NJSAA McCormick Prize / Scholarly Category Winner (2024)Most of the roughly 140,000 Holocaust survivors who came to the United States in the first decade after World War II settled in big cities such as New York. But a few thousand chose an alternative way of life on American farms. More of these accidental farmers wound up raising chickens in southern New Jersey than anywhere else. Speaking Yiddish to Chickens is the first book to chronicle this little-kn...

"Will likely be the definitive biography. . . . a detailed and fascinating account of how the Supreme Court functioned during Brennan's long tenure." — Publishers Weekly (starred review)This is a compelling inside look at the life of William Brennan, a champion of free speech who is widely considered the most influential Supreme Court justice of the twentieth century. Before his death, Brennan granted Stephen Wermiel access to volumes of personal and court ...

In this sweeping and revealing insider study, Seth Stern and Stephen Wermiel shine a bright light on the life, career, and thought of William Brennan (1906-1997), widely considered the Supreme Court’s most influential twentieth-century justice, as well as its greatest liberal and preeminent strategist.Stern and Wermiel make available for the first time a striking new view of Brennan based on what Jeffrey Toobin has called “a coveted set of documents”—Justice Brennan’s very personal...

Most Holocaust survivors who came to the US after WWII settled in big cities, but some chose an alternative way of life on American farms. More of these accidental farmers wound up raising chickens in southern New Jersey than anywhere else. Speaking Yiddish to Chickens is the first book to chronicle this chapter in American Jewish history when these refugees—including the author's grandparents—found an unlikely gateway to new lives in the US on poultry farms. This book relies on i...

He was the best at what he did: a born fighter, a mutant whose uncanny speed and strength, augmented by the best technology money could buy, made him close to unstoppable. He had an indestructible skeleton, cast from the hardest metal on the planet, and razor-sharp claws that could cut through steel like butter.He was Wolverine, a member of the mutant Super Hero group X-Men.Then everything changed.Now, with the adamantium ripped out of his body—with his healing factor reduced to a fraction...

The National Book Award–winning, New York Times–bestselling history of Yiddish-speaking immigrants on the Lower East Side and beyond.In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, two million Jewish immigrants poured into America, leaving places like Warsaw or the Russian shtetls to pass through Ellis Island and start over in the New World. This is a "brilliant" account of their stories ( The New York Times).Though some moved on to ...

Three New York Times bestsellers chronicle the rise of America's most influential Jewish families as they transition from poor immigrants to household names.In his acclaimed trilogy, author Stephen Birmingham paints an engrossing portrait of Jewish American life from the colonial era through the twentieth century with fascinating narrative and meticulous research.The collection's best-known book, "Our Crowd" follows nineteenth-century Germa...

Few growing up in the aftermath of World War II will ever forget the horrifying reports that Nazi concentration camp doctors had removed the skin of prisoners to makes common, everyday lampshades. In The Lampshade, bestselling journalist Mark Jacobson tells the story of how he came into possession of one of these awful objects, and of his search to establish the origin, and larger meaning, of what can only be described as an icon of terror.Jacobson’s mind-...

The New York Times–bestselling history of the Jewish immigrants from Russia and Poland who altered the American landscape from New York to Hollywood.The wave of Eastern European Jewish immigrants who swept into New York in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by way of Ellis Island were not welcomed by the Jews who had arrived decades before. These refugees from czarist Russia and the Polish shtetls who came to America to escape pogroms and per...

How do you get away with the murder of 11 million people? The answer is simple—and disturbing. You lie to them. Learn how you can become an informed, passionate citizen who demands honesty and integrity from your leaders.In this nonpartisan New York Times bestselling book, Andy Andrews emphasizes that seeking and discerning the truth is of critical importance, and that believing lies is the most dangerous thing you can do. You’ll be challenged to ...

One of the great American iconoclasts holds forth on politics, war, books and writers, and his personal life in a series of conversations—including his last published interview.During his long career Kurt Vonnegut won international praise for his novels, plays, and essays. In this new anthology of conversations with Vonnegut—which collects interviews from throughout his career—we learn much about what drove Vonnegut to write and how he viewed his w...

How do you get away with the murder of 11 million people? The answer is simple—and disturbing. You lie to them. Learn how you can become an informed, passionate citizen who demands honesty and integrity from your leaders.In this nonpartisan New York Times bestselling book, Andy Andrews emphasizes that seeking and discerning the truth is of critical importance, and that believing lies is the most dangerous thing you can do. You’ll be challenged to ...