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Damascus Gate (novel)
''Damascus Gate'' is a novel by American author Robert Stone, published in 1998. Set in Jerusalem during the 1990s, the book was a finalist for the National Book Award. Plot summary The protagonist of the book is Christopher Lucas, an American freelance journalist who is investigating religious and political tensions in Israel. Lucas uncovers a plot to blow up the Dome of the Rock and rebuild the Third Temple. Other important characters in the book—who like Lucas are also American—include Sonia Barnes, a Jewish-Sufi mystic who has a romantic relationship with Lucas; Adam De Kuff, a mentally unstable man from a prominent New Orleans family who quotes the Zohar and claims to be the Messiah; and Raziel Melker, a heroin addict and the son of a senator who is devoted to De Kuff but whose motives are unclear. The novel contains many other characters, including rabbis, imams, priests, missionaries, settlers, and activists. "Surprisingly, however, in this novel about Jerusalem, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Stone (novelist)
Robert Anthony Stone (August 21, 1937 – January 10, 2015) was an American novelist, journalist, and college professor. He was five times a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction, which he did receive in 1975 for his novel '' Dog Soldiers''. ''Time'' magazine included this novel in its list ''100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005''. Stone was also twice a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and once for the PEN/Faulkner Award. During his lifetime Stone received material support and recognition including Guggenheim and National Endowment for the Humanities fellowships, the five-year Mildred and Harold Strauss Living Award, the John Dos Passos Prize for Literature, and the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters Award. Stone also offered his own support and recognition of writers during his lifetime, serving as Chairman of the PEN/Faulkner Foundation Board of Directors for over thirty years. Stone's best-known work is characterized by actio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Madison Smartt Bell
Madison Smartt Bell (born August 1, 1957, Nashville, Tennessee) is an American novelist. While established as a writer by several early novels, he is especially known for his trilogy of novels about Toussaint Louverture and the Haitian Revolution, published 1995–2004. Early life and education Raised in Nashville, Bell is a graduate of Princeton University, where he won the Ward Mathis Prize and the Francis LeMoyne Page award, and Hollins University, where he won the Andrew James Purdy fiction award. He later lived in New York City and London before settling in Baltimore, Maryland. Career Bell is a Professor of English at Goucher College in Towson, Maryland, where he was Director of the Creative Writing Program from 1998 to 2004. He taught in various creative writing programs, including the Iowa Writers' Workshop, the Poetry Center of the 92nd Street Y, and the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars. In addition, he has written essays and reviews for ''Harper's'', ''The New York Re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Novels About Journalists
A novel is an extended work of narrative fiction usually written in prose and published as a book. The word derives from the for 'new', 'news', or 'short story (of something new)', itself from the , a singular noun use of the neuter plural of ''novellus'', diminutive of ''novus'', meaning 'new'. According to Margaret Doody, the novel has "a continuous and comprehensive history of about two thousand years", with its origins in the Ancient Greek and Roman novel, Medieval Chivalric romance, and the tradition of the Italian Renaissance novella.Margaret Anne Doody''The True Story of the Novel'' New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1996, rept. 1997, p. 1. Retrieved 25 April 2014. The ancient romance form was revived by Romanticism, in the historical romances of Walter Scott and the Gothic novel. Some novelists, including Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Ann Radcliffe, and John Cowper Powys, preferred the term ''romance''. Such romances should not be confused with th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1998 American Novels
1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The ''Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently shadowed craters near the Moon's poles. * January 11 – Over 100 people are killed in the Sidi-Hamed massacre in Algeria. * January 12 – Nineteen European nations agree to forbid human cloning. * January 17 – The ''Drudge Report'' breaks the story about U.S. President Bill Clinton's alleged affair with Monica Lewinsky, which will lead to the House of Representatives' impeachment of him. February * February 3 – Cavalese cable car disaster: A United States military pilot causes the deaths of 20 people near Trento, Italy, when his low-flying EA-6B Prowler severs the cable of a cable-car. * February 4 – The 5.9 Afghanistan earthquake shakes the Takhar Province with a maximum Mercalli intensity of VII (''Very strong''). With up ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Book-of-the-Month Club
Book of the Month (founded 1926) is a United States subscription-based e-commerce service that offers a selection of five to seven new hardcover books each month to its members. Books are selected and endorsed by a panel of judges, and members choose which book they would like to receive, similar to how the club originally operated when it began in 1926. Members can also discuss the books with fellow members in an online forum. In late 2015, in concert with the club's 90th year, the club announced a relaunch into its current iteration. Within two years, the club had grown its membership to more than 100,000 members, primarily millennial and Gen Z women, and the club's presence on social media grew to over 1.5 million Instagram followers. Approximately 75% of the club's titles are by up-and-coming authors, and 80% of titles are fiction. The club has also worked with a series of celebrity guest judges who bring broader awareness to new titles, and continues producing its own versio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Simon & Schuster
Simon & Schuster LLC (, ) is an American publishing house owned by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts since 2023. It was founded in New York City in 1924, by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. Along with Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group USA, Hachette, HarperCollins and Macmillan Publishers, Simon & Schuster is considered one of the Big Five (publishers), 'Big Five' English language publishers. , Simon & Schuster was the third largest publisher in the United States, publishing 2,000 titles annually under 35 different Imprint (trade name), imprints. History Early years In 1924, Richard L. Simon, Richard Simon's aunt, a crossword puzzle enthusiast, asked whether there was a book of ''New York World'' crossword puzzles, which were popular at the time. After discovering that none had been published, Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster, Max Schuster decided to launch a company to exploit the opportunity.Frederick Lewis Allen, ''Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920s'', p. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hillel Halkin
Hillel Halkin (; born 1939) is an American-born Israeli translator, biographer, literary critic, and novelist who has lived in Israel since 1970. Biography Hillel Halkin was born in New York City two months before the outbreak of World War II. He was the son of Abraham S. Halkin, then a professor of Jewish literature, history, and culture at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, and his wife Shulamit, a daughter of Rabbi Meir Bar-Ilan. In 1970, he made ''aliyah'' to Israel and settled in Zikhron Ya'akov. He studied English literature at Columbia University."Anglo translators [first in a series]: Like being the dance partner of the greatest dancer" ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kirkus Reviews
''Kirkus Reviews'' is an American book review magazine founded in 1933 by Virginia Kirkus. The magazine's publisher, Kirkus Media, is headquartered in New York City. ''Kirkus Reviews'' confers the annual Kirkus Prize to authors of fiction, nonfiction, and young readers' literature. ''Kirkus Reviews'', published on the first and 15th of each month, previews books before their publication. ''Kirkus'' reviews over 10,000 titles per year. History Virginia Kirkus was hired by Harper & Brothers to establish a children's book department in 1926. In 1932, the department was eliminated as an economic measure. However, within a year, Louise Raymond, the secretary Kirkus hired, had the department running again. Kirkus, however, had left and soon established her own book review service. Initially, she arranged to get galley proofs of "20 or so" books in advance of their publication; almost 80 years later, the service was receiving hundreds of books weekly and reviewing about 100. Ini ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sabbateans
The Sabbateans (or Sabbatians) are a variety of Jewish followers, disciples, and believers in Sabbatai Zevi (1626–1676), an Ottoman Jewish rabbi and Kabbalist who was proclaimed to be the Jewish Messiah in 1666 by Nathan of Gaza. Vast numbers of Jews in the Jewish diaspora accepted his claims, even after he outwardly became an apostate due to his forced conversion to Islam in the same year. Sabbatai Zevi's followers, both during his proclaimed messiahship and after his forced conversion to Islam, are known as Sabbateans. In the late 17th century, northern Italy experienced a surge of Sabbatean activity, driven by the missionary efforts of Abraham Miguel Cardoso. Around 1700, a radical faction within the Dönmeh movement, led by Baruchiah Russo, emerged, which sought to abolish many biblical prohibitions. During the same period, Sabbatean groups from Poland migrated to the Land of Israel. The Sabbatean movement continued to disseminate throughout central Europe and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nathan Of Gaza
Nathan Benjamin ben Elisha Hayyim haLevi Ashkenazi (), more famously known as Nathan of Gaza (; 1643–1680), or Ghazzati, was a theologian and author born in Jerusalem. After his marriage in 1663 he moved to Gaza, where he became famous as a prophet for the Jewish messiah claimant Sabbatai Zevi. Biography Nathan of Gaza was born in Jerusalem around 1643-1644; he died on Friday, January 11, 1680, in Sofia. Although he grew up in Jerusalem, his parents were Ashkenazi. His father, Elisha Hayyim ben Jacob, was a distinguished rabbinic intellectual who served as an envoy of Jerusalem, collecting donations for impoverished Jews. During his travels, he would distribute kabbalistic works he obtained in Jerusalem. Upon settling in Ottoman Syria, Elisha Hayyim ben Jacob took on the surname "Ashkenazi" as a means of differentiating his family and himself from the largely Sephardic Jews of the Empire. He died in Alawid Morocco in 1673. Before his father's death, Nathan of Gaza began s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sabbatai Zevi
Sabbatai Zevi (, August 1, 1626 – ) was an Ottoman Jewish mystic and ordained rabbi from Smyrna (now İzmir, Turkey). His family were Romaniote Jews from Patras. His two names, ''Shabbethay'' and ''Ṣebi'', mean Saturn and mountain gazelle, respectively. Active throughout the Ottoman Empire, Zevi claimed to be the long-awaited Jewish Messiah and founded the Sabbatean movement. Central to his teachings was the belief that during the Messianic Age, acts traditionally considered sinful would transform into righteous ones. This antinomian doctrine led Zevi and his followers to deliberately violate Jewish commandments, a controversial practice that later inspired movements like the Frankists. Upon arriving in Constantinople in February 1666, Sabbatai was imprisoned on the order of the grand vizier Köprülüzade Fazıl Ahmed Pasha. In September of that same year, after being moved from different prisons around the capital to the imperial courts' seat in Adrianople (now Edi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
