Expecting to be inducted into the army, Joseph has given up his job and carefully prepared for his departure to the battlefront. When a series of mix-ups delays his induction, he finds himself facing a year of idleness. Dangling Man is his journal, a wonderful account of his restless wanderings through Chicago's streets, his musings on the past, his psychological reaction to his inactivity while war rages around him, and his uneasy insights into the nature of freedom and choice.

THE STORIES: The first play, THE CONSEQUENCES OF GOOSING, is a wryly humorous study of the sad/funny problems that beset a middle-aged corporate attorney when, in a fit of euphoria, he apparently gooses a shapely young high-school girl on his way h

A compelling intellectual and literary history of midcentury America In a midcentury American cultural episode forgotten today, intellectuals of all schools shared a belief that human nature was under threat. The immediate result was a glut of dense, abstract books on the "nature of man." But the dawning "age of the crisis of man," as Mark Greif calls it, was far more than a historical curiosity. In this ambitious intellectual and literary history, Greif recovers this lost line of thought to show how it influenced society, politics, and culture before, during, and long after World War II. During the 1930s and 1940s, fears of the barbarization of humanity energized New York intellectuals, Chicago protoconservatives, European Jewish émigrés, and native-born bohemians to seek "re-enlightenment," a new philosophical account of human nature and history. After the war this effort diffused, leading to a rebirth of modern human rights and a new power for the literary arts. Critics' predictions of a "death of the novel" challenged writers to invest bloodless questions of human nature with flesh and detail. Hemingway, Faulkner, and Richard Wright wrote flawed novels of abstract man. Succeeding them, Ralph Ellison, Saul Bellow, Flannery O'Connor, and Thomas Pynchon constituted a new guard who tested philosophical questions against social realities—race, religious faith, and the rise of technology—that kept difference and diversity alive. By the 1960s, the idea of "universal man" gave way to moral antihumanism, as new sensibilities and social movements transformed what had come before. Greif's reframing of a foundational debate takes us beyond old antagonisms into a new future, and gives a prehistory to the fractures of our own era.

Men to Avoid in Art and Life pairs classical fine art with modern captions that epitomize the spirit of mansplaining. This hilarious book perfectly captures those relatable moments when a man explains to a woman a subject about which he knows considerably less than she does. Situations include men sharing keen insight on the female anatomy, an eloquent defense of catcalling, or offering sage advice about horseback riding to the woman who owns the horse. • These less qualified men of antiquity dish out mediocrity as if it's pure genius • For the women who have endured overbearing men over the centuries • Written with hilariously painful accuracy "Now, when you're riding a horse, you need to make sure to keep a good grip on the reins." "These are my horses." Through cringe-induced empathy, this timeless gift book of shared experiences unites women across history in one of the most powerful forms of resistance: laughter. • Started as a Twitter thread and quickly gained widespread popularity. • Makes a perfect book for women and feminists with a wry sense of humor, millennials, anyone who loves memes and Internet humor, as well as history and art buffs. • You'll love this book if you love books like Men Explain Things to Me by Rebecca Solnit, Milk and Vine: Inspirational Quotes from Classic Vines by Emily Beck, and Awards For Good Boys: Tales Of Dating, Double Standards, And Doom by Shelby Lorman.

It's sweltering summer in New York City, and Asa Leventhal is alone. His co-workers ignore or condescend to him, his wife is away with her mother, and his estranged brother has run off, abandoning his wife and two sons. One night, Leventhal is confronted by a stranger--'one of those guys who want you to think they can see to the bottom of your soul'--who reveals himself to be a marginal figure from his distant past. Leventhal, accused of ruining the man's life, becomes shocked and dismissive, vehemently denying any part in the man's unhappy lot. But as time passes, he is increasingly unable to separate his own good fortune from the bad luck of this down-and-out stranger, who will not leave him be. A brief, haunting rumination on the vagaries of fate and responsibility, The Victim is, in the words of Norman Rush, Saul Bellow's "purest creation."

In the shadowy back alleys and opulent homes of Paris, hard-nosed police inspector Paul Mazarelle of The Paris Directive sets out on the trail of a serial killer. A murdered man is discovered dangling inside the tunnels of a Paris canal--the only clue, the tarot card in his pockets: the Hanged Man. When an innocent suspect is railroaded into prison for the homicide, Mazarelle sets off on the hunt for the real killer. For the charming, hot-tempered, impulsive Frenchman--now back from the provinces and leading his own homicide unit out of Paris’s famed Quai des Orfevres--it’s an investigation that takes him far from the comforts of Beaujolais and bouillabaisse, and plunges him into an underworld of ruthless white supremacists looking for scapegoats in Paris’s growing immigrant community, corrupt cops eager to cover up a shady side business, and a conspiracy of secrets that threaten his own life. Meanwhile, Claire Girard, an irresistible and ambitious journalist at a popular tabloid, is wrapped up in the same story. On the trail of the Tarot Card killer, Mazarelle finds himself blindsided by their growing attraction. And when his team’s case collides with Girard's latest scoop, and the body count keeps rising, Mazarelle himself becomes a prime suspect who must clear his own name. Gerald Jay’s latest Mazarelle adventure is a riveting, fast-paced thriller about a classic French detective making his way through the dangerous streets of a very modern world.

“The Walt Whitman of Los Angeles.”—Joyce Carol Oates, bestselling author “He brought everybody down to earth, even the angels.”—Leonard Cohen, songwriter There is not a wasted word in Dangling in the Tournefortia, a selection of poems full of wit, struggles, perception, and simplicity. Charles Bukowski writes of women, gambling and booze while his words remain honest and pure.