The Long Hard Road Out of Hell

Curtis Chin (Author)

Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant: A Memoir

9,This "vivid, moving, funny, and heartfelt" memoir tells the story of Curtis Chin's time growing up as a gay Chinese American kid in 1980's Detroit (Lisa Ko, author of The Leavers). Nineteen eighties Detroit was a volatile place to live, but above the fray stood a safe haven: Chung's Cantonese Cuisine, where anyone--from the city's first Black mayor to the local drag queens, from a big-time Hollywood star to elderly Jewish couples--could sit down for a warm, home-cooked meal. Here was where, beneath a bright-red awning and surrounded by his multigenerational family, filmmaker and activist Curtis Chin came of age; where he learned to embrace his identity as a gay ABC, or American-born Chinese; where he navigated the divided city's spiraling misfortunes; and where--between helpings of almond boneless chicken, sweet-and-sour pork, and some of his own, less-savory culinary concoctions--he realized just how much he had to offer to the world, to his beloved family, and to himself. Served up by the cofounder of the Asian American Writers' Workshop and structured around the very menu that graced the tables of Chung's, Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant is both a ...

Anthony Julius (Author)

Abraham: The First Jew

1,The story of Abraham, the first Jew, portrayed as two lives lived by one person, paralleling the contradictions in Judaism throughout its history In this new biography of Abraham, Judaism's foundational figure, Anthony Julius offers an account of the origins of a fundamental struggle within Judaism between skepticism and faith, critique and affirmation, thinking for oneself and thinking under the direction of another. Julius describes Abraham's life as two separate lives, and as a version of the collective life of the Jewish people. Abraham's first life is an early adulthood of questioning the polytheism of his home city of Ur Kasdim until its ruler, Nimrod, condemns him to death and he is rescued, he believes, by a miracle. In his second life, Abraham's focus is no longer on critique but rather on conversion and on his leadership over his growing household, until God's command that he sacrifice his son Isaac. This test, the Akedah (or "Binding"), ends with another miracle, as he believes, but as Julius argues, it is also a catastrophe for Abraham. The Akedah represents for him an unsurpassed horizon--and in Jewish life thereafter. This book focuses on Abraham as leader of the ...

Clara Batten (Author)

Gin & Phonics: My Journey Through Middle-Class Motherhood (Via the Occasional Pub)

'I was asked the other day what I thought the hardest part of parenting was. I'd have to say that it's definitely the kids.' TikTok sensation Clara Batten has dedicated the last few years to seeking the answer to one of life's most crucial questions: Is it possible to raise and nurture two small humans without losing your bloody mind? The good news is, now she's found (some of) the answers and is sharing her secrets with the rest of us! In this riotous book, Clara reveals: when it's acceptable to buy your kids lunch from a kebab shop. why a jar of pickled herrings from Waitrose is the ultimate guilty pleasure, nay necessity, for a sleep-deprived parent. how to finally pursue your acting ambitions in your forties (despite a toddler sh*tting on the stairs during a self-tape audition). Most importantly, Clara shows us that no matter how much we adore our little treasures, life isn't just about their A, B and bloody Cs.