I first read this remarkable, surreal tale many years ago. Recently, a new translation by Douglas Weatherford came out and, to my astonishment, proved revelatory. In it, a man searches for his dead father. Time is not linear. It’s hard to tell the living from the dead. In this haunting tale, the living haunt the dead as much or more than the other way around.
The book originally deepened my understanding of what novels can do. This translation expanded the remarkable, dream-like experience.
"One of the best novels in Hispanic literature, and in literature as a whole.” —Jorge Luis Borges
The highly influential masterpiece of Latin American literature, now published in a new, authoritative translation, and featuring a foreword by Gabriel García Márquez
A masterpiece of the surreal that influenced a generation of writers in Latin America, Pedro Páramo is the otherworldly tale of one man’s quest for his lost father. That man swears to his dying mother that he will find the father he has never met—Pedro Páramo—but when he reaches the town of Comala, he…
The stories in this collection are brief but rich with insight into the absurdities of the human condition. As well, I found the depiction of contemporary Israelis to be both moving and endearingly funny. I laughed and shook my head a lot.
It was a terrific book to carry around. I found I could read an entire story whenever I had spare moments. There was something wonderful about being able to do that and carry the resonance of the experience with me for the rest of the day.
Classic warped and wonderful stories from a “genius” (The New York Times) and master storyteller.
Brief, intense, painfully funny, and shockingly honest, Etgar Keret’s stories are snapshots that illuminate with intelligence and wit the hidden truths of life. As with the best writers of fiction, hilarity and anguish are the twin pillars of his work. Keret covers a remarkable emotional and narrative terrain - from a father’s first lesson to his boy to a standoff between soldiers caught up in the Middle East conflict to a slice of life where nothing much happens.
I’ve read every major history of the Jewish people, but Goodman’s A History of Judaism proved to be one of the best. I found it revelatory. The way Goodman uses the evolution of Jewish religious thought and practice as a vehicle to tell the story of a people deepened my understanding of both Jewish experience and thought.
I found it powerfully dramatic and deeply enriching. After listening, I read the book. Then I listened again. Each time, it gave me more. In this way, the history book was as generous as a work of art.
A sweeping history of Judaism over more than three millennia
Judaism is one of the oldest religions in the world, and it has preserved its distinctive identity despite the extraordinarily diverse forms and beliefs it has embodied over the course of more than three millennia. A History of Judaism provides the first truly comprehensive look in one volume at how this great religion came to be, how it has evolved from one age to the next, and how its various strains, sects, and traditions have related to each other.
In this magisterial and elegantly written book, Martin Goodman takes readers…
A Chagall painting brought to life, the novel traces the episodic journey of an orphaned 18th-century cobbler in search of the legendary Jewish rabbi and miracle worker, the Baal Shem Tov. Along the way, he encounters a fishmonger who will answer any question if you buy a fish, a sorrowful monster made of clay, a couple that turns into a tree, and other remarkable characters and events.
Comical and deeply serious, The Shoemaker’s Tale bulges with imagination. It’s a true original that seems to have existed forever. Readers of Italo Calvino, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Yann Martel, and Salman Rushdie will feel at home in this blend of folktale with the universal quest for life’s meaning.
