Throughout his life Isaac Babel was torn by opposing forces, by the desire both to remain faithful to his Jewish roots and yet to be free of them. This duality of vision infuses his work with a powerful energy from the earliest tales including 'Old Shloym
Finally in paperback, this "monumental collection; gathers all of Babel's deft and brutal writing, including a wide array of previously unavailable material, from never-before-translated stories to plays and film scripts" (David Ulin, Los Angeles Times).
A treasure trove of unusual fiction spanning authors from Gogol and Kafka through Woolf and Nabokov to Calvino, Garcia Marquez, and Barthelme. A poet's companion, a student's delight, great bedside reading.Magical Realist Fiction includes:The nose by Niko
Short Shorts is a delightful anthology of miniature masterpieces. Here are thirty-eight brief, brilliant flashes of fiction, both classic and contemporary. Each work is superb, intense, and speaks to the human condition in a profound, often provocative wa
The Odessa Tales (Russian: Одесские рассказы) is a collection of short stories by Isaac Babel, situated in Odessa in the last days of the Russian empire and the Russian Revolution. Published individually in magazines throughout 1923 and 19
"As warm and stimulating as a library to which one returns again and again."—Chicago Tribune (Editor's Choice)While books contain insights into our selves and the world, it takes a conversation—between the author and the reader, or between two readers
Erich Auerbach’s Dante: Poet of the Secular World is an inspiring introduction to one of world’s greatest poets as well as a brilliantly argued and still provocative essay in the history of ideas. Here Auerbach, thought by many to be the greatest of t
Intimate, humorous, and insightful, Readings is a collection of classic essays and reviews by Michael Dirda, book critic of the Washington Post and winner of the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for criticism. From a first reading of Beckett and Faulkner at the feet o
A funny, wistful memoir by a Pulitzer Prize--winning critic that recalls the charm of Growing Up and the tenderness of One Writer's Beginnings. "ALL THAT KID WANTS TO DO is stick his nose in a book, " Michael Dirda's steelworker father used to complain, w
