A one-of-a-kind novel, like nothing you've ever read, Inventing Memory is a stunning blend of fantasy and reality, exposing the secret links between the mythic, the mundane, and the timeless mysteries of the human heart. Shula is a slave in fabled Sumer--until Inanna, Queen of Heaven, appears before her. Chosen by the Goddess for reasons she cannot begin to fathom, Shula is freed from bondage and set upon an uncertain path toward a new and mysterious destiny. But the attention of the gods is a dangerous thing, and Shula may have cause to regret the day she first laid eyes on the Queen of Dawn . . . Wendy Chrenko, former high school misfit, is now an overworked graduate student, researching her dissertation on "Remnants of Matriarchy in the Ancient Sumerian Inanna Cycle." Still smarting from the painful wounds of a long relationship that ended abruptly, Wendy is bound and determined to prove that men and women once lived together in perfect equality, even if it means volunteering for a bizarre and dangerous scientific experiment . . . Separated by millennia, Shula and Wendy appear to be two very different women, leading completely separate lives. Or maybe not.

First published in 1997, Inventing Memory is about four generations of remarkable women from a Jewish-American family-their triumphs, tragedies, scandals, and love affairs-as related by Sara Solomon, the youngest of these women. While trying to chronicle their history, the story becomes essentially hers, as she comes to understand the nature of memory, the way all of us both invent and assimilate our ancestors. In learning about the women in her family, Sara discovers how to create her own future.

First published in 1997, Inventing Memory is about four generations of remarkable women from a Jewish-American family-their triumphs, tragedies, scandals, and love affairs-as related by Sara Solomon, the youngest of these women. While trying to chronicle their history, the story becomes essentially hers, as she comes to understand the nature of memory, the way all of us both invent and assimilate our ancestors. In learning about the women in her family, Sara discovers how to create her own future.

A one-of-a-kind novel, like nothing you've ever read, Inventing Memory is a stunning blend of fantasy and reality, exposing the secret links between the mythic, the mundane, and the timeless mysteries of the human heart. Shula is a slave in fabled Sumer---until Inanna, Queen of Heaven, appears before her. Chosen by the Goddess for reasons she cannot begin to fathom, Shula is freed from bondage and set upon an uncertain path toward a new and mysterious destiny. But the attention of the gods is a dangerous thing, and Shula may have cause to regret the day she first laid eyes on the Holy Inanna. Wendy Chrenko, former high school misfit, is now an overworked graduate student, researching her dissertation "Remnants of Matriarchy in the Ancient Sumerian Inanna Cycle." Still smarting from the painful wounds of a failed love affair, Wendy is bound and determined to prove that men and women once lived together in perfect equality, even if it means volunteering for a bizarre and dangerous scientific experiment. Separated by millennia, Shula and Wendy appear to be two very different women, leading completely separate lives. Or maybe not. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

An entertaining and erudite history that offers a fresh look at America's first founding father, the creation of his legend, and what it means for our nation and ourselves George Washington's death on December 14, 1799, dealt a dreadful blow to public morale. For three decades, Americans had depended on his leadership to guide them through every trial. At the cusp of a new century, the fledgling nation, caught in another war (this time with its former ally France), desperately needed to believe that Washington was—and would continue to be—there for them. Thus began the extraordinary immortalization of this towering historical figure. In Inventing George Washington, historian Edward G. Lengel shows how the late president and war hero continued to serve his nation on two distinct levels. The public Washington evolved into an eternal symbol as Father of His Country, while the private man remained at the periphery of the national vision—always just out of reach—for successive generations yearning to know him as never before. Both images, public and private, were vital to perceptions Americans had of their nation and themselves. Yet over time, as Lengel shows, the contrasting and simultaneous urges to deify Washington and to understand him as a man have produced tensions that have played out in every generation. As some exalted him, others sought to bring him down to earth, creating a series of competing mythologies that depicted Washington as every sort of human being imaginable. Inventing George Washington explores these representations, shedding new light on this national emblem, our nation itself, and who we are.

'One day there is life . . . and then, suddenly, it happens there is death.' So begins Paul Auster's moving and personal meditation on fatherhood. The first section, 'Portrait of an Invisible Man', reveals Auster's memories and feelings after the death of his father. In 'The Book of Memory' the perspective shifts to Auster's role as a father. The narrator, 'A', contemplates his separation from his son, his dying grandfather and the solitary nature of writing and story-telling.

Historians' attempts to understand legendary Confederate General Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson have proved uneven at best and often contentious. An occasionally enigmatic and eccentric college professor before the Civil War, Jackson died midway through the conflict, leaving behind no memoirs and relatively few surviving letters or documents. In Inventing Stonewall Jackson, Wallace Hettle offers an innovative and distinctive approach to interpreting Stonewall by examining the lives and agendas of those authors who shape our current understanding of General Jackson. Newspaper reporters, friends, relatives, and fellow soldiers first wrote about Jackson immediately following the Civil War. Most of them, according to Hettle, used portions of their own life stories to frame that of the mythic general. Hettle argues that the legend of Jackson's rise from poverty to power was likely inspired by the rags-to-riches history of his first biographer, Robert Lewis Dabney. Dabney's own successes and Presbyterian beliefs probably shaped his account of Jackson's life as much as any factual research. Many other authors inserted personal values into their stories of Stonewall, perplexing generations of historians and writers. Subsequent biographers contributed their own layers to Jackson's myth and eventually a composite history of the general came to exist in the popular imagination. Later writers, such as the liberal suffragist Mary Johnston, who wrote a novel about Jackson, and the literary critic Allen Tate, who penned a laudatory biography, further shaped Stonewall's myth. As recently as 2003, the film Gods and Generals, which featured Jackson as the key protagonist, affirmed the longevity and power of his image. Impeccable research and nuanced analysis enable Hettle to use American culture and memory to reframe the Stonewall Jackson narrative and provide new ways to understand the long and contended legacy of one of the Civil War's most popular Confederate heroes.