Leslie Stein

A bold and humorous picaresque featuring an adolescent misfit and the oddball characters she seeks to befriend after losing her best buddy to a distant suburb. Hipster wannabes, cheesy New Agers, and co-dependent 13-year-old girls are meticulously illustrated with cut paper and ink, making this Xeric-winning graphic novella a fun and unique read. Early work from the creator of EOTMC – AKA Eye of The Majestic Creature.

A one-of-a-kind celebration of America's greatest comic strip--and the life lessons it can teach us--from a stellar array of writers and artists Peanuts, Charles Schulz's beloved comic strip, has given the world a cast of characters for the ages--Charlie Brown, Snoopy, and Lucy among them. Here, in an unprecedented collection of thirty-two essays, artists and writers ranging from Ann Patchett to Chris Ware consider the deeper truths of Peanuts, its influence on their lives and on the culture more broadly, and the lessons it can teach us about disappointment, melancholy, and those fleeting moments of warm-puppy happiness. The contributors reflect on the experience of discovering Peanuts as a child, their identification with its characters and predicaments, and, for the artists in the book, the momentous effects of their encounters with the strip on their later careers. Taken together, the essays and comics of The Peanuts Papers enrich our understanding of the Peanuts gang and its world, with contributions not only about Charlie Brown and Snoopy but also Linus, Sally, Pigpen, and Peppermint Patty. The Peanuts Papers is an enchanting, poignant gathering of responses to the greatest American comic strip, enabling us to see it anew in fresh and revealing ways.

Based on a wide range of sources, both in Hebrew and English, this book contains a judicious synthesis of the received literature to yield the general reader and student alike a reliable, balanced, and novel account of Israel's fateful and turbulent infancy. -- from publisher description.

"A candid and philosophical memoir tackling abortion and the complex decision to reproduce. I Know You Rider is Leslie Stein's rumination on the many complex questions surrounding the decision to reproduce. Opening in an abortion clinic, the book accompanies Stein through a year of her life, steeped in emotions she was not quite expecting while also looking far beyond her own experiences. She visits with a childhood friend who's just had twins and is trying to raise them as environmentally as possible, chats with another who's had a vasectomy to spare his wife a lifetime of birth control, and spends Christmas with her own mother, who aches for a grandchild. Through these melodically rendered conversations with loved ones and strangers, Stein weaves one continuing conversation with herself. She presents a sometimes sweet, sometimes funny, and always powerfully empathetic account, asking what makes a life meaningful and where we find joy amid other questions--most of which have no solid answers, much like real life. Instead of focusing on trauma, I Know You Rider is a story about unpredictability, change, and adaptability, adding a much-needed new perspective to a topic often avoided or discussed through a black and white lens. People are ever changing, contradicting themselves, and having to deal with unforeseen circumstances: Stein holds this human condition with grace and humor, as she embraces the cosmic choreography and keeps walking, open to what life blows her way."--Publisher's website.

"Eye of the Majestic Creature is a collection of semi-autobiographical and fantasy-based comics that combine dry humor, psychedelia, and emotion to show the viewpoint of one person's world internally and externally. The story follows a young girl, Larrybear, and her talking acoustic guitar Marshmallow on their adventures through the countryside, Chicago, San Francisco and New York. While Larrybear struggles to connect with strangers, her friends, and her family to various degrees of success, her growing population of anthropomorphic friends have adventures of their own"--Publisher's web site.

Completing his acclaimed trilogy on the history of Israel, Stein vividly chronicles Israel's wars and military engagements, but also incorporates fascinating assessments of many other issues, including Israel's economic development, the nature of the PLO and Palestinian Authority, and Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza. Furthermore, Stein explores broader social issues, such as extremist Jewish movements and the varying fortunes of migrants from Russia and Ethiopia.