This book is a collection of letters from a religious Jew in Israel to a Christian friend in Barcelona on life as an Orthodox Jew. Equal parts lighthearted and insightful, it's a thorough and entertaining introduction to the basic concepts of Judaism.

In other times, they would never have met. They come from different corners of Israeli society, rooted in their own beliefs, busy with their own troubles. Farmers and fishermen, skeptics and believers, immigrants and natives, children and grandparents struggle with faith, loss, jealousy, hope?—?and the turmoil around them only deepens the rifts that divide them. But when the Israeli government orders all Jewish communities in the Gaza Strip destroyed, Neve Adva?—?the settlement some of them call home?—?becomes the unlikely crossroads where all their worlds collide and all their lives are changed forever. Daniella Levy’s magnificent, richly nuanced novel challenges us to step outside our bubbles and question everything we’ve believed about the Other. Disengagement is more than just the story of one fictional settlement. It’s about what it means to disengage?—?from home and surroundings, from friends, neighbors, and family, from opinions and deeply held beliefs. And it’s about how listening to one another and learning from unexpected encounters can help us become connected again.

Private Life holds up a mirror to the moral corruption in the interstices of the Barcelona high society Sagarra was born into. Boudoirs of demimonde tramps, card games dilapidating the fortunes of milquetoast aristocrats - and how they scheme to conceal them - fading manors of selfish scions, and back rooms provided by social-climbing seamstresses are portrayed in vivid, sordid, and literary detail. The novel, practically a roman-à-clef for its contemporaries, was a scandal in 1932. The 1960's edition was bowdlerized by Franco's censors. Part Lampedusa, part Genet, this translation will bring an essential piece of 20th-century European literature to the English-speaking public.

In a mud hut in the Jewish Quarter of 16th-century Fez, a dying woman hands her granddaughter a heavy gold ring--and an even heavier secret. Five hundred years later, Alma Ben-Ami journeys to Madrid to fulfill her ancestor's dying wish. She has recruited an unlikely research partner: Manuel Aguilar, a young Catholic Spaniard whose beloved priest always warned him about getting too friendly with Jews. As their quest takes them from Greenwich Village to the windswept mountain fortresses of southern Spain, their friendship deepens and threatens to cross boundaries sacred to them both; and what they finally discover in the Spanish archives will force them to confront the truth about who they are and what their faiths mean to them. At times humorous, at times deeply moving, this beautifully written and meticulously researched book will appeal to anyone interested in the history of Inquisition-era Spain, Sephardic Jews, or falling in love. Read an Excerpt Read online PDF Formatted for double-sided printing. To Learn More One Page Flyer - Printable PDF (3 mB ) - Email-friendly PDF (1 mb) Media Kit - Printable PDF (High quality, 6 Mb) - Email-friendly PDF (2 Mb) Downloadable images: Book cover, book mockups, etc. Author sites - www.daniella-levy.com - [email protected] - Facebook page Downloadable images: Book cover, book mockups, etc. Author sites - www.daniella-levy.com - [email protected] - Facebook page

Josep Pla’s masterpiece, The Gray Notebook, is one of the most colorful and unusual works in modern literature. In 1918, when Pla was in Barcelona studying law, the Spanish flu broke out, the university shut down, and he went home to his parents in coastal Palafrugell. Aspiring to be a writer, not a lawyer, he resolved to hone his style by keeping a journal. In it he wrote about his family, local characters, visits to cafés; the quips, quarrels, ambitions, and amours of his friends; writers he liked and writers he didn’t; and the long contemplative walks he would take in the countryside under magnificent skies. Returning to Barcelona to complete his studies, Pla kept up his diary, scrutinizing life in the big city with the same unflagging zest and humor. Pla, one of the great Catalan writers, held on to this youthful journal for close to fifty years, reworking and adding to it, until he finally published The Gray Notebook as both the first volume and the capstone of his collected works. It is a beautiful, entrancing, delightful book—at once a distillation of the spirit of youth and the work of a lifetime.

With the help of his animal friends, Joseph the monkey learns the letters and how use them to spell words.

St. Petersburg High school juniors Dicey Bell, a baseball star, and Jack Chen, who loves science and role-playing games, discover a mutual attraction when paired for a project, but on their first date, a zombie-producing fungus sends them on the run.