The scene is Otisville Prison, upstate New York. A crew of fraudsters, tax evaders, trigamists and forgers discuss matters of right and wrong in a Talmudic study and prayer group, or 'minyan', led by a rabbi who's a fellow convict. As the only prison in the federal system with a kosher deli, Otisville is the penitentiary of choice for white-collar Jewish offenders, many of whom secretly like the place. They've learned to game the system, so when the regime is toughened to punish a newly arrived celebrity convict who has upset the 45th president, they find devious ways to fight back. Shadowy forces up the ante by trying to 'Epstein' - ie assassinate - the newcomer, and visiting poetry professor Deborah Liston ends up in dire peril when she sees too much. She has helped the minyan look into their souls. Will they now step up to save her? Jonathan Stone brings the sensibility of Saul Bellow and Philip Roth to the post-truth era in a sharply comic novel that is also wise, profound and deeply moral.

Decadence and Modernism in European and Russian Literature and Culture: Aesthetics and Anxiety in the 1890s rewrites the story of early modernist literature and culture by drawing out the tensions underlying its simultaneous engagement with Decadence and Symbolism, the unsustainable combination of this world and the other. With a broadly framed literary and cultural approach, Jonathan Stone examines a shift in perspective that explodes the notion of reality and showcases the uneasy relationship between the tangible and intangible aspects of the surrounding world. Modernism quenches a growing fascination with the ephemeral and that which cannot be seen while also doubling down on the significance of the material world and finding profound meaning in the physical and the corporeal. Decadence and Symbolism complement the broader historical trajectory of the fin de siecle by affirming the novelty of a modernist mindset and offering an alternative to the empirical and positivistic atmosphere of the nineteenth century. Stone seeks to recreate a significant historical and cultural moment in the development of modernity, a moment that embraces the concept of Decadence while repurposing its aesthetic and social import to help navigate the fundamental changes that accompanied the dawn of the twentieth century.

Russian literature is most celebrated for it genres of Romantic and modernist poetry and 19th-century novels. While literary traditions of varying sorts have been part of Slavic and Russian culture for over a millennium, it is only since the 18th century that they came to resemble literature from the West. The Historical Dictionary of Russian Literature contains a chronology, an introductory essay, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 100 cross-referenced entries on significant people, themes, critical issues, and the most significant genres that have formed Russian Literature. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Russian literature.

In the mid-sixties, John Robson and Christina Enroth-Cugell, without realizing what they were doing, set off a virtual revolution in the study of the visual system. They were trying to apply the methods of linear systems analysis (which were already being used to describe the optics of the eye and the psychophysical performance of the human visual system) to the properties of retinal ganglion cells in the cat. Their idea was to stimulate the retina with patterns of stripes and to look at the way that the signals from the center and the antagonistic surround of the respective field of each ganglion cell (first described by Stephen Kuffier) interact to generate the cell's responses. Many of the ganglion cells behaved themselves very nicely and John and Christina got into the habit (they now say) of calling them I (interesting) cells. However. to their annoyance, the majority of neurons they recorded had nasty, nonlinear properties that couldn't be predicted on the basis of simple summ4tion of light within the center and the surround. These uncoop erative ganglion cells, which Enroth-Cugell and Robson at first called D (dull) cells, produced transient bursts of impulses every time the distribution of light falling on the receptive field was changed, even if the total light flux was unaltered."

The study of neurotransmitters in the human brain has expanded spectacularly in recent years with the application of techniques from immunology and molecular biology. These techniques are now being used successfully to help decipher the chemical architecture of the human nervous system. The results of these studies are of great importance for the understanding and treatment of neurological and psychiatric disorders such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and Huntington's diseases, as well as depression and schizophrenia. Professor Istvan Tork was a pioneer in the chemical anatomy of the brain and carried out important studies on the neuroanatomy and distribution of neuropeptides and monoarnines in the brain; some of his best known work dealt with the dual innervation of the cortex by neurons containing serotonin. Istvan Tork died on November 21, 1992, after a long struggle with a temporal lobe glioma, leaving a profound legacy of friendship and scholarly work 1. It was decided by the editors of this volume to commemorate his work and the mentors hip he gave to his many students by convening a symposium on neurotransmitters in the human brain. The symposium was held at the University of New South Wales on February 5, 1994, and was attended by over one hundred participants, including many of Professor Tork's colleagues and students. The papers from this symposium are presented in this volume to stand as a tribute to the breadth and quality of his work and to the energy and achievement of his students.

Decadence and Modernism in European and Russian Literature and Culture: Aesthetics and Anxiety in the 1890s rewrites the story of early modernist literature and culture by drawing out the tensions underlying its simultaneous engagement with Decadence and Symbolism, the unsustainable combination of this world and the other. With a broadly framed literary and cultural approach, Jonathan Stone examines a shift in perspective that explodes the notion of reality and showcases the uneasy relationship between the tangible and intangible aspects of the surrounding world. Modernism quenches a growing fascination with the ephemeral and that which cannot be seen while also doubling down on the significance of the material world and finding profound meaning in the physical and the corporeal. Decadence and Symbolism complement the broader historical trajectory of the fin de siecle by affirming the novelty of a modernist mindset and offering an alternative to the empirical and positivistic atmosphere of the nineteenth century. Stone seeks to recreate a significant historical and cultural moment in the development of modernity, a moment that embraces the concept of Decadence while repurposing its aesthetic and social import to help navigate the fundamental changes that accompanied the dawn of the twentieth century.

Andrei Bely is best known for the modernist masterwork Petersburg, a paradigmatic example of how modern writers strove to evoke the fragmentation of language, narrative, and consciousness. In the early twentieth century, Bely embarked on his life as an artist with texts he called "symphonies"-works experimenting with genre and sound, written in a style that shifts among prosaic, poetic, and musical. This book presents Bely's four Symphonies-"Dramatic Symphony," "Northern Symphony," "The Return," and "Goblet of Blizzards"-fantastically strange stories that capture the banality of life, the intimacy of love, and the enchantment of art. The Symphonies are quintessential works of modernist innovation in which Bely developed an evocative mythology and distinctive aesthetics. Influenced by Russian Symbolism, Bely believed that the role of modern artists was to imbue seemingly small details with cosmic significance. The Symphonies depict the drabness of daily life with distinct irony and satire-and then soar out of turn-of-the-century Moscow into the realm of the infinite and eternal. They conjure worlds that resemble our own but reveal elements of artifice and magic, hinting at mystical truths and the complete transfiguration of life. Showcasing the protean quality of Bely's language and storytelling, Jonathan Stone's translation of the Symphonies features some of the most captivating and beguiling writing of Russia's Silver Age.

Andrei Bely is best known for the modernist masterwork Petersburg, a paradigmatic example of how modern writers strove to evoke the fragmentation of language, narrative, and consciousness. In the early twentieth century, Bely embarked on his life as an artist with texts he called "symphonies"-works experimenting with genre and sound, written in a style that shifts among prosaic, poetic, and musical. This book presents Bely's four Symphonies-"Dramatic Symphony," "Northern Symphony," "The Return," and "Goblet of Blizzards"-fantastically strange stories that capture the banality of life, the intimacy of love, and the enchantment of art. The Symphonies are quintessential works of modernist innovation in which Bely developed an evocative mythology and distinctive aesthetics. Influenced by Russian Symbolism, Bely believed that the role of modern artists was to imbue seemingly small details with cosmic significance. The Symphonies depict the drabness of daily life with distinct irony and satire-and then soar out of turn-of-the-century Moscow into the realm of the infinite and eternal. They conjure worlds that resemble our own but reveal elements of artifice and magic, hinting at mystical truths and the complete transfiguration of life. Showcasing the protean quality of Bely's language and storytelling, Jonathan Stone's translation of the Symphonies features some of the most captivating and beguiling writing of Russia's Silver Age.

Forty years? accumulation of art, antiques, and family photographs are more than just objects for Stanley Peke?they are proof of a life fully lived. A life he could have easily lost long ago.

When a con man steals his houseful of possessions in a sophisticated moving-day scam, Peke wanders helplessly through his empty New England home, inevitably reminded of another helpless time: decades in Peke's past, a cold and threadbare Stanislaw Shmuel Pecoskowitz eked out a desperate existence in the war-torn Polish countryside, subsisting on scraps and dodging Nazi soldiers. Now, the seventy-two-year-old Peke?who survived, came to America, and succeeded?must summon his original grit and determination to track down the thieves, retrieve his things, and restore the life he made for himself.

Peke and his wife, Rose, trace the path of the thieves? truck across America, to the wilds of Montana, and to an ultimate, chilling confrontation with not only the thieves but also with Peke's brutal, unresolved past.

Letters to Australia, Volume 3 is a collection of Julius Stone's radio broadcasts on various international issues between 1950 and 1951.

"My four legitimately published thrillers, and the four works collected here. It's like a brood of eight children - four conventional offspring, and four rambunctious foster kids. Four who have enjoyed all the easy benefits; striding proudly and blithely forward on publishing's straight and narrow - toeing the line, earning their dutiful reviewer A's (well, a couple of A's, mostly B-pluses), attending the best (well, decent) schools, handsomely clothed in their hardcovers, standing at timeless, dutiful, alphabetical attention on library and bookstore shelves. The children you never have to worry about. Versus four that have been battered around by the world. They deserve better. They bring out my protective instincts. They deserve a home. Here is their home. And these unconventional children - the "unsuccessful" ones, the adventurers, the wanderers, aren't they more interesting? Aren't they the ones you want to hear about? The ones who are wreck divers, ski instructors, bartenders, cabbies, aren't their stories more interesting than your law partner, your radiologist, your financial-analyst kids?" These are my foster children. My stepkids. My orphans. A little wild. A little unpredictable. More than a little unwelcome in the world. But come say hello, at least. Tussle their hair. Pinch their cheeks. They won't bite. Well, no promises.

When retired police detective Joe Heller is called in to investigate what might be Antarctica's first murder, he quickly discovers that winter at McMurdo Station comes with a unique set of challenges: darkness, isolation, and the eccentric behavior of the research facility's 157 inhabitants. But a difficult investigation turns much tougher when all communication with the outside world is suddenly cut off. While Heller works diligently to reconstruct the scene of the crime, evidence mounts that a pathogenic event could be ravaging the rest of the planet. As night descends, fear mounts, and confusion reigns, the killer strikes again. If this is a global cataclysm, is someone now picking off the human race's few remaining survivors? Is this the end of the world-or just the end of Joe Heller's?