DescriptionOne of the most talked about fictional debuts of recent years, White Teeth is a funny, generous, big-hearted novel, adored by critics and readers alike. Dealing, among many other things, with friendship, love, war, three cultures and three families over three generations, one brown mouse, and the tricky way the past has of coming back and biting you on the ankle, it is a life-affirming, riotous must-listen of a book.
DescriptionRichard C. Holbrooke, the former US ambassador to the United Nations, interviews author Kati Marton about the extraordinary journey made by nine Hungarian-Jewish immigrants who initiated America's nuclear weapons program, invented the computer and photojournalism, and became a major force in Hollywood, producing some of the most iconic films of the 20th century, among them Casablanca and Darkness at Noon . The story of these nine immigrants' astonishing success and influence is told in Marton's The Great Escape: Nine Who Fled Hitler and Changed the World .
DescriptionNearly three million Jews came to America from Eastern Europe between 1880 and the outbreak of World War I. Filled with the hope of life in a new land, most were young, single, uneducated, and unskilled. Many were children or teens. They were, in a sense, unfinished citizens of either the old or the new world. Within two generations, these newcomers settled and prospered in the densely populated Yiddish-speaking neighborhoods of New York City. Against this backdrop, Ruth Gay narrates their rarely told story, bringing alive the vitality of the streets, markets, schools, synagogues, and tenement halls where a new version of America was invented in the 1920s and 30s. An intimate, unforgettable account, Unfinished People is a unique and vibrant portrait of a resilient people's daily trials and rituals.
DescriptionThe controversial history of Chavez Ravine, the immigrant community that once existed on the site that is now Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, is explored with humor, brutal honesty, and pulse-racing music by the nation's premier Chicano/Latino theatre troupe, Culture Clash. Starring (in alphabetical order): Zilah Mendoza Richard Montoya Ric Salinas Herbert Siguenza Musicians: John Avila Randy Rodarte Scott Rodarte…
DescriptionIn Lipshitz Six, or Two Angry Blondes, author T Cooper chronicles the unusual history of the Lipshitz family, Jewish refugees who narrowly escape the bloody Russian pogroms of 1903. Upon landing at Ellis Island, Esther and Hersh Lipshitz lose their…
DescriptionContemporary satirist Loh spins a darkly comic, semi-autobiographical tale of growing up middle-class Chinese-German in Southern California. This comic monologue is for sons and daughters everywhere who feel that their parents must have beamed to Earth from another planet.
DescriptionViolence and tensions along the US-Mexican border have never been higher, sparked by battles between rival drug lords and an increased flow of illegal migrants. To combat the threat, the United States has executed Operation Rampart: a controversial test b…
DescriptionAccordion Crimes opens in 1890 in Sicily as an accordion maker completes his finest instrument and dreams of owning a music store in America. He and his eleven-year-old son, carrying little more than the accordion, voyage to the teeming, violent port of New Orleans. Within a year, the accordion maker is murdered by an anti-Italian lynching mob, but his instrument carries Proulx's story as it falls into the hands of various immigrants who carry it from Iowa to Texas, from Maine to Louisiana, looking for a decent life. The music is their last link with the past, a voice for their fantasies, sorrows, and exuberance, but it too, is forced to change. Proulx's heartbreaking characters and daring storytelling which unite the sections of Accordion Crimes, make it a stunning novel, exhilarating in its scope and originality.
DescriptionThree generations of Roths live together in a crowded tenement flat. Long-widowed Manya is the family's head and its heart. She's renowned throughout the neighborhood for her cooking, and every noontime the front room of the flat turns into Manya's private restaurant. But Manya is no soft touch, except, perhaps, where her granddaughter Elka is concerned. Precocious Elka is her closest companion and confidante. Through Elka's eyes we come to know the fascinating characters who move in and out of the Roths' lives. Money may have been short, but opinions were not, and their tart tongues and lively humor abound. In this riveting story lies the heart of the American immigrant experience: a novel at once wise, funny, poignant, anguishing, exultant, and bursting with love.
