The period between Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, is a time of deep reflection and acute introspection. It is also a time for remembrance of the history of the Jewish people, a history that mingles glorious triumphs and bitter humiliation and loss. Jews worldwide ask themselves if they have done all they can to repair the world and, because the only honest answer to that question is No, resolve to try harder in the year to come.

It is therefore appropriate that during these “Days of Awe” we offer Were We Our Brothers’ Keepers? The Public Response of American Jews to the Holocaust, 1938-1944 by Haskell Lookstein, an important work that explores in depth the American Jewish response to the Holocaust as it occurred. By examining contemporary Jewish press accounts of such events as Kristallnacht, the refusal to allow the refugee ship St. Louis to land in America, the uprising in the Warsaw ghetto, and the deportation of the Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz, Haskel Lookstein provides us with an important perspective on the way in which events are reported on, perceived and interpreted in their own time.

Rabbi Lookstein has been deeply involved in issues of concern to the Jewish community. He was Chairman of the Greater New York Coalition for Soviet Jews, President of the New York Board of Rabbis, President of the Synagogue Council of America, Chairman of the Rabbinic Cabinet of National UJA, and member of the Board of the Joint Distribution Committee. His works have appeared in numerous publications in the US and Israel.

- Richard Curtis

Few events in the life of a book are as thoroughly invested with magic and mystery as its publication date. Although the season, month, and day of publication are, as often as not, selected merely to satisfy the expediencies of a publisher’s schedule, many authors and even some publishers assign kabbalistic value to pub dates, and a great deal of myth and nonsense has come to surround the process. One hears such platitudes as, “January is a lousy month to bring out a book,” or, “Nobody buys books in August,” or “Can you believe they released my book on Friday the thirteenth?”

What’s true and what’s nonsense? Click here for a discussion of publication dates.

In On Wings of Joy, Trudy Garfunkel’s engaging history of dance, readers are introduced to the major performers, choreographers, and composers who influenced the development of ballet. Beginning with the birth of the art in the sixteenth-century French court of Catherine d’ Medici, this informative text traces ballet as it evolved in Europe and Russia and subsequently in England and then America. Included are details about the creation of such classics as Giselle, Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty, and Serenade, as well as the contributions of such prominent figures as Pavlova, Nijinsky, Balanchine, and Ashton. Fascinating facts include inside looks at contemporary ballet companies, how toe shoes are made, and what a professional dancer’s day is like. All in all, a delightful, enjoyable and informative historical overview that will delight anyone who enjoys the art of dance.

“A lucid and interesting history that reads like a novel.”
–Kirkus Reviews

“A truly fascinating look at ballet. The author has done an excellent job of weaving historical events into her discussion if dancers and their art…A very readable, enjoyable book.”
–Booklist

“A most engaging and informative volume.”
–WQXR Radio

“It is wonderful to finally have a complete and comprehensive history of dance that is accessible to young people and equally valuable for parents, experienced dance goers, and other adults. How important to have this, an easily readable exposure to dance, to help counterbalance the disappearance of arts education in our public schools.”
–Edward Villella, Artistic Director, Miami City Ballet

“A fascinating book.”
–Philadelphia Inquirer

“A lively history.”
–Dance Magazine

“Recommended. Easy-to-read and informative.”
–Attitudes and Arabesques

“A wonderful accomplishment that strikes that perfect balance: it is great if you know nothing about ballet and it is terrific fun even if you know a great deal. My copy is going up on my desk shelf with Denby and CHOREOGRAPHY by Balanchine, so it will be one of those books to which I always turn.”
–Carol Landers, Director of Research, New York City Ballet

“Covers an enormous amount of material in a readable and comprehensive manner without missing a beat.”
–School Library Journal

“Parents will find this book to be excellent; this nonfiction story of ballet can easily cross over to appeal to fiction readers and ballet enthusiasts of all ages.”
–Children’s Bookwatch

Trudy Garfunkel, is the author of three books on dance: “Letter to the World: The Life and Dances of Martha Graham”, “Start Exploring Ballet”, and “On Wings of Joy: The Story of Ballet from the 16th Century to Today”; and a consumer’s guide with recipes, “The Kosher Companion”. Her essay on Martha Graham appears in “The Oxford Companion to United States History”. A public relations, marketing and editorial consultant, she has worked with many authors, artists, photographers, publishing companies, nonprofit and arts organizations, museums, and dance companies.

– Richard Curtis

Introduction to The Gorean Saga Volumes 7-9
By John Norman

#7 Captive of Gor
#8 Hunters of Gor
#9 Marauders of Gor

I write fantasy.
Sometimes this type of literature is referred to as “escape” literature. Sometimes its “relevance” might be called into question.
It is perhaps worth taking a moment to discuss these observations, or charges.
Let us consider the first. That fantasy is “escape” literature.
In its cruelest connotation “escape” suggests cowardice, or evasion, a flight from conflict, the refusal to perform one’s duty.
“Escape,” of course, need not have these undesirable connotations. For example, if we looked up from reading this, perhaps having heard a small, unusual sound behind us, and discovered that several mature, possibly hungry, and seemingly ill-willed lions, had been introduced into the room, I suspect that most of us, at least upon reflection, after weighing the pros and cons, would be willing to escape. A few of us might attack them with our house keys, ballpoint pens or penknives, but probably not many. I do not think I would do so. I do not think there would be anything cowardly in our attempting to escape. It is one thing to be brave, and another, paraphrasing Aristotle, to be an irrational jerk. Similarly, we do not scorn a child who escapes from a burning building. Similarly, we do not scorn, but rather commend, say, an aviator, at least one of ours, surely, who manages to escape from a prisoner-of-war camp. He escapes from a miserable condition of confinement and returns later to fight a perhaps better war.
In short, there is nothing so horrible about “escape,” per se. Much depends on context.
Still, “escape” is a put-down word.
Calling names is not helpful when the object is not to derogate, but to comprehend, to understand.
Let us consider reality.
Reality, I have noticed, when paying attention, which I do occasionally, from time to time, here and there—reality, I have noticed, is not, all the time, all that great.
Reality is just not that real, all the time.
You have doubtless noticed this, also.
There is more to life than caulking the bathroom tiles.
One does not have, I suspect, a moral obligation to surrender the secret and splendid privacies of the imagination to the obliterating weathering of prosaic realities. We must beware lest we become what we do. And if we do only in the world, and think only in the world, we shall become that world, not ourselves, or ourselves as we might be.
There are dimensions to human existence beyond the expectations of the contemporary flatworm, complacent in its single dimension.
Immersion in the trivia of diurnal circumstance can be more an escape than fantasy could dream.
Man is a working animal, but he is also an imagining animal, a dreaming animal.
The dream, or the physiological concomitants of dreams, are apparently essential to man’s health and sanity. Clinically, a man may be driven insane by not permitting him to dream.
Dreams and play, and perhaps fantasy, of one sort or another, seem essential.
There is chess and music, and poetry and love, and collecting bottle caps and building ships, and books. Before man could read he would gather about and hear stories. And before he could speak his stories, it is not unlikely that he told them with his body, that he danced them.
Man is an animal that fantasizes, that dreams. It is his nature, as much as the intricacies of his circulation and the structure of the valves of his heart.
Now, that being the case, is there a biological sanction for this idiosyncrasy? In dreaming there seems to be. The nondreaming brain does not survive. Why this is the case we do not yet know. It could be that the role of sleep is to make possible the dream. We do know that an individual deprived of sleep and then permitted sleep dreams frenziedly as soon as he falls asleep. When he has dreamed, then, and then only, he drops into dreamless sleep. The body, under such circumstances, starved for its dreams, compensates by an orgy of fantasy.
Something of the same case may be true in the daydreams of human beings. If human beings do daydream there is probably a good reason for it, whether we know the reason or not. Telling a human being not to dream may be a bit like telling him not to drink water. Probably what is involved here is the need of the brain for stimuli. Our minds are the center process of a loop phenomenon, psychologically. The brain is a physical organ which, among other things, transforms physical stimuli into physical reactions upon a physical environment. This has analogies to the reflex-arc phenomenon found as far down the phylogenetic scale as the adagio extension of the pseudopodia of the graceful amoeba. We do know, for example, from sensory-deprivation experiments, if input stimuli from the environment to the brain are reduced considerably, or removed, the mind goes mad. The brain needs stimuli. And, one supposes, sometimes one’s normal environment just does not provide suitable stimuli, and then the brain, picking up a thread of thought, an image, tells itself a story.
Fantasy, of course, is powerful stimuli. Perhaps this has something to do with why people daydream, or read, or listen to stories, and so on. I do not know.
At any rate, just as it is the case that dreams, or their physiological concomitants, restore a human being, vitalize him, and send him roaring back into his world, so, too, it seems likely that daydreams, or fantasy, may have an energizing effect on the human being. Like recreation, like play, like rest, fantasy may increase the vitality levels of an organism. Dreams, or their concomitants, serve a purpose; so, too, one supposes, might fantasy. Accordingly, to think of fantasy as “escape” is to misunderstand perhaps not only the nature of fantasy, but that of human beings. This is not to deny, of course, that a given human being might, undesirably, spend his days fantasizing. He could, of course, spend his days undesirably taking drugs, or drinking alcohol, or eating radishes, or doing numerous trivial tasks with great energy over and over—fleeing from reality by leaping into it, so to speak. Fantasy, like dreams and table salt, and drinking water, is a good thing. This is not to say one should spend all of one’s time dreaming, or drinking water, or eating table salt. But so much for the hygiene of fantasy.
Beyond this, of course, the imagination of man is a noble property. Its exercise would surely seem to fall within the lawful perimeter of activities appropriate to a rational animal. Indeed, imagination, one supposes, would be an important component in a proper concept of human intelligence. It is interesting, since it seems to be an important component of intelligence, that it is not tested for in intelligence tests. This seems to be less a reflection on imagination than on the primitive state of contemporary psychology. At any rate, if a man, say, a statesman, can imagine new possibilities, new policies, new futures, new relations, new structures, new paths, he is not obviously inferior to one who does long division with great rapidity. Indeed, the latter sort of mind is commonly an arid mind. The former sort of mind we wish to make our leaders, for they have vision; the latter sort, though their I.Q.’s, at least as currently measured, may be higher, we will use for bookkeepers and statisticians.
So, what about the “escape” charge?
We have suggested that it is semantically confused and, possibly, physiologically unsound. We have also suggested that it might be a bit stupid. At any rate, there seems no particularly compelling reason to reprehend either the exercise of, or the gratification of, the human imagination. If human beings have imaginations, they might as well use them. It is probably unhealthy, in fact, to suppress portions of your person. Besides, the imagination is one of the glories of a human being. We agree not to knock it. Human beings need all the glories they can get.
Let us now, briefly, turn to the second charge, the charge that fantasy is irrelevant.
If we think of this charge we see that it is based on the premise that literature should be applied politics. That literature must subserve a nonliterary purpose, that it must be an instrument of ideology. We might note that individuals who speak this way, while commonly using the rhetoric of freedom and reason, actually have totalitarian minds. Everything must be devoted to serving the purposes which they think must now be served. Their purposes. For example, it is not simply that they believe literature must be ideologically prostituted, but that it must be ideologically prostituted to a certain doctrine. Their brothel must be the only one in town. A literature which subserved the ends of Neo-Nazism, for example, would not be cheered by them as relevant, but denigrated as pernicious.
I myself have some intolerances. For example, I am intolerant of intolerance. I find myself, for various reasons, in favor of an open society, a pluralistic society. I hope someday we will have one. Totalitarianisms, of whatever stripe or ilk, have a common arrogance, the hypothesis of the single virtue. “I cannot celebrate your difference,” they say. “I fear you, for you are different from me. You will be like me. You will have my values. You will do as I say. I am the people. I am God.”
Those who maintain that literature must be relevant, aside from the fact that they do not understand literature, or appreciate it, in its multiplex beauties and richnesses, seem to be the same ones who have the least objection to burning libraries. No one who likes to read is likely to burn a library. There are books there. If someone claims that literature must be relevant, I think we may take the utterance of that opinion as a sufficient condition for inferring that he is unqualified to form an opinion on the subject.
On the other hand, I am no advocate for either relevance or irrelevance.
As a philosopher, and, ipso facto, a reflective eccentric, I ask “relevance” to what?
All literature, in some sense or other, all song and singing, is relevant to something or other.
Is it enough for literature to be relevant to the glories of the world, that it sings them; is it enough for literature to be relevant to the sufferings and the satisfactions of human beings? Is it enough that literature helps us to see and know, and wonder and love? Literature then is relevant to the vast, profound concerns of the thinking and feeling animal that we find ourselves to be. We do not find Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, nor Rilke and Yeats, irrelevant. Their political applications may be obscure, but the human consequences of sharing their visions are exalting. What they have touched they have made significant, and radiant. They have helped us learn the fragility and poignancy of experience; they have taught us how to strike together stones; they have taught us to illuminate our darkness, and, for the time, shut away the cold; in the light of these flames we can see our world, and those with us; in these flames, too, we can see ourselves; crouching together, they have given us a wondrous thing; they have taught us how, in our darkness, to strike together stones and make fire; we do not find them irrelevant.
In closing, I would like to suggest that all fiction is, in a sense, fantasy. It did not happen, by definition. But, more particularly, what of that portion of fiction more usually designated as fantasy?
By this time, I hope, no more than other forms of literature, it stands in no need of defense.
If it did, I would suggest that its justification is that it brings joy.
It expands the mind, the imagination, the sensibility. It teaches the discovery of continents. In it we learn the lineaments of strange flags. In it we walk amongst the grasses of foreign worlds. We see new stars, new suns. In it we find a universe in which man must again, afresh, address himself to the project of his humanity. How shall he be in such a world? How shall he make his way? Will he be courageous? Will he fail? In such a place, how shall he conduct, and form, that small, fragile, cosmically insignificant, tiny, mortal possibility that is himself?
Stories make man happy.
They bring him joy.
That is their justification.
They may have other justifications, too, but who cares?
Joy is enough.

I wish you well,
John Norman

Note from E-Reads: Readers and fans interested in learning more about John Norman and his Gorean world can visit John Norman’s Chronicles of Gor.

Regular viewers of this website have seen my byline below many a pitch for new and backlist titles released by E-Reads. But today I’m hyping a book that is dearest to my heart: my own.

Drawing on my experience as the president of a leading New York literary agency, How to be Your Own Literary Agent is my comprehensive practical overview of the publishing process from submissions to contract negotiations to subsidiary rights to marketing, publicity, and beyond. It is published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and has been and updated to keep up with such evolving trends in publishing as e-books, industry consolidation, bookstore chains, and media tie-ins. In it you’ll find such topics as:

* Big publishers, small publishers, self-publishers, e-publishers: how to keep up in a rapidly changing business
* The new breed of editors: how to find them and know what they’re looking for
* How to understand a publishing contract clause by clause and figure out if you’re getting a good, fair, or lousy deal.
* What the electronic revolution means to you, and how to take advantage of it
* How to know your “publishing” rights and negotiate effectively
* How to have a say in your book’s design, jacket, and promotion
* How book chains and superstores have altered publishing — and what that means for you

Since I’ve been characterized as a guru of the Digital Revolution, the least I can do is utilize cutting-edge technology to market my own book. And so, under the auspices of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, the revised and expanded edition of How to Be Your Own Literary Agent has been made available in its entirety on Google Search. Readers may scroll down the read-only Google scan or buy the print edition in bookstores or via amazon.com. So, have a click and check it out, and, if you like what you see, I’ll be looking for you on my next royalty statement.

Amazon reviewer Simon Haynes had this to say about How to Be Your Own Literary Agent:

The author is an experienced agent sharing his knowledge with a gentle humor. OK, sometimes not so gentle – the quip about the type of negotiating stance a first-time author should take with their publisher is a real gem. I read the book cover to cover in one sitting, skimming only the sections on collaborative writing and book packagers, and not only did I learn a lot I also laughed out loud at several observations. Information is so much easier to digest when it’s presented in a breezy conversational style. The book includes a sample publishing contract and several author-friendly clauses which can be substituted for the more usual publisher-friendly versions. Like another reviewer’s copy, my book also looks like a group of preschoolers had a go at it. Corners folded, underlining everywhere, notes in the margins… but that’s always the sign of an informative title.
Highly recommended if you’re at this stage of the game.

From time to time E-Reads will be running sample material from How to Be Your Own Literary Agent. For instance…

Want to know what goes on in a literary agent’s office when you submit your manuscript? Click here.

– Richard Curtis

One of the least pleasant duties that agents are obliged to perform is explaining to their clients why their books have flopped. And there is no dearth of reasons: the editor was fired, the company was taken over by a conglomerate, the salesmen didn’t understand the book, someone stuck a lousy title on it, they didn’t advertise it, they didn’t advertise it enough, they underprinted it, they brought it out too soon, they brought it out too late, there was an Act of God, there was an Act of Satan – an agent’s files are a veritable Grand Guignol of publishing horror stories.

But — has it really failed? Maybe it didn’t earn back the advance paid to the author. But does that mean the publisher lost money?

Most authors and not a few agents tend to equate the earning-out of an author’s advance with the recoupment of a publisher’s investment. It’s an understandable misconception, for to authors, royalties are profits. If their books start earning profits, they assume the publisher has started making profits too; and conversely, they figure, if the advance doesn’t earn out, the publisher must have lost money on the book. For an examination of this assumption, and some surprising answers, click here.

On October 12, 2008, astronaut and video game designer Richard Garriott will be shot into space for a visit to the International Space Station. On board his capsule will be an archive of digitized information intended to tell visitors from other worlds about the great race that was humanity. The scheme is called Operation Immortality. The underlying assumption is a tried and true science fiction theme: that by the time someone reads it, Planet Earth and its inhabitants will have perished.

“The archive will include information on humanity’s greatest achievements,” according to the Operation Immortality website. The file will also carry “messages from people all over the world, and DNA samples from some of our brightest minds and most accomplished athletes. During the month of September, every human being is invited to come to the OperationImmortality.com website to submit their suggestions for our greatest achievements and leave a message for the cosmos.”

Knowledgeable science fiction fans may well wonder if the inspiration for this plan was a pair of novels by Donald Moffitt published in the late 1980s, Genesis Quest and Second Genesis. Unlike the International Space Station, which orbits only a few thousand miles above Earth, Moffitt’s fictional space probe travels for millions of years before ultimately being captured by an alien race that not only manages to decode the information, but uses the code to reconstruct human civilization as well!

E-Reads is proud to publish this amazingly prescient saga and three other Moffitt novels as well. But was he prescient enough to anticipate that two decades later Operation Immortality would enlist such living celebrities as Steven Colbert to contribute their DNA to the project?

You can read about it on the Operation Immortality Celebrity News Page.

– Richard Curtis

After tormenting e-book technorati with teasers, iRex has now revealed its Reader 1000. Some bloggers are calling it a Kindle Killer. Time will tell. Here’s what it looks like, and below is iRex’s press release predicting that the Reader 1000 spells “the end of the printed word for business professionals.”

Media Release
22nd September 2008
iRex Opens New Chapter In E‐Reading
Eindhoven, 22 September 2008

- The world’s leading provider of e-reading solutions, Netherlands
based iRex Technologies, has opened a new chapter in professional digital reading with the launch of the iRex 1000 series Digital Reader. The iRex suite of e-reading products is growing steadily following the success of the iLiad and iLiad Book Edition amongst the consumer market. Now the launch of the iRex 1000 series, with its larger display size and memory, is spelling the end of the printed word for business professionals. “The success of digital reading has been focused on and measured by its impact upon the book market when in fact the real revolution is happening in the business world.” Said Hans Brons, CEO of iRex. “The computer revolutionised the way we do business, but it has never offered a solution to match paper.

With the launch of the 1000 series it is now possible to ‘print’ documents onto electronic paper for the first time.” Although the iRex iLiad products with their larger screen and superior functionality have been extremely successful, the company recognised the need for a new generation solution for business. The result is the iRex 1000 series, offering superior functionality and a unique 10.2 inch screen size to allow easy reading and referencing of documents from A4 Powerpoint presentations to sophisticated PDF files and from HTML to TXT and JPEG. Increased memory ensures that users can be confident that the device will hold any and all documents they require.

Weighing less than 570 grams and only 1.2cm deep the 1000 series is an open system which synchronises easily with the PC and is able to read all common formats. The large display has 16 grey tones and storage capacity is delivered via a changeable 1GB SD card. The universal mini‐USB connector can be used for transferring files as well as uploading and content can be easily transferred from the internet. The chargeable built in Li‐Ion battery has sufficient power to last for several days.

The 1000 series will offer three products within the range from the DR1000 base version equipped with a USB connector, through the DR1000 S equipped with a stylus for writing which can serve as an unending notepad, to the DR1000 SW with stylus, plus WIFI and Bluetooth connectivity. The later model will not be available at the launch date but will be introduced at a later stage.

With a recent study demonstrating that the average US office worker prints more than 10,000 pages of paper a year, of which three quarters is thrown away within one week and more than half the same day, the 1000 series finally offers a way for companies and individuals to cut out the billions of pages of printed paper they produce each year, making a powerful contribution to the environment.

“Tax specialists, accountants and lawyers that previously had thick piles of documents can carry them in their digital reader; students and academics can easily save their textbooks in the device.” Says Brons. “Government and public sector organisations can make minutes and reports available electronically whilst medical specialists can have all their patient information and key texts at their fingertips. Plus, in addition to their professional documents they can also have their e‐books and newspapers available.”

The new devices and their place in the suite of iRex products marks a step change in the world of digital reading consolidating iRex’s position as the first choice provider of e‐reading solutions. “Our partnership with our customers, partners and particularly the developer community is vital to drive new and better technology. By offering a suite of separate e‐reader products we are not only meeting the needs but revolutionising the expectations of our customers.”

About iRex Technologies:

iRex Technologies BV have been instrumental in pushing the frontiers of digital reading since 2001 when their team developed the electronic paper display for the Sony Librié the first commercially available ereader launched in 2004. Following the formation of iRex Technologies in 2005 as a spin‐off company from Royal Philips Electronics their focus on open innovation and co‐operation has seen them become the world’s leading provider of solutions for reading written digital content with the ease and comfort of print on paper. This is combined with the interactivity, flexibility and up‐dating functionality provided by digital information.

Located on the High Tech Campus in Eindhoven, the Netherlands iRex serves the B2B market as well as the consumer market and works closely with companies and publishers to enable them to offer their content (newspapers, books, documents) digitally to clients, subscribers and employees.

– Richard Curtis

Hard on the heels of the announced unveiling of Plastic Logic’s unnamed tablet reader, Andy Greenberg of Forbes reports the imminent launch of iRex Technologies’ iRex Reader 1000. What does it look like? The image at the right is all that anyone gets to see until Monday September 22nd.

With Sony and Amazon developing next-generation e-books, the race for the hearts, minds and wallets of the consumer is on, and tablet-sized screens will definitely be a critical factor. Forbes will win handily in that aspect, as Plastic Logic won’t get its product out till late spring at the very earliest. But who will win the contest on the basis of quality is anybody’s guess. In any case both business and student users will be the beneficiaries, and though this blogger has restrained his temptation to buy a tablet up to now, it’s more than likely he will succumb when all the entries are available.

One thing that will affect my decision is the price: the projected price for the basic iRex 1000 will be about $650 but add-ons will increase the cost, bringing it to about twice the price of Kindle and Sony. On the other hand, that’s about half the price of a tablet PC. And iRex may deliver twice the value.

According to Greenberg,

The iRex Reader 1000 offers a 10.2-inch diagonal E-Inkscreen, far larger than Kindle’s 6-inch screen or even iRex’s own 8.1-inch diagonal iLiad, its last e-book model. That stretched display is designed to work with any file format, be it an e-book, a full-sized PDF, a Word document or HTML. Like earlier iRex devices, it sports a stylus and touch screen for taking notes and marking documents.

Some other issues inhibiting consumers are lack of color and no video, says Greenberg. So, even business men and women who can afford it (assuming they can even afford lead pencils in the current economy) might want to sit out the dance until those features are in place. That will happen in the next four years.

-Richard Curtis

William C. Dietz’s Drifter trilogy is now available for download, and it’s chock-full of vintage Dietzian nonstop action and – well, nonstop women.

Smuggler Pik Lando suffers from a Robin Hood complex, and a good thing it is, because onlyhe and his ship The Tinker’s Damn stand between a lot of good people and a ruthless syndicate that will stop at nothing to exploit a planet’s precious resources.

E-Reads is happy to offer, for the first time online, Drifter, Drifter’s Run and Drifter’s War.

And if you’ve missed out on any of Dietz’s adventures, check out our full selection.

- RC