A whirlwind of art, music, and lust, Life on Sandpaper is Yoram Kaniuk's overwhelming autobiographical novel detailing his years as a young painter in the New York of the '50s. Wounded and alienated, a war veteran at the age of nineteen, Kaniuk arrives in Greenwich Village at its peak period of artistic creativity, and finds his way among such giants as Charlie Parker, Billie Holiday, Willem de Kooning, and Frank Sinatra. In terse prose, inspired by the associative and breathless ...

Sixty years after fighting in Israel's War of Independence, Yoram Kaniuk tries to remember what exactly did—and did not—happen in his time as a teenage soldier in the Palmach. The result is a touchingly poignant and hauntingly beautiful memoir that the author himself considers a work of fiction, for what is memory but one's own story about the past?Eschewing self-righteousness in favor of self-criticism, Kaniuk's book, winner of the 2010 Sapir Prize for Literature, is the tale of a...

Diplomat and raconteur Zalman Shoval leads readers behind the closed doors of Jerusalem and Washington in this memoir, into the rooms where prime ministers and presidents made decisions about the first Gulf War, the fate of Jonathan Pollard, the role of the PLO, and Israel’s responses to international criticism and hostilities.As a member of Israel’s Likud party, an early ally of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and a two-time ambassador to the United States, Shoval has navigated...

Based on previously unexploited primary sources, this is the first comprehensive biography of Yosef Haim Brenner, one of the pioneers of Modern Hebrew literature. Born in 1881 to a poor Jewish family in Russia, Brenner published his first story, "A Loaf of Bread," in 1900. After being drafted into the Russian army, he deserted to England and later immigrated to Palestine where he became an eminent writer, critic and cultural icon of the Jewish and Zionist cultural milieu. His life was trag...

Now a Netflix Series, The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem is a dazzling story about mothers and daughters, secrets and betrayals, and a binding curse.The #1 International BestsellerGabriela's mother Luna is the most beautiful woman in all of Jerusalem, though her famed beauty and charm seem to be reserved for everyone but her daughter. Ever since Gabriela can remember, she and Luna have struggled to connect. But when tragedy strikes, Gab...

Written by one of Israel's most notable scholars, this volume provides a breathtaking history of Israel from the origins of the Zionist movement in the late nineteenth century to the present day. Organized chronologically, the volume explores the emergence of Zionism in Europe against the backdrop of relations among Jews, Arabs, and Turks, and the earliest pioneer settlements in Palestine under Ottoman rule. Weaving together political, social, and cultural developments in Palestine under t...

Freedom Oliver has plenty of secrets. She lives in a small Oregon town and keeps mostly to herself. Her few friends and neighbors know she works at the local biker bar; they know she gets arrested for public drunkenness almost every night; they know she’s brash, funny, and fearless.What they don’t know is that Freedom Oliver is a fake name. They don’t know that she was arrested for killing her husband, a cop, twenty years ago. They don’t know she put her two kids up for adoption. T...

In Reclaiming My Decade Lost in Scientology, Sands Hall chronicles her slow yet willing absorption into the Church of Scientology. Her time in the Church, the 1980s, includes the secretive illness and death of its founder, L. Ron Hubbard, and the ascension of David Miscavige. Hall compellingly reveals what drew her into the religion―what she found intriguing and useful―and how she came to confront its darker sides.As a young woman from a literary family striving to forge h...

**This original and deeply provocative book was the first to make Palestine the subject of a serious debate--one that remains as critical as ever."A compelling call for identity and justice." —Anthony Lewis"Books such as Mr. Said's need to be written and read in the hope that understanding will provide a better chance of survival." —The New York Times Book Review**With the rigorous scholarship he brought to his influential Orientalism and an exile'...

Rappaport, an expert in the field of Russian history, brings you the riveting day-by-day account of the last fourteen days of the Russian Imperial family, in this first of two books about the Romanovs. Her second book The Romanov Sisters, offering a never-before-seen glimpse at the lives of the Tsar's beautiful daughters and a celebration of their unique stories, will be published in 2014.The brutal murder of the Russian Imperial family on the night of Jul...

From the headline-making, New York Times bestselling author of I Hate Everyone...Starting With Me comes another intimate glimpse into the delightfully hilarious mind of Joan Rivers.When her daughter Melissa gives her a diary for Christmas, at first Joan is horrified—who the hell does Melissa think she is? That fat pig, Bridget Jones? But as Joan, being both beautiful and introspective, begins to record her day-to-day musings, she realizes she has ...