Dani Shapiro, Signal Fires

An ancient majestic oak stands beneath the stars on Division Street. And under the tree sits Ben Wilf, a retired doctor, and ten-year-old Waldo Shenkman, a brilliant, lonely boy who is pointing out his favorite constellations. Waldo doesn’t realize it but he and Ben have met before. And they will again, and again. Across time […]

Debby Applegate, Madam: The Biography of Polly Adler, Icon of the Jazz Age

In Roaring Twenties New York City, when the nightclubs closed down, the in-crowd didn’t go home. Everyone went to Polly’s place, the “speakeasy with a harem” run by “The Female Al Capone,” as the newspapers dubbed her. Polly “Pearl” Adler was a diminutive dynamo whose Manhattan brothels were more than oases of illicit sex; they […]