Brothers And Keepers

“A rare triumph” (The New York Times Book Review), this powerful memoir about the divergent paths taken by two brothers is a classic work from one of the greatest figures in American literature: a reflection on John Edgar Wideman’s family and his brother’s incarceration—a classic that is as relevant now as when originally published in 1984. A “brave and brilliant” (The Philadelphia Inquirer) portrait of lives arriving at different destinies, the classic John Edgar Wideman memoir, Brothers and Keepers, is a haunting portrait of two brothers—one an award-winning writer, the other a fugitive wanted for a robbery that resulted in a murder. Wideman recalls the capture of his younger brother, Robby, details the subsequent trials that resulted in a sentence of life in prison, and provides vivid views of the American prison system. A gripping, unsettling account, Brothers and Keepers weighs the bonds of blood, affection, and guilt that connect Wideman and his brother and measures the distance that lies between them. “If you care at all about brotherhood and dignity…this is a must-read book” (The Denver Post). With a new afterword by his brother Robert Wideman, recently released after more than fifty years in prison.

In this major work exploring 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.

Brother Keepers: New Perspectives on Jewish Masculinity is an international collection of new essays on Jewish men by academics and activists, rabbis and secularists, men and women, on personal experience and congregational life, gendered bodies and Jewish minds, poetry and prayer, literature and film, and more. Simultaneously particular and universal, all engagingly illuminate how masculinities and Judaisms engage each other in gendered Jewishness.

This book documents the tales of scores of Christian heroes and heroines from all walks of life, in various European countries, who aided the oppressed escape the Nazi terror. Christians in Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Greece, France, Italy, Hungary and Eastern Europe defied Gestapo truncheons to be their brothers’ keepers. Fully documented addition to material which has not been treated before in this way. “...One of the most thrilling stories of our generation, excitingly written and well-documented...it serves as an inspiration for all those who have the courage to express their love to their fellowman...”—The Very Rev. JAMES A. PIKE, Dean of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York “...a major document of human solidarity, this story testifies to the survival of the spirit of heroism, as well as of martyrdom, in behalf of humanitarian ideals.”—Professor SALO W. BARON, Columbia University “...I commend this work to all who are interested in seeing how people reached up gentle hands and took Christ’s law of love out of the sky and...put it into practice...I hope it is read by millions.”—Rev. JOHN A. O’BRIEN, University of Notre Dame

With war looming on the horizon and winter setting in, can two children escape North Korea on their own? Winner of the Freeman Book Award! North Korea. December, 1950. Twelve-year-old Sora and her family live under an iron set of rules: No travel without a permit. No criticism of the government. No absences from Communist meetings. Wear red. Hang pictures of the Great Leader. Don't trust your neighbors. Don't speak your mind. You are being watched. But war is coming, war between North and South Korea, between the Soviets and the Americans. War causes chaos--and war is the perfect time to escape. The plan is simple: Sora and her family will walk hundreds of miles to the South Korean city of Busan from their tiny mountain village. They just need to avoid napalm, frostbite, border guards, and enemy soldiers. But they can't. And when an incendiary bombing changes everything, Sora and her little brother Young will have to get to Busan on their own. Can a twelve-year-old girl and her eight-year-old brother survive three hundred miles of warzone in winter? Haunting, timely, and beautiful, this harrowing novel from a searing new talent offers readers a glimpse into a vanished time and a closed nation. A Jane Addams Children's Book Award Finalist An ILA Intermediate Fiction Award Winner An American Library Association Notable Children’s Book A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year A Junior Library Guild Selection A Bank Street Best Children's Book of the Year "Will ultimately be recognized as one of the best books... on the Korean War."—Education About Asia, the Association for Asian Studies

"... this book is though-provoking, bringing a scientist's reason and a moralist's outrage to bear on a subject that's largely escaped attention." -- Wired "Caplan's choice of topics is broad and his opinions challenging.... This volume will interest the general public. It is a good survey of a broad range of ethical issues, as seen by one prominent bioethicist who has thought much about the subject. Caplan's well-merited reputation as a commentator and interpreter between the scholarly and the public arena is reaffirmed in this book." -- The Washington Post "Arthur Caplan -- with assiduous effort, unflagging energy, encyclopedic knowledge, and imposing talent -- has become America's most visible commentator on bioethics." -- The Philadelphia Inquirer "Arthur Caplan is perhaps the most quoted bioethicist in the US and this new collection of essays illustrates why." -- Nature Medicine "... an important book of essays addressing the most problematic and persistent questions in the realm of contemporary bioethics. He offers a highly readable text balancing irony and incisive analysis with a palpable sense of moral urgency as he confronts a variety of subjects." -- Curtis W. Hart, BCC "Careful consideration of some of the knottier bioethical problems of our times, by the director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, who fears that cynicism and mistrust have eroded our ability to see ourselves as our brothers' keepers." -- Kirkus Reviews "Caplan's particular skill is an ability to identify, analyze, and explain the extremely complex moral questions that grow out of changes in health care, science, and medicine." -- The New York Times Magazine "An important critical voice for American medicine." -- The New England Journal of Medicine "... a useful introduction to a variety of bioethical issues." -- Library Journal In this impassioned book, Arthur L. Caplan, America's leading bioethicist, calls for an end to cynicism and mistrust in our approach to resolving health care issues. He brings this vision to discussions of some of the most exciting issues at the frontiers of medical ethics today -- including doctor-assisted suicide, gene therapy, and the headline-grabbing case of Dolly the sheep and the possibility that human beings might one day be cloned.

“A powerful assemblage of short stories exploring late-in-life angst through personal myth, cultural memory, and riffs on an empire scorched by its own hubris” (O, The Oprah Magazine) from award-winning author John Edgar Wideman—his first collection in more than a decade. “Race and its reverberations are at the core of this slim, powerful volume, a blend of fiction, memoir, and reimagined history, in which the boundaries between those forms are murky and ever shifting” (The Boston Globe). In this singular collection, John Edgar Wideman blends the personal, historical, and political to invent complex, charged stories about love, death, struggle, and what we owe each other. With characters ranging from everyday Americans to Jean-Michel Basquiat to Nat Turner, American Histories is a journey through time, experience, and the soul of our country. In “JB & FD,” Wideman reimagines conversations between John Brown, the antislavery crusader, and Frederick Douglass, the abolitionist and orator—conversations that produce a fantastical, rich correspondence that spans years and ideologies. “Maps and Ledgers” eavesdrops on a brother and sister today as they ponder their father’s killing of another man. “Williamsburg Bridge” sits inside a man sitting on a bridge who contemplates his life before he decides to jump. “My Dead” is a story about how the already-departed demand more time, more space in the lives of those who survive them. American Histories is “an important addition to Wideman’s body of writing and a remarkable demonstration of his ability to address social issues through a range of fictional forms and styles” (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette). An extended meditation on family, history, and loss, American Histories weaves together historical fact, philosophical wisdom, and deeply personal vignettes. This is Wideman at his best—emotionally precise and intellectually stimulating—an extraordinary collection by a master.

Men need other men. If you want to build accountable, lasting, growth-producing relationships, this Promise Keepers study guide is just what you're looking for.