas uses literature to chart a course through wrenching complexities. This lauded and exceptional poet shows how language itself, the very thing her husband loses, became her shield as she crossed the ravaged lands of decision-making, making new discoveries, new friends, and new sense of the world. Strange Relation snaps with bravery, intelligence, and Hadas' tart, candid wisdom."—Molly Peacock

"Strange Relation is a beautifully written and piercingly honest account of life with a brilliant man as he descends into dementia, in his sixties."—Reeve Lindbergh

Rachel Hadas is Board of Governors Professor of English at Rutgers University in Newark. She is the author of many books, including The River of Forgetfulness, Laws, Indelible, and Halfway Down the Hall: New & Selected Poems. She co-edited the anthology The Greek Poets: Homer to the Present. She lives in Manhattan.

“This collection of Eva Brann’s is one of the most valuable aids a lover of Plato could have.”—Walter Nicgorski, University of Notre Dame

In fourteen essays, Eva Brann talks with readers about the conversations Socrates engages in with his fellow Athenians. In doing so, she shows how Plato’s dialogues and the timeless matters they address remain important to us today.

The Music of the Republic “will establish [Eva Brann] as one of the great readers and interpreters of the Platonic dialogues in modern times.”—Bruce Foltz, Eckerd College

“It is a wonder and a delight to be led by Eva Brann through the Socratic conversations…Those who do not know the Republic will be initiated into its treasures. Those who believe that it is a great book will understand better what they already know. And all who teach the dialogues will find their souls expanded in the presence of this most generous teacher.” —Ann Hartle, Emory University

“In these wonderfully insightful essays, Eva Brann helps us hear the music of Plato’s dialogues and join the conversation…I found myself filled with envy for her students and happy, with this book, to now be included among them.”—Anthony T. Kronman, Yale University

"The title essay of this collection is a miniature masterpiece, one of the most seminal writings of our time on Plato's Republic."—John Sallis, Pennsylvania State University

Eva Brann is a member of the senior faculty at St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland, where she has taught for over fifty years. She is a recipient of the National Humanities Medal. Her other books include The Logos of Heraclitus, Feeling Our Feelings, Homage to Americans, Open Secrets / Inward Prospects, Un-Willing, Then and Now, and Homeric Moments (all published by Paul Dry Books).

"John Stewart is a rare combination: an artist, an adventurer, a survivor of a prison camp, a great photographer and a rambunctious, rollicking prose writer. He's had marvelous, unlikely experiences everywhere from the fashion salons of New York to the wildest mountains of Asia. The soul presented in this book is like none you’ve ever met."—C. K. Williams

In these shimmering "analects," photographer John Stewart offers gleanings of vivid experiences from more than ninety years of living. Though he has discovered no "avowed meaning" to his life, Stewart finds moments where he "touched something here and there"—where he experienced moments of "being awake."

Stewart shares his encounters with the famous and fascinating: drawing with Henri Cartier-Bresson in the south of France; on the set of The Bridge on the River Kwai in Sri Lanka; a comical meeting with John Cage on the Williamsburg Bridge at midnight; Picasso at a café; Matisse in his bedroom; Muhammad Ali; Isak Dinesen; Francis Poulenc; Diana Vreeland. From these accounts of travels far and wide to a poignant elegy for his son, Stewart's Flotsam is full of wit and tenderness.

"Looking at John Stewart's pictures, what first comes to mind is the word stillness . . . stillness is not immobility, nor calm. Within this stillness there is the tension of time, a contained vibration."—Jonathan Littell

John Stewart began his career in photography in the 1950s, having previously served in the British army during WWII (including three years in a Japanese POW camp). His photographs have appeared in Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, Life, Esquire, and Fortune and in museums and major collections around the world. He now lives and works in Paris and Provence.

"Kraft rubs together these pithy thoughts and phrases from traditional and present-day Zen with the sayings of Henry-David Thoreau and Mark Twain to come up with fresh portals of spiritual openness."—Spirituality & Practice

As Zen takes root in the west, new forms arise. For centuries Zen masters have tested their students with “koans” and “capping phrases.” A koan is a spiritual paradox that must be solved intuitively. A capping phrase is a trenchant comment. Both are meditative practices that reveal deeper truths about the self and, ideally, lead to enlightenment.

In Zen Traces, Buddhist scholar Kenneth Kraft plays off these practices in a new idiom. He selects passages from four sources: traditional Zen, present-day Zen, Henry David Thoreau, and Mark Twain. When a koan-like story about a contemporary Zen teacher is paired with a pithy comment by Mark Twain, something fresh emerges.

Fifty years of reading Homer—both alone and with students—prepared Eva Brann to bring the Odyssey and the Iliad back to life for today's readers. In Homeric Moments, she brilliantly conveys the unique delights of Homer's epics as she focuses on the crucial scenes, or moments, that mark the high points of the narratives: Penelope and Odysseus, faithful wife and returning husband, sit face to face at their own hearth for the first time in twenty years; young Telemachus, with his father Odysseus at his side, boldly confronts the angry suitors; Achilles gives way to boundless grief at the death of his friend Patroclus.

Eva Brann demonstrates a way of reading Homer's poems that yields up their hidden treasures. With an alert eye for Homer's extraordinary visual effects and a keen ear for the musicality of his language, she helps the reader see the flickering campfires of the Greeks and hear the roar of the surf and the singing of nymphs. In Homeric Moments, Brann takes readers beneath the captivating surface of the poems to explore the inner connections and layers of meaning that have made the epics "the marvel of the ages."

"Written with wit and clarity, this book will be of value to those reading the Odyssey and the Iliad for the first time and to those teaching it to beginners."—Library Journal

"Homeric Moments is a feast for the mind and the imagination, laid out in clear and delicious prose. With Brann, old friends of Homer and new acquaintances alike will rejoice in the beauty, and above all the humanity, of the epics." —Jacob Howland, University of Tulsa, Author of The Paradox of Political Philosophy

"In Homeric Moments, Eva Brann lovingly leads us, as she has surely led countless students, through the gallery of delights that is Homer's poetry. Brann's enthusiasm is as infectious as her deep familiarity with the works is illuminating."—Rachel Hadas

"Brann invites us to enter a conversation [about Homer] in which information and formal arguments jostle with appreciations and frank conjectures and surmises to increase our pleasure and deepen the inward dimension of our humanity."—Richard Freis, Millsaps College

"For anyone eager to experience the profundity and charm of Homer's great epic poems, Eva Brann's book will serve as a passionate and engaging guide. Brann displays a deep sensitivity to the cadence and flow of Homeric poetry, and the kind of knowing intimacy with its characters that comes from years of teaching and contemplation. Her relaxed but informative approach succeeds in conveying the grandeur of the great Homeric heroes, while making them continually resonate for our own lives. Brann helps us see that this poetry has an urgency for our own era as much as it did for a distant past."—Ralph M. Rosen, University of Pennsylvania, Author of Old Comedy and The Iambographic Tradition

"The most enjoyable books about Homer are always written by those who have read and taught him the most. Eva Brann's collection of astute observations, unusual asides, and visual snapshots of the Iliad and the Odyssey reveals a lifelong friendship with the poet, and is as pleasurable as it is informative. Homeric Moments is rare erudition without pedantry, in a tone marked by good sense without levity."—Victor Davis Hanson, author of The Other Greeks and co-author of Who Killed Homer?

Eva Brann is a member of the senior faculty at St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland, where she has taught for fifty years. She is a recipient of the National Humanities Medal. Her other books include The Logos of Heraclitus, Feeling Our Feelings, Homage to Americans, Open Secrets / Inward Prospects, The Music of the Republic, Un-Willing, and Then and Now (all published by Paul Dry Books).