Synopsis: The son of a liquor store owner goes into advertising and finds out he's just like his father.After Dinner Conversation is a growing series of short stories across genres to draw out deeper discussions with friends and family. Each story is an accessible example of an abstract ethical or philosophical idea and is accompanied by suggested discussion questions.Podcast discussion of this short story, and others, is a...

"After Dinner Conversation" Magazine - December 2021The Truth As We Know It: Celia's child, Theo, is continually bullied at school and his new step-father tries to "make a man" out of him.For Your Safety: Zoe is visited by the government for having sexual relations without first filing an "Intimate Partnership Agreement."The Growing And Weeding Of Dandelions: A space arc arrives a...

Debts must be paid, in one way or another. . . . Mauro should never have played poker with the Duke, and he should not have lost. And now, even though he hasn't the money to pay, he has to honor his debt or face terrible consequences. Fortunately, there's Club Magritte, whose wealthy members are eager to lend a hand to anyone willing to participate in their diabolical pleasures. And so, for Mauro, the inexorable descent into blood and horror begins.

You're sitting around the campfire; it's dark, the moon is high in the sky, the wind is whistling through the trees, and the sense of isolation is pervasive. You hear a twig snap in the darkness, everyone is tense. What's the story you tell your friends to terrify them? What's in the dark, stalking the camp: an ax murderer, a werewolf, or something so far beyond our mortal understanding that just the sight of it will drive each of us insane?

Described by Le Monde as "the richest view of Balzac's time seen from the table," Paris à Table: 1846 is an essential text in the history of gastronomy, along with Brillat-Savarin's The Physiology of Taste and Dumas's Dictionary of Cuisine. Its author, Eugène Briffault, was well-known in his day as a theater critic and chronicler of contemporary Paris, but also as a bon-vivant, celebrated for his ability to quaff a bell jar full of champagne in a single ...

Described by Le Monde as "the richest view of Balzac's time seen from the table," Paris à Table: 1846 is an essential text in the history of gastronomy, along with Brillat-Savarin's The Physiology of Taste and Dumas's Dictionary of Cuisine. Its author, Eugène Briffault, was well-known in his day as a theater critic and chronicler of contemporary Paris, but also as a bon-vivant, celebrated for his ability to quaff a bell jar full of champagne in a single ...

A grand adventure, the rebirth of the Skolian Empire, and the romance that commenced this saga.Eldrinson Valdoria is a bard and leader on the planet Skyfall, a world with a culture considered primitive by the starflung civilization of the Imperialate. As adept with a sword as he is with a ballad, he is also an undiscovered telepath of great power.Roca Skolia, a former dancer, is now the councilor for Foreign Affairs in the Imperialate’s governing Assembly and heir to the Ru...

Schism (Triad, Book I) is the tenth novel in Catherine Asaro’s multiple-award-winning Skolian saga, and represents an excellent entry point into the series. An epic story of how the Ruby Dynasty reached maturity, Triad, divided into two books, reveals how a war of galactic proportions first explodes between two great empires.Schism is how it all began, harkening back to the early years of the Skolian Empire, back to the beginning of the war between Skolia and the ...

Here is the story of Jerry Weintraub: the self-made, Brooklyn-born, Bronx-raised impresario, Hollywood producer, legendary deal maker, and friend of politicians and stars. No matter where nature has placed him--the club rooms of Brooklyn, the Mafia dives of New York's Lower East Side, the wilds of Alaska, or the hills of Hollywood--he has found a way to put on a show and sell tickets at the door. "All life was a theater and I wanted to put it up on a stage," he writes. "I wanted to set the...

The Final Key is the completion of the duology Triad, which began with the novel Schism, and which reveals the epic story of how a war of galactic proportions first exploded between two great empires and how the Ruby Dynasty reached maturity.Schism ended with the Skolian Empire torn asunder by personal conflict within the royal family. With The Final Key, the Skolian Empire comes under all-out assault from its nemesis, the Euban Concord (Traders)...

"This detective story is magnificently presented . . . [the] chronology of the quest to answer one of the most challenging questions in astronomy." — ChoiceAstronomers have determined that our universe is 13.7 billion years old. How exactly did they come to this precise conclusion? How Old Is the Universe? tells the incredible story of how astronomers solved one of the most compelling mysteries in science and, along the way, introduces readers to f...

The stories of our ancestors call to us all from across time, asking to be remembered. In retelling our ancestors’ experiences of love, tradition, loss, and sorrow, we not only honor their lives, but we come to better understand our own.In this collection of remarkable essays, Ami Lev Weintraub guides us on a journey to meet the ghosts of his Jewish ancestors—a people whose struggles and stories sometimes whisper and sometimes scream to be shared. Ami examines challenging questio...