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This comic novel by renowned Norwegian writer Jens Bjørneboe follows the exploits of a community of expatriates living off-season in a small Italian fishing village: their lives, loves, and interactions with the locals, including involvement in a dispute between the fishermen and the town fathers who wish to promote the tourist industry. A shorter, lighter read than most of Bjørneboe's work, it nonetheless invokes social commentary with concise portraits of various personality types and the inevitable collision of values in modern life between greed/progress and traditional ways of life.

The Flying African follows the journey of an unnamed traveler, a young Armenian writer who spends fifty-four adventurous days in Africa, one day in each of the continent's countries. Fifty-four chapters provide vignettes of the visits to each country, in which the traveler experiences the beauty of the land and the complexity of the people, as well the continent's darker side: the on-going effects of colonization, war, poverty, and disease. While it is impossible to understand the whole of Africa or even one country in a short visit, each chapter provides a snapshot of something significant about the country visited, grounded in its own history, culture, and customs. The traveler's progress is episodic and surreal, and at times he becomes dissociated and unsure of even where he is or what he is observing. He experiences some of the typical aspects of travel-seeing ancient mosques and other interesting architecture, visiting markets and trying new foods, and meeting both natives and other travelers, but the real journey is a psychological and emotional one. The geographic adventure of travel takes a back seat to the psychic adventure of unmooring oneself from the familiarity of home and reaching out to the unknown. Even as the narrator struggles to make sense of the sometimes magical and fantastic stories told to him, as well as his own disorienting experiences, he is still greatly affected by witnessing the human condition and has flashes of insight illuminating the human psyche's capacity for growth, pain, and resilience. Ultimately, the traveler, and the reader along with him, takes a complex journey of letting go of expectations and opening up to the profound effects of encountering what is both familiar and foreign.

A plain factory worker who hides herself from life finds new possibilities opening up when a co-worker invites her to a political lecture. A humble shoemaker gains confidence and pride in his work after a yeshiva student introduces him to the philosophy of Spinoza. An unhappy housewife has new emotions stirred in her by an intellectual boarder. An African American man works his entire life standing, only to find himself unable to walk in retirement. A Jewish family waits in sorrow and anger as their loved ones' fates are played out on the national news. Frume Halpern brings these "slice of life" stories to life in this collection of short stories featuring protagonists on the fringes of American society: immigrants, Jews, African Americans, and the disabled, the sick, and the poor.¿Blessed Hands is the frst ever complete English-language translation of Gebenshte hent: dertseylungen, along with the original foreword by Isaac Elchanan Ronch and an afterword by the translator. This collection contains short stories were that were published over several decades in the left-wing daily newspaper Morgn frayhayt [Morning Freedom] and other Yiddish-language outlets in mid-20th century New York. ¿These psychologically insightful stories present the lives of protagonists who are working-class poor, social outcasts, and those experiencing illness, disability, and racism. Halpern worked as a massage therapist in a hospital and many of these stories are about those who work with their hands: workshop/factory workers, piece workers, a shoemaker, a butcher, and a hairdresser.

Loose in the Bright Fantastic is an adult fiction book that will be of interest to readers of women's fiction and family dramas, particularly those who are dealing with "sandwich generation" issues of caring both for growing children and aging parents. Grey-haired Maggie, who is in the early stages of dementia, flees her hospital room and takes refuge in Boston's Public Gardens and later in the squat of a homeless man she befriends. She is looking for something, or trying to stop something, although she cannot always remember exactly what. Her adventures end with her invading a dinner party at a home where she used to live, years before. While all this is going on, her adult children Clair and Roger are interacting with the police and trying to find her -- while dealing with the sale of Maggie's home and the disposal of her possessions, along with their own challenges as a divorced single mother and a closeted gay man. Told with humor and compassion, this is a heartfelt story of family ties that get stretched under duress but never quite break.

This is the first complete English-language translation of La Guzla, ou Choix de poésies illyriques recueillies dans la Dalmatie, la Bosnie, la Croatie et l'Herzégowine, which presents a collection of folk literature from the former Illyrian Provinces. Or does it? It contains short pieces drawing from various genres-ersatz scholarly essays, ballad lyrics presented in the form of prose poems, folk tales, a fragment of a stage play-all generously peppered with footnotes explaining the historical and sociological context of these "discoveries."First published in 1827, La Guzla purported to be a collection of folktales, ballad lyrics, and travel narratives compiled and translated into French by an anonymous traveler returning from the Balkans. Before long, though, it was revealed that both the stories and their "translator" were the fictional creations of a young civil servant, Prosper Mérimée, who would later become one of the most accomplished French writers of his generation. In these dramatic tales of love, war, and encounters with the supernatural, Mérimée has given us both a treasure trove of "fakelore" and a satirical portrait of a self-appointed expert blissfully unaware of how little he understands the cultures he claims to represent.

"We two ought not to die before we have explained ourselves to one another." John Adams wrote those words to Thomas Jefferson early in the long series of letters they exchanged near the end of their lives. In Madison's Cave is Jefferson's imaginary explanation, organized around four drawings that he hopes will map the route to a complete emancipation of human nature. The souls of men are demons, Jefferson begins, but he is convinced that he has built a verbal machine to exorcise them, a mechanism hidden in the pages of his notorious Notes on the State of Virginia. The key to the machine is the outline of a limestone cave in the Shenandoah Valley that Jefferson made not long after the death of his wife and that captures, for him, the essence of the human underworld, its monsters and its redemptive lessons. In a series of chapters that mimic those of his infamous book, he ushers Adams into that underworld. This experimental epistolary novel considers early American history, government & politics, education, race relations, and other themes that still resonate in modern American life.

The eruption of Kilauea on the Big Island of Hawaii tests Officer Jenny Freitas like nothing else in her young police career. It's not enough that she finds a murder victim in a doomed house just seconds before the lava overwhelms it. A second victim draws Jenny back to the danger zone again and again. Maybe the goddess Pele isn't satisfied with owning the islands. Maybe she, and the killer, want Jenny too.

"We had much rather be all alone in the right than with the whole world in the wrong." So wrote Jeremiah Hacker in 1862. He was the main writer and editor of The Pleasure Boat, which may have the distinction of being Portland, Maine's most controversial newspaper.Inspired by his Quaker background, Hacker worked to end slavery, poverty, and inequality of women through his writing. He spoke out against prisons, advocating instead for reform and education. He broke with all forms of organized religion and urged people to leave their churches and find moral direction from within. He promoted no political party, believing people would be better off without government. He was in favor of land for all. The most controversial of Hacker's radical ideas, however-and the one that lost him the most readers-was his advocacy for peace as the country headed toward Civil War.Hacker's life spanned the nineteenth century (1801-1895). His work was widely read and he himself was well-known in his lifetime. But both he and his ideas have largely been forgotten-until now. This book explores the life and writings of Jeremiah Hacker, returning him to his rightful place in history, and showing how his words were an important part of what helped to forge that history.

Two brothers growing up in the 1950s Bronx navigate a toxic home environment headed by an emotionally abusive father and an unhappy mother. One brother eventually finds escape through academic achievement and a new life on the west coast, while the other brother remains entangled in the darkness of his existence, his life and mind slowly unraveling. By presenting the conscious and unconscious connections between family members, this experimental novel explores the concept of individuality, the psychological influences of family, and the very nature of reality.

A Nurse's Story is the memoir of a woman who left her small town in Ohio to train as a nurse in New York City and then travel to the other side of the world. She found fulfillment in her work as a medical missionary in Korea, training native nurses at the mission hospital in another small town, Haeju. Her life of service there was interrupted by World War I, when she was called to be part of a Red Cross unit on the Eastern Front. At the end of the war, she returned to Korea to work in a hospital in Seoul, just in time to witness the first stirrings of the Korean Independence movement.