The Beginning of Desire: Reflections on Genesis


Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg - 1995
    With amazing literary sensitivity, Zornberg ingeniously breathes new life into Adam and Eve, Noah, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac, Jacob and Esau, Rachel, and Joseph. The author's vibrant spirit, charming personality, and infectious enthusiasm for the Bible draw the reader into the search for meaning where real life and the biblical story intersect. The Beginning Of Desire imaginatively interweaves biblical, rabbinic, and literary sources into a colorful tapestry that is both intellectually stimulating and personally uplifting.One of the Jewish biblical scholars scheduled to appear on the Bill Moyers PBS special on Genesis, Avivah Zornberg employs an amazing repertoire of literary sources to engage the audience and illuminate the text. Delivering her erudition in a pleasantly lyrical style, the author shares her experience of God with the world. It is an intimate, personal, and revealing encounter no one should miss.

This Is Not a Story and Other Stories


Denis Diderot - 1773
    This volume presents his five remarkable philosophical tales including This Is Not a Story, On the Inconsistency of Public Opinion Regarding Our Private Action, and Supplement to Bougainville's Voyage, as well as The Two Friends From Bourbonne and Conversation of a Father with His Children: or the Danger of Setting Oneself Above the Law, both of which are here translated into English for the first time.

The Torah: A Modern Commentary


W. Gunther Plaut - 1981
    One of the outstanding works of Reform Judaism.

Gabriel García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude: A Casebook


Gene H. Bell-Villada - 2002
    Each casebook reprints documents relating to a work's historical context and reception, presents the best critical studies, and, when possible, features an interview with the author. Accessible and informative to scholars, students, and nonspecialist readers alike, the books in this series provide a wide range of critical and informative commentaries on major texts. Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude is arguably the most important novel in twentieth-century Latin American literature. This Casebook features ten critical articles on Garcia Marquez's great work. Carefully selected from the most important work on the novel over the past three decades, they include pieces by Carlos Fuentes, Iris Zavala, James Higgins, Jean Franco, Michael Wood, and Gene H. Bell-Villada. Among the intriguing aspects of the work discussed are its mythic dimension, its "magical" side, its representations of women, its relationship with past chronicles of exploration and discovery, its portrayals of Western power and imperialism, its astounding diffusion throughout the globe and the media, and its simple truth-telling, its fidelity to the tangled history of Latin America. The book incorporates several theoretical approaches--historical, feminist, postcolonial; the first English translation of Fuentes's renowned, oft-cited, eight page meditation on the work; a general introduction; and a 1982 interview with Garcia Marquez.

Way of God: Derech Hashem (Torah Classics Library) (English and Hebrew Edition)


Moshe Chayim Luzzatto - 1981
    With Rabbi Yosef Begun's marginal notes. Vowelized, facing Hebrew and English texts.

The Torah for Dummies


Arthur Kurzweil - 2007
    This accessible guide explains the Torah in clear language, even to those who were not raised in the Jewish religious tradition. Christians who want to know more about the Jewish roots of Christianity need to understand the Torah, as do followers of Islamic tradition and those interested in the roots of Abrahamic faiths. The Torah For Dummies explains the history of the Torah, its structure and major principles, and how the Torah affects the daily lives of people who follow the Jewish way of life.

The 100-Yard War: Inside the 100-Year-Old Michigan-Ohio State Football Rivalry


Greg Emmanuel - 2004
    It transcends the years, the standings, and all other distractions. And thanks to the countless remarkable football games between Michigan and Ohio State--and hundreds of thousands of devoted alumni and followers--the rivalry is now an enormous cultural event.

Introduction to the Hebrew Bible


John J. Collins - 2004
    Collins takes his students on a historical-critical journey through biblical texts. With an accessible yet authoritative tone, he identifies the complex ethical issues raised by the text and challenges his students to understand the responsibilities of interpretation. Drawing on his many years of expert teaching, Collins produces a clear and concise tool for undergraduate, graduate, and seminary settings with maps, images, and suggestions for further reading to guide students along the way.

Drugs and Society


Glen R. Hanson - 1995
    Written In An Objective And User-Friendly Manner, This Best-Selling Text Continues To Captivate Students By Incorporating Personal Drug Use And Abuse Experiences And Perspectives Throughout. Statistics And Chapter Content Have Been Revised To Include The Latest Information On Current Topics.

With the Beatles


Alistair Taylor - 2003
    By the band’s side from the very beginning, he beheld the inception and growth of the most extraordinary musical phenomenon of the last century. But he was also there when things started to go wrong—when George Harrison quit the band at the height of their success and when it all started to spiral out of control. And he reveals for the first time exactly what caused their break-up. As Brian Epstein’s right-hand man, Alistair Taylor was with the charismatic manager when he first saw The Beatles perform at The Cavern. Taylor later became the band’s ever-present Mr. Fix-it. He bought islands, handled paternity cases, and became a close and trusted friend. It was he who found Epstein’s body after his suicide and, in the reorganization that followed, Taylor went on to become General Manager of Apple, The Beatles’ record company.

Remediation: Understanding New Media


Jay David Bolter - 1998
    In this richly illustrated study, Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin offer a theory of mediation for our digital age that challenges this assumption. They argue that new visual media achieve their cultural significance precisely by paying homage to, rivaling, and refashioning such earlier media as perspective painting, photography, film, and television. They call this process of refashioning "remediation," and they note that earlier media have also refashioned one another: photography remediated painting, film remediated stage production and photography, and television remediated film, vaudeville, and radio.

1949: The First Israelis


Tom Segev - 1986
    In 1949, a controversial best-seller in Israel, Tom Segev draws on thousands of declassified documents along with personal diaries and correspondence to reconstruct the unvarnished story of Israel's first year.Segev reveals the lofty aspirations that guided the state's leaders as well as the darker side of the Zionist utopia: the friction between the early settlers and the immigrants, the lack of good-faith negotiations with the Arabs; the clash between religious and secular factions; the daily collision of the Zionist myth with the severe realities of life in the new state. Unflinching in its observations, this bold chronicle is indispensible for understanding the dilemmas that continue to confront--and divide--Israeli society.

What's it all About?


Cilla Black - 2003
    Generations have grown up with Cilla's music, TV shows, and performances. But how much do we really know about 'the girl with the bright red hair and the jet black voice'? What's It All About? is Cilla's own story, told for the first time ever. It's the story of a woman who has worked ceaselessly to stay at the top for forty years despite setbacks and personal tragedy; a life of incredible highs and terrible lows. In this deeply personal autobiography she tells her unique story in intimate and vivid detail for the very first time. This is the real Cilla Black.

Spring Comes To Chicago


Campbell McGrath - 1996
    Now, in Spring Comes to Chicago, McGrath pushes deeper into the jungle of American culture, exposing and celebrating our native hungers and dreams. In the centerpiece of the book, "The Bob Hope Poem," McGrath confronts the paradoxes that energize and confound us--examining his own avid affection for People magazine and contemplating such diverse subjects as Wittgenstein, meat packers, money, and, of course, Bob Hope himself. Whether viewing this life with existential gravity or consumerist glee, McGarth creates poetry that is at once public and profoundly personal.

The Wild Duck / Hedda Gabler


Henrik Ibsen - 1977
    In Michael Meyer's fluent, idiomatic translations, The Wild Duck and Hedda Gabler stand as masterpieces of naturalist drama.