Howard Jacobson

When fast-breaking political events forced British novelist Jacobson (Peeping Tom) to put off a trip to Lithuania planned as a search for his Jewish roots, he accepted an offer from the BBC to visit Jewish communities around the globe instead. This informed and witty account of his experiences deals with the wide variety of contemporary Jewish life, as well as with how Jacobson's observations affected his own concept of what it means to be a Jew....

"A profound, darkly comedic parable set in a future where collective memory has vanished following a historic catastrophe, and one young couple's love affair could have shattering consequences for the human race. In a world where the past is a dangerous country, not to be talked about or visited, J is a love story of incomparable strangeness, both tender and terrifying. After the devastation of WHAT HAPPENED, IF IT HAPPENED, all that should remain...

The winner of the 2010 Man Booker Prize, Howard Jacobson, brims with life in this collection of his most acclaimed journalism. From the unusual disposal of his father-in-law's ashes and the cultural wasteland of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang to the melancholy sensuality of Leonard Cohen and desolation of Wagner's tragedies, Jacobson writes with all the thunder and joy of a man possessed. Absurdity piles upon absurdity, and glorious sentences weave together...

Pussy is the story of Prince Fracassus, heir presumptive to the Duchy of Origen, famed for its golden-gated skyscrapers and casinos, who passes his boyhood watching reality shows on TV, imagining himself to be the Roman Emperor Nero, and fantasizing about hookers. He is idle, boastful, thin-skinned and egotistic. He has no manners, no curiosity, no knowledge, no idea and no words in which to express them. Could he, in that case, be the very leader...

In a dual tale that contrasts an antique bookstore owner's sexually obsessive marriage with a literary romance found on the shelves of his store, Felix Quinn becomes so enamored of his wife that he allows her to conduct an affair with another man. By the author of the Mighty Walzer.

In 1950s Manchester, England, Oliver Walzer, a shy Jewish boy, comes of age in a household dominated by women. He finds that he has a natural talent for ping-pong, but things do not go as smoothly for him when it comes to women and sex.

Taking the terrorist attacks of 9/11 as their starting point, five new essays look at how Jewish culture has changed over the past two decades. Covering music (Vanessa Paloma Elbaz), art (Monica Bohm Duchen), literature (Bryan Cheyette), theatre (Judi Herman) and film (Nathan Abrams), the essays explore the role of confidence in the cultural output of minority communities and ask whether the trends identified look set to continue over the coming years. Commissioned...