"From the bestselling author of Istanbul Passage--called a "fast-moving thinking man's thriller" by The Wall Street Journal--comes a sweeping, atmospheric novel of postwar East Berlin, a city caught between political idealism and the harsh realities of Soviet occupation. Berlin 1948. Almost four years after the war's end, the city is still in ruins, a physical wasteland and a political symbol about to rupture. In the West, a defiant, blockaded city...

Julian Treslove, a radio producer, and Samuel Finkler, a Jewish philosopher, have been friends since childhood and, as they enter middle age, they reminisce over their struggles with self-identity, anti-Semitism, women, love, and the past.

Describes the popular children's authors' childhoods and early life together, their travels and marriage in Brazil, and their dramatic escape from World War II-torn Europe on bicycles.

The renowned biographer's definitive portrait of a literary titan. Appointed by Philip Roth and granted independence and complete access, Blake Bailey spent years poring over Roth's personal archive, interviewing his friends, lovers, and colleagues, and engaging Roth himself in breathtakingly candid conversations. The result is an indelible portrait of an American master and of the postwar literary scene. Bailey shows how Roth emerged from a lower-middle-class...

At forty, the writer Nathan Zuckerman comes down with a mysterious affliction—pure pain, beginning in his neck and shoulders, invading his torso, and taking possession of his spirit. Zuckerman, whose work was his life, is unable to write a line. Now his work is trekking from one doctor to another, but none can find a cause for the pain or assuage it. Zuckerman himself wonders if the pain could have been caused by his own books. And while

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The Watchmaker's Daughter tells the story of a child of two refugees: a watchmaker who saved lives within Dachau prison, and his wife, a gifted concert pianist about to make her debut when the Nazis seized power. In this memoir, Sonia Taitz is born into a world in which the Holocaust is discussed constantly by her insular concentration camp-surviving parents. This legacy, combined with Sonia's passion and intelligence, leads the author to forge an...

Writer, screenwriter, playwright, editor, actor, teacher: Bruce Jay Friedman has done it all, charming the glitziest industries of American golden-age culture for more than half a century. Lucky Bruce is his long-awaited memoir, and it's everything we'd expect and more: here is Friedman at his best, waltzing from Madison Avenue to Hollywood and back again, and reilluminating with brilliant clarity the dazzle of post-war American life. Self-effacing,...

An intimate, bracing, and beautiful exploration of vulnerability and culpability. Zoffness relives her childhood anxiety disorder as she witnesses it manifest in her firstborn; endures brazen sexual advances by a student in her class; grapples with the implications of her young son's cop obsession; and challenges her Jewish faith. What role does a mother play, she asks, in raising thoughtful, generous children? Where is the line between privacy and...

"A gripping and powerful tale of resilience and courage set in Vienna on the brink of WWII, as two members of Freud's Circle try to keep themselves and their loved ones safe as the SS closes in. Spring, 1938: Café Mozart in the heart of Vienna is beloved by its clientele, including cousins Mathias Kraemer and Johannes Namal. The two writers are as close as brothers. They are also members of Freud's Circle--a unique group of the famed psychiatrist's...

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