It's a bitterly cold February in 1961, and Sandy Greenberg lies in a hospital bed in Detroit, newly blind. A junior at Columbia University from a Jewish family that struggled to stay above the poverty line, Sandy had just started to see the world open up to him. Now, instead of his plans for a bright future—Harvard Law and politics—Sandy faces a new reality, one defined by a cane or companion dog, menial work, and a cautious path through

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A girl recalls the special summer spent in Michigan with her yarn-spinning father and a magic rock.

Twenty-six-year-old Rachel Block drops out of rabbinical school after a sick man dies under her counseling. To make ends meet, she takes a job as a bartender in her Brooklyn neighborhood -- much to her parents' chagrin. Then Rachel falls in love with an iconoclastic screenwriter twice her age (and a Gentile!) and finds herself acting more and more like her sexy friend and upstairs neighbor, Liz. Suddenly she's reassessing her values, her surroundings,...

The Life and Songs of Stephen Foster offers an engaging reassessment of the life, politics, and legacy of the misunderstood father of American music. Once revered the world over, Foster's plantation songs, like "Old Folks at Home" and "My Old Kentucky Home," fell from grace in the wake of the Civil Rights Movement due to their controversial lyrics. Foster embraced the minstrel tradition for a brief time, refining it and infusing his songs with sympathy...