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The haunted smile : the story of Jewish comedians in America
Epstein, Lawrence J. (Lawrence Jeffrey)
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2001; xxii, 356 p. : ill. ; 24 cm.
It has been estimated that although Jews comprise only three percent of Americans, over 80% of comedians are Jewish. A specialist in American Jewish life, Epstein (English, Suffolk Community College) argues that Jewish comedy is tinged by bitter encounters with anti-Semitism, a desire to be accepted, and concern for a culture disappearing at the same time it draws on a long tradition of Jewish humor. c. Book News Inc.
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The swallows of Kabul
Khadra, Yasmina.
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2004; 195 p. ; 20 cm.
"Set in Kabul under the rule of the Taliban, this novel takes readers into the lives of two couples. Mohsen comes from a family of wealthy shopkeepers whom the Taliban have destroyed; and Zunaira, his beautiful wife, once a brilliant teacher, is now no longer allowed to leave her home without escort or covering her face. Intersecting their world is Atiq, a prison keeper, a man who has sincerely adopted the Taliban ideology and struggles to keep his faith, and his wife, Musarrat, who once rescued Atiq and is now dying of sickness and despair." "Desperate, exhausted Mohsen wanders through Kabul when he is surrounded by a crowd about to stone an adulterous woman. Numbed by the hysterical atmosphere and drawn into their rage, he too throws stones at the face of the condemned woman buried up to her waist. With this gesture the lives of all four protagonists move toward their destinies."--BOOK JACKET.
-- summary Produced by Blackwell's Book Services; distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc. (Terms of Use)
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Honor lost : love and death in modern-day Jordan
Khouri, Norma.
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2003; 211 p. ; 24 cm.
I'd always believed that we'd spend our lives together...I never dreamed that my time with her would be cut short, or that my life would be a journey down this path, but I realize that she left me with a mission...I must find a way to make all Arab women's silent cries for justice and freedom heard around the world. Dalia was a young, beautiful Arabian Muslim living with her family in Amman, Jordan. At the age of twenty-five, she unexpectedly fell in love with Michael, a major in the Royal Army, and a Catholic. For a Muslim woman, any relationship with a Catholic man is forbidden, and Dalia was only too aware that flouting this rule could cost her her life. But they were deeply in love, and with the help of Dalia's lifelong friend, Norma, with whom she ran a hair salon, they went to extraordinary lengths to meet in secret. Dalia and Michael were only alone on a handful of occasions, and their relationship remained entirely chaste. Although they covered their tracks meticulously, one of Dalia's brothers became suspicious and she was suddenly gripped by the terrifying reality of what might happen to them all. Norma Khouri's book is a gift to the memory of her friend. In it she recounts a powerful love story that ends in an appalling tragedy, and also attempts to bring to the world's attention the continuing practice of honor killing in Jordan -- an ancient tradition that encourages the murder of women considered to have dishonored their families. It is a crime that effectively goes unpunished. Shocking and dramatic, Honor Lost will strike a chord with women everywhere and is a testimony to the courage and strength of women who are prepared to defy generations of male dominance.
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The house sitter
Lovesey, Peter.
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2003; 346 p. ; 20 cm.
"The corpse of a beautiful woman, clad only in a bathing suit, is found on a popular Sussex beach at the end of a hot, sunny day. Apparently, she was murdered in full view of dozens of other holiday makers. Establishing the victim's identity is difficult but when it is finally learned that she was a Bath resident, Inspector Peter Diamond is called in." "Diamond, the gruff individualist, must cooperate with Henrietta Mallin, the original senior investigating officer. Yet a third policeman enters the picture, a cocky young officer who is highly regarded by his superiors if not by Diamond. Several national celebrities have been targeted by a serial killer whom the police refer to as the Mariner because he leaves notes with a quotation from Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" as his signature. The powers that be attempt to forestall Diamond's efforts lest he impede the search for the Mariner."--BOOK JACKET.
-- summary Produced by Blackwell's Book Services; distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc. (Terms of Use)
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A human being died that night : a South African woman confronts the legacy of apartheid
Gobodo-Madikizela, Pumla.
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2003; 193 p. ; 21 cm.
A Human Being Died That Night recounts an extraordinary dialogue. Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, a psychologist who grew up in a black South African township, reflects on her interviews with Eugene de Kock, the commanding officer of state-sanctioned death squads under apartheid. Gobodo-Madikizela met with de Kock in Pretoria's maximum-security prison, where he is serving a 212-year sentence for crimes against humanity. In profoundly arresting scenes, Gobodo-Madikizela conveys her struggle with contradictory internal impulses to hold him accountable and to forgive. Ultimately, as she allows us to witness de Kock's extraordinary awakening of conscience, she illuminates the ways in which the encounter compelled her to redefine the value of remorse and the limits of forgiveness. Book jacket.
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Hungry hearts
Yezierska, Anzia, 1880?-1970.
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1996; xvi, 239 p. ; 21 cm.
Anzia Yeziersska was the first Jewish-American woman to achieve wide recognition for her stories. These are powerfully told tales of the hardships of discrimination and assimilation faced by the immigrants who populated New York's slums, of the determined women who strive to overcome their humble beginnings, and of their fierce desire to attain the "American Dream".
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I don't know how she does it : the life of Kate Reddy, working mother
Pearson, Allison, 1960-
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2002; 337 p. ; 25 cm.
For every woman trying to strike that impossible balance between work and home-and pretending that she has-and for every woman who has wanted to hurl the acquaintance who coos admiringly, "Honestly, I just don't know how you do it," out a window, here's a novel to make you cringe with recognition and laugh out loud. With fierce, unsentimental irony, Allison Pearson's novel brilliantly dramatizes the dilemma of working motherhood at the start of the twenty-first century. Meet Kate Reddy, hedge-fund manager and mother of two. She can juggle nine different currencies in five different time zones and get herself and two children washed and dressed and out of the house in half an hour. In Kate's life, Everything Goes Perfectly as long as Everything Goes Perfectly. She lies to her own mother about how much time she spends with her kids; practices pelvic floor squeezes in the boardroom; applies tips from Toddler Taming to soothe her irascible boss; uses her cell phone in the office bathroom to procure a hamster for her daughter's birthday ("Any working mother who says she doesn't bribe her kids can add Liar to her résumé"); and cries into the laundry hamper when she misses her children's bedtime. In a novel that is at once uproariously funny and achingly sad, Allison Pearson captures the guilty secret lives of working women-the self-recrimination, the comic deceptions, the giddy exhaustion, the despair-as no other writer has. Kate Reddy's conflict --How are we meant to pass our days? How are we to reconcile the two passions, work and motherhood, that divide our lives? --gets at the private absurdities of working motherhood as only a novel could: with humor, drama, and bracing wisdom.
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Iceland's bell
Halldór Laxness, 1902-
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2003; xv, 425 p. : 1 map ; 21 cm.
"Sometimes grim, sometimes uproarious, and always captivating, Iceland's Bell by Nobel Laureate Halldor Laxness is at once an updating of the traditional Icelandic saga and a caustic social satire. At the close of the 17th century, Iceland is an oppressed Danish colony, suffering under extreme poverty, famine, and plague. A farmer and accused cord-thief named Jon Hreggvidsson makes a bawdy joke about the Danish king and soon after finds himself a fugitive charged with the murder of the king's hangman." "In the years that follow, the hapless but resilient rogue Hreggvidsson becomes a pawn entangled in political and personal conflicts playing out on a far grander scale. Chief among these is the star-crossed love affair between Snaefridur, known as "Iceland's Sun," a beautiful, headstrong young nobleman, and Arnas Arnaenus, the king's antiquarian, an aristocrat whose worldly manner conceals a fierce devotion to his downtrodden countrymen. As their personal struggle plays itself out on an international stage, Iceland's Bell creates a Dickensian canvas of heroism and venality, violence and tragedy, charged with narrative enchantment on every page."--BOOK JACKET.
-- summary Produced by Blackwell's Book Services; distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc. (Terms of Use)
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In the image : a novel
Horn, Dara, 1977-
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2002; 280 p. : geneal. table ; 21 cm.
Bill Landsmann, an elderly Jewish refugee in a New Jersey suburb, collects images from the Bible that he finds scattered throughout the world. The novel begins when he crosses paths with his granddaughter's friend, Leora, revealing the unexpected links between his family's past and her family's future.
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The Jane Austen book club
Fowler, Karen Joy.
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2004; 288 p. ; 22 cm.
"In California's Central Valley, five women and one man join together to discuss Jane Austen's novels. Over the six months they meet, marriages are tested, affairs begin, unsuitable arrangements become suitable, and love happens." "Dedicated Austen readers will delight in unearthing the echoes of Austen that run through this novel, but many readers will simply enjoy the vision and voice that, despite two centuries of separation, unite two writers of social comedy."--BOOK JACKET.
-- summary Produced by Blackwell's Book Services; distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc. (Terms of Use)
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The Jew store
Suberman, Stella.
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1998; 298 p. ; 23 cm.
In 1920, in Concordia, Tennessee, Bronson's dry goods store was known locally as "the Jew store". With a novelist's sense of scene, suspense, and characterization, Stella Suberman turns the clock back to a time when rural America was more peaceful but no less prejudiced.
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Jews on trial
by Bruce Afran ... [et al.] ; edited by Robert A. Garber.
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2005; x, 258 p. ; 24 cm.
"In Jews on Trial readers will find variety and breadth in significant examples of prejudice, sometimes concealed, sometimes palpable, in official proceedings. Presented in clear and accessible essays are the stories - from the French army captain whose ordeal stirred Theodor Herzl in his advocacy of Zionism to the U.S. Navy employee who passed classified information to Israel, from the Atlanta businessman accused of an unspeakable crime to the Holocaust historian who was sued by the fraudulent historian she unmasked. Here are innocents accused of brutal ritual murder and here are a husband and wife sentenced to death by a Jewish judge. Some well known stories are considered anew; readers may discover others for the first time. Each one is a revealing case history. All are true, presented with balance and clarity by lawyers and scholars."--BOOK JACKET.
-- summary Produced by Blackwell's Book Services; distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc. (Terms of Use)
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