A memoir of growing up in a pseudo-scientific cult in the 1950's and 1960's and how it affected the author.

"To be devoured in one non-stop gulp...fascinating reading."—The New York Post From 1919 to 1986, Grossinger's Catskill Resort Hotel provided a summer retreat from the city heat for New York's Jews, and entertained the great, the near-great, and the not so great, Jews and Gentiles alike. A melting pot of the Borscht Belt, sports, and show-biz worlds, loyal visitors included Red Buttons, Rocky Marciano, Eddie Fisher, and Jackie Robinson. Tania Grossinger grew up there. In her fascinating insider's account of life in the hospitality industry, she sheds light on how hotel children keep up with the frenetic pace of life, and how they come to grips with the outside world (which intrudes now and again), sex (happening in every room), and, occasionally, their intellectual interests. Growing Up at Grossinger's is both a wonderful coming-of-age story and a sentimental reading of a chapter of the Jewish experience in America that has now closed. 25 b/w photographs. Skyhorse Publishing, along with our Arcade, Good Books, Sports Publishing, and Yucca imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of biographies, autobiographies, and memoirs. Our list includes biographies on well-known historical figures like Benjamin Franklin, Nelson Mandela, and Alexander Graham Bell, as well as villains from history, such as Heinrich Himmler, John Wayne Gacy, and O. J. Simpson. We have also published survivor stories of World War II, memoirs about overcoming adversity, first-hand tales of adventure, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

Jerry Rubin, co-founder of the Yippie movement and a member of the Chicago Seven, traces his personal odyssey from radical activist of the 60’s to a practitioner in the growth potential movements of the 70’s—'Working to change in me the things I opposed externally in the streets.' Finding himself categorized by the press as ‘erstwhile’ and ‘aging’ at thirty-four and oppressed by his own lack of inner peace, Jerry Rubin turned his energy inward, seeking a self redefinition through various forms of New Consciousness. Growing (Up) at Thirty-Seven is a very personal and candid account of his experiences with est, rolfing, acupuncture and other forms of therapy—a unique journey to self awareness in which he tells of the person he was and the person he has become; how the originator of the slogan ‘Kill Your Parents!’ finally learned to love his own parents; and how his new personal philosophy relates to his political views. This is a sensitive psychological self-evaluation—a male confessional that lays bare Jerry Rubin’s struggle to find himself as a man in the aftermath of the aborted Youth Revolution.

One of The Economist's 2011 Books of the Year A Boston Globe Best Nonfiction Book of 2011 Well before the 1960s, a sexual revolution was under way in America, led by expatriated European thinkers who saw a vast country ripe for liberation. In Adventures in the Orgasmatron, Christopher Turner tells the revolution's story—an illuminating, thrilling, often bizarre story of sex and science, ecstasy and repression. Central to the narrative is the orgone box—a tall, slender construction of wood, metal, and steel wool. A person who sat in the box, it was thought, could elevate his or her "orgastic potential." The box was the invention of Wilhelm Reich, an outrider psychoanalyst who faced a federal ban on the orgone box, an FBI investigation, a fraught encounter with Einstein, and bouts of paranoia. In Turner's vivid account, Reich's efforts anticipated those of Alfred Kinsey, Herbert Marcuse, and other prominent thinkers—efforts that brought about a transformation of Western views of sexuality in ways even the thinkers themselves could not have imagined.

In the 1970's, a hippie college student falls in love with a female dolphin.

In iWant, investigative journalist and author Jane Velez-Mitchell traces her unique quest for an addiction-free life over the course of many years, detailing her struggles to stop drinking, smoking, overeating, and overworking. During this journey, Velez-Mitchell comes closer to discovering her authentic self, embracing her ethnic identity, and accepting her true sexual orientation. With layers upon layers of addictions removed, she is able to distinguish between what she wants and what she truly needs, and ultimately confronts her addiction across the board--Overconsumption. Using the Twelve Steps in every aspect of her life, Velez-Mitchell shares how she shed many of the self-destructive habits that plague Americans, habits responsible for a host of social ills from the obesity crisis to environmental wreckage. She admits to having been one of the 300 million Americans who shops and acquires addictively and describes how the Twelve Steps have put her on the road toward shedding unnecessary material possessions and limiting waste--despite a society that glorifies excess. While her journey is ongoing and she is still seeking answers, the culmination of Velez-Mitchell's work to date is having held the first Overconsumers Anonymous meeting, in which she and others like her admit to being powerless over this very real addiction and are ready to adopt a more spiritually fulfilling, economical, and environmentally friendly lifestyle.

Sam Dolgoff, a house painter by trade, was at the center of American anarchism for seventy years. His political voyage began in the 1920s when he joined the Industrial Workers of the World. He rode the rails as an itinerant laborer, bedding down in hobo camps and mounting soapboxes in cities across the United States. Self-educated, he translated, edited, and wrote some of the most important books and journals of twentieth-century anti-authoritarian politics, including the most widely read collection of Mikhail Bakunin's writings in English. His story, told with passion and humor by his son, conjures images of a lost New York City—the Lower East Side, the strong immigrant and working-class neighborhoods, the blurred lines dividing proletarian and intellectual culture, the union halls and social clubs, the brutal cops and bosses, and the solidarity that kept them at bay. An instant classic of radical history, this biography is written by a man now in his seventies who, as a child and young man, had a front-row seat to the world of proletarian politics and the colorful characters who brought it to life. "The American left in its classical age used to celebrate an ideal, which was the worker-intellectual—someone who toils with his hands all his life and meanwhile develops his mind and deepens his knowledge and contributes mightily to progress and decency in the society around him. Sam Dolgoff was a mythic figure in a certain corner of the radical left ... and his son, Anatole, has written a wise and beautiful book about him." —Paul Berman, author of A Tale of Two Utopias and Power and the Idealists "If you want to read the god-honest and god-awful truth about being a radical in twentieth-century America, drop whatever you're doing, pick up this book, and read it. Pronto! If you're not crying within five pages, you might want to check whether you've got a heart and a pulse." —Peter Cole, author of Wobblies on the Waterfront Anatole Dolgoff is the son of Esther and Sam Dolgoff, two of the most important anarchists in the United States in the twentieth century. He has lived in New York City his entire life and teaches geology at the Pratt Institute.

One fresh and fair summer day, as soon as his parents go out, Gorky sets up his laboratory by the kitchen sink to have another try at concocting a magic potion. This time he strikes upon the missing ingredient--half a bottle of his mother's attar of roses--and he knows it's success at last. While he is waiting for the bubbly, glinting liquid to show what it can do, he heads over to Elephant Rock, "his best spot for doing nothing." But on the way he stops to bask in the sun, soon falls asleep--and wakes to find himself floating in the immensely blue sky, clutching his bottle of magic. There follows the most astonishing, bewildering, and bedazzling adventure a young frog could possibly have. Orbiting the globe has its ups and downs, however, and Gorky soon begins to wonder if he'll ever get back to earth. He does manage to outwit the magic; but the potion saves a last surprise until Gorky reaches Elephant Rock, just on day later than he had planned. Gorky Rises is a 1980 New York Times Book Review Best Illustrated Book of the Year, Notable Children's Book of the Year, and Outstanding Book of the Year.

An investigative reporter tries to figure out if his new wife's story of an alien encounter is truth or fantasy.