Kirjahaku

Frederick is bachelor in his early 50's. As a proclaimed codependent he limits his personal contacts with women to sex-dating to avoid any kind of involvement that might lead to emotional dependency. He has distanced himself so far from his own emotions that he thinks of himself not as "I" but as "You". One day at the library he hears the voice of a woman telling a story of a mermaid and a dragon - of all things - with the repeated word Wonderful , which echoes in his mind. That evening he has scheduled a meeting with his newest sex date at a restaurant. She never shows up, but Frederick is served a dish that evokes in him the taste and feeling of wonderful Under the subliminal spell of wonderful he seeks to find this elusive experience through the art of cooking and the thrills of impersonal sex. It finds him in the persons of his one friend Matt, a poet, and Matt's friend Sonya, a story teller, who is also a superb cook. Through the subtle manipulations of these two creative spirits Frederick's defenses against personal involvement are breaking down, his privacy is invaded, and his life is turned into a comedy of errors.

STORYBOOK is a collection of poems, prose poems, and the occasional hidden rhyme of random things that don't fit. Random thoughts and sudden memories, momentary encounters and passing fantasies, dreamlike atmospheres and clear analysis, music, love, death and hope. Regardless of time and continuity, these stories mirror a mind that is forever amazed at the minute details of life.

Two parallel stories follow two couples, divided by three hundred years. The first couple, Claire and Mark, live in the early 2000's in the USA, the second couple, Edmund and Katherina, around the year 1700 in England. Both wives are foreigners in their husbands' countries, and after a prolonged absence abroad, attending to a dying parent, they each return to a husband inexplicably changed towards them, withdrawing emotional and physical intimacy. Through their husbands' clever manipulations they remain in a loveless marriage until they reconnect with an important part of their youth: playing a musical instrument, and the advent of a music teacher in each time frame. The modern Claire, a writer and poet, unravels the mystery of the estrangement from her husband through researching the life of a little known baroque composer: Gottfried Finger, who originated from Moravia, then one of the Czech provinces of the Hapsburg Empire, and lived and worked in London between 1686 and 1701.

It is the year 2003, the last year our family are still together, husband, wife, son, daughter. The pressure is on. The kids are grown and preparing for college. They have a girlfriend and a boyfriend. They always want something, especially a car. I want a room of my own, but that room is always occupied by someone else. I have my special little squabbles with the comparisons between the German and the English language. And there is the war in Iraq. No wonder that a stressed-out woman sometimes escapes the dear family and friends and neighbors by slipping into her own fantasy world...

On a small subtropical island two forces are engaged in a deadly struggle: The enchantment of money, represented by a marvelous casino resort, the Castle, and its legendary owner Mr. Robert, also known as the Sorcerer; and the subtle magic of music and memory, represented by the local singer Selina Diaz and her brother Domingo, master of the traditional drum. Selina's last hope is her youngest son Joaquin, her brother's student on the drum, who is drawn to the Castle by the promise of wealth and fame in America. Mr. Robert's hidden tool is his beautiful daughter Melisande, who is to seduce Joaquin and extract from him the three magic items that Selina has given her son for protection. Can the two young people discover the magic of love to break the spell of the Castle?

Stuttgart and Munich, West Germany, in the 1970's. Anna Hoffmann has escaped the close knit society of her hometown Stuttgart to Munich. She has just graduated from film school, she has no money and no job, and her roommates in the women's commune are getting nervous about the rent and household expenses. One day Patrick Dorn knocks on her door. Patrick is the husband of her cousin Sigrid. He has a gift for Anna: a broom, a souvenir from the couple's travels in Brazil, that is supposed to have magic powers. Patrick is looking for a sensible and practical person to safeguard this object, a person like Anna. Soon the broom demonstrates its magical powers: First Anna finds money during a walk in the park, and then she is offered a job as editing assistant at the Bavarian Film Studios. But a few weeks later the broom begins to show its destructive powers. Anna, with her faithful dog Oskar, starts searching for a means to break the spell of the broom...

Eva, the first woman, and Sarah, Rebekah, Leah, and Rachel, the four Matriarchs in the book of Genesis of the Jewish Torah and the Christian Old Testament: Who were they? How did they live, what did they feel and think, what motivated them to act each in their particular way? Actions that have been regarded as breaking G-d's commandment, as jealousy, as deceit, as sisterly rivalry. The patriarchal culture of the Bible concerns itself mainly with the male protagonists Adam, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and gives very little insight into the minds of their female companions. In order to understand these women and their contributions to humankind as a whole and the people of Israel in particular, the author has transplanted them into the 20th century and into environments that are accessible to descriptions of daily life. Disregarding continuity in time she has focused on the perceptions of the soul to explore their motivations and their following the Divine Plan by listening to the still small voice in their hearts.

This is the story of my mother's life, born Halina Anuszewska, September 11, 1918, in Warsaw, Poland, and died Halina Graf, December 9, 1994, in Berlin, Germany. She was no famous person. Yet she led an extraordinary life under extraordinary circumstances and in the midst of extraordinary times. She was a survivor. Of a childhood that deprived her of the means to develop her creative talents and drove her into an unsuitable early marriage. Of WWII, the Polish uprising in Warsaw in 1944, and the concentration camps in Auschwitz and Ravensbr ck. Of the postwar chaos that eventually landed her in Stuttgart Germany. Of her second unsuitable marriage there to my father, and her two children by that marriage (me and my sister). Of her third unsuitable marriage to a charming alcoholic. Of even greater importance are her own adventurous spirit and her imagination. She could have been a dancer, a singer, an actress, a romance novelist if circumstances had been in her favor. Instead she lived her own "impossible story". I have it in her authentic words in three parts: An autobiography she wrote at my request; a series of interviews I held with her and recorded on tape when I visited her in Berlin three months before her death of cancer in December 1994; and a tape she recorded for me for my birthday. I have translated the original texts from German into English and added notes where necessary. I also wrote introductions and postscripts to the several parts, to explain some items, fill out the narratives, and add my own thoughts and impressions.

It is winter and Coyote and his wife Raven and their five children are gnawing on mouse bones. Coyote takes off his coyote skin and puts on human appearance to find food in the town of the white people... So begins the story of the curious incidents that happened in a small mill town in the Oregon Coast range during the last days of the year 1967. The mill, on which the town's economy depends, is threatened with closure by the Company in Portland. A small Indian who calls himself Mr. Coyote appears at the mill, asking to work for food. Coyote uses his subtle magic to help save the town in order to save himself and his family.