Soon after the end of the war, Ruth returned to Hamburg, where she married the journalist Heinz Liepman. In 1949 they started what would become one of the most respected literary agencies in the world. Ruth runs the agency to this day, and she includes in this book many thoughts and reflections on her years working with books and authors.

From New York Times bestselling author and economics columnist Robert Frank, a compelling book that explains why the rich underestimate the importance of luck in their success, why that hurts everyone, and what we can do about it How important is luck in economic success? No question more reliably divides conservatives from liberals. As conservatives correctly observe, people who amass great fortunes are almost always talented and hardworking. But liberals are also correct to note that countless others have those same qualities yet never earn much. In recent years, social scientists have discovered that chance plays a much larger role in important life outcomes than most people imagine. In Success and Luck, bestselling author and New York Times economics columnist Robert Frank explores the surprising implications of those findings to show why the rich underestimate the importance of luck in success—and why that hurts everyone, even the wealthy. Frank describes how, in a world increasingly dominated by winner-take-all markets, chance opportunities and trivial initial advantages often translate into much larger ones—and enormous income differences—over time; how false beliefs about luck persist, despite compelling evidence against them; and how myths about personal success and luck shape individual and political choices in harmful ways. But, Frank argues, we could decrease the inequality driven by sheer luck by adopting simple, unintrusive policies that would free up trillions of dollars each year—more than enough to fix our crumbling infrastructure, expand healthcare coverage, fight global warming, and reduce poverty, all without requiring painful sacrifices from anyone. If this sounds implausible, you'll be surprised to discover that the solution requires only a few, noncontroversial steps. Compellingly readable, Success and Luck shows how a more accurate understanding of the role of chance in life could lead to better, richer, and fairer economies and societies.

Julius Schlesinger, aspiring SS officer, has received orders to remove from the roof of Prague's concert hall the statue of the Jewish composer Felix Mendelssohn. But which of the figures adorning the roof is the Jew? Remembering his course on racial science, Schlesinger instructs his men to pull down the statue with the biggest nose. Only as the statue they have carefully chosen begins to topple does he recognize that it is not Mendelssohn; it is Richard Wagner. Thus begins a story of disarming simplicity that traces the transformation of ordinary lives in Nazi-occupied Prague. Death abetted by the petty malevolence of Nazi functionaries wins all the battles but ultimately loses the war, defeated by the fragile flowering of courage and defiance.

"Nothing of the former world holds true anymore," Zofia Nalkowska wrote in her Wartime Diaries on 7 May 1943. "Nothing has remained." The burning of the Warsaw ghetto had broken Nalkowska's privileged life in two; in the years to come, the need to bear witness to the horrors she had seen firsthand would lead this gifted member of the Polish avant-garde to write the stories in Medallions.

After the defeat of Germany in World War II, hundreds of thousands of Jewish survivors of the Holocaust were transported to camps maintained by the Allies for displaced persons (DPs). In Waiting for Hope: Jewish Displaced Persons in Post-World War II Germany, historians Angelika Königseder and Juliane Wetzel offer a social and cultural history of the DP camps. Starting with the discovery of Nazi death camps by Allied forces, Königseder and Wetzel describe the inadequate preparations that had been made for the starving and sick camp survivors. News of having to live in camps again was devastating to these survivors, and many Jewish survivors were forced to live side by side with non-Jewish anti-Semitic DPs. The Allied soldiers were ill equipped to deal with the physical wreckage and mental anguish of their charges, but American rabbis soon arrived to perform invaluable work helping the survivors cope with grief and frustration. Königseder and Wetzel devote attention to autonomous Jewish life in the DP camps. Theater groups and orchestras prospered in and around the camps; Jewish newspapers began to publish; kindergartens and schools were founded; and a tuberculosis hospital and clinic for DPs was established in Bergen-Belsen. Underground organizations coalesced to handle illegal immigration to Israel and the training of soldiers to fight in Palestine. In many places there was even a last flowering of shtetl life before the DPs began to scatter to Israel, Germany, and other countries. Drawing on original documents and the work of other historians, Waiting for Hope sheds light on a largely unknown period in postwar Jewish history and shows that the suffering of the survivors did not end with the war.

Translated from the 1948 French edition. A remarkable memoir of the Polish composer Szymon Laks. While interned at the Auschwitz extermination camp, Laks became kappelmeister of the Auschwitz band. With wit and self-detachment, he records the grotesque phenomena of music among the crematoria. Paper edition (unseen), $10.95. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Have you ever noticed that you talk about luck every day of your life? Luck is your silent companion, sometimes bringing awesome parking spaces, a chance meeting with a new love interest, or a small windfall. Most of the time you probably don’t even pay attention to luck. Chances are, you only really think about luck when you buy a lottery ticket or participate in a contest. Luck is so much more than that. If you take steps to live longer by eating right and exercising, why wouldn’t you also take similar steps to improve your good fortune? Barrie Dolnick and Anthony Davidson asked themselves this very question, and set out to study luck and decipher how it works. In this insightful and engaging book, they share the secrets they’ve uncovered so you can use luck more effectively in your day-to-day life. Where does luck originate? Does one need to be “born lucky” in order to be lucky? Answering these and many other pressing questions, Dolnick and Davidson investigate both ancient and scientific approaches to luck. From early man to famous rationalists, luck has been prayed for, played with, and courted. You’ll learn how ancient practices such as the I Ching, astrology, tarot, and numerology have been used to understand luck, and how great mathematicians studied luck–some guided by their own interest in gambling. Every- one wants to be lucky. Once you know the fundamentals of luck, the authors take you through your own Personal Luck Profile so that you can use this wisdom and try your luck. People do a lot of weird things to improve their luck–and now you can make smart choices and informed decisions about how to play with yours.

Set during the Nazi occupation of Prague, Life with a Star records the day-to-day life of Josef Roubicek, an ex-bank clerk, who discovers that the prosaic world he has always inhabited is suddenly off-limits to him because he is a Jew. "One of the most powerful works to emerge from the Holocaust; it is a fierce and necessary work of art".--The New York Times.

Artist Mark Menjivar was in an antique bookshop in Fort Wayne, Indiana, when he found 4 four-leaf clovers pressed between the yellowed pages of an aged copy of 1000 Facts Worth Knowing. Their discovery beguiled Menjivar so much that he began a multiyear exploration into the concept of luck and its intersections with belief, culture, superstition, and tradition in people’s lives. Menjivar has spent hours and days engaging people in airplanes, tattoo shops, bingo halls, international grocery stores, public parks, baseball stadiums, and voodoo shops—and out on the streets and in their homes. Along the way he documented his findings to create a physical archive that contains hundreds of objects (rings, underwear, food items, clovers, horses, pigs, herbs, rainbows, lottery strategies, seeds, day trader insights, statues, patches, crystals, spices) and the stories and pictures that go with them. Through photographs and first person accounts, The Luck Archive takes the best of these ideas, thoughts, and objects and gives readers a glimpse into the cultures and superstitions of a colorful array of humanity.

This is the first volume of its kind to provide a curated collection of cutting-edge scholarship on the philosophy of luck Offers an in-depth examination of the concept of luck, which has often been overlooked in philosophical study Includes discussions of luck from a range of philosophical perspectives, including ethics, epistemology, metaphysics, and cognitive science Examines the role of luck in core philosophical problems, such as free will Features work from the main philosophers writing on luck today