The Fixer Bernard Malamud
'A novel that offers a great experience, first of all a literary experience, but not merely that' - Saturday Review
Kiev, in the years before the First World War, is a hot-bed of anti-semitism. When a twelve-year-old Russian boy is found stabbed to death, his body drained of blood, the accusation of ritual murder is made against the Jews.
Yakov Bok, a handyman, is blamed, arrested, and imprisoned without indictment. What becomes of this man under pressure, to whom acquittal is made to seem as terrifying as conviction, is the subject of this outstanding novel.
'Bernard Malamud writes about an ordinary harmless man who believes in justice. In his hands it makes a novel of grea t power, even grandeur' - life Magazine
Also available: The Assistant The Magic Barrel (Short stories) A New Life
Idiots First (Short stories) The Natural Pictures of Fidelman
Penguin Crime
Saturday the Rabbi Went Hungry Harry Kemelman
It's the eve of Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish year. The Kol Nidre drags on in the temple. And Isaac Hirsch is dying drunkenly in his car. Accident? Suicide? Or ... ?
David Small, the young rabbi of the Jewish community in Barnard's Cross, finds himself deeply involved in the post mortem. And the consequences. Everyone has his suspicion, and it take the rabbi's pilpul reasoning to solve the mystery and avert a crisis.
Harry Kemelman's book is a lot more than a thriller. It's a fascinating, funny, gentle poke at the petty politics and religious sharp practice inside a respectable mid-western Jewish community.
Also by Harry Kemelman Friday the Rabbi Slept Late Sunday the Rabbi Stayed Home Nine Mile Walk and Other Stories
Not for sale in theU.SA,
Not for sale in the U.S.A. or Canada
The Castle
Franz Kafka
The Castle like Kafka's The Trial is an expression of his world where the individual struggles against ubiquitous, elusive, and anonymous powers determining and yet simultaneously opposing his every step. Kafka defines each situation very clearly, but at the same time an atmosphere of fearful uncertainty grows out of the weirdly illogical sequence of simple events. It reflects, in the tale of the arrival of a stranger in theyillage below the castle which seemingly rules it, the pathos of human isolation and of man's quest for freedom and responsibility, and the religious spirit which pervades all Kafka's work.
Also available:
The Diaries of Franz Kafka, edited by Max Brod America
Metamorphosis and Other Stories The Trial
Not for sale in the U.S.A. or Canada