Books published by Paul Dry Books, Inc

An American artist's poignant memoir of three years in Crete as she cares forher renowned and dying Greek-born husband.

"As iron filings configure themselves around a magnet, so these essays display Eva Branns form of oppositional, or polar, thinking. To introduce her book, Eva Brann calls up the image of Iron Filings as they "settle themselves along the lines of force that form a field of influence around a bar magnet that has itself been allowed to settle itself in its natural direction. The whole configuration makes, by natures wit, a suggestive figure for the thinking mind -- at least of a cross-section in its life." So these essays range from Ms. Branns thoughts "Of God, "Of Novels, "Of Booklessness, to, well, a surprising diversity of topics which comes, unsurprisingly to completion with an essay "Of Endings. Eva Brann thinks a thought and then thinks a thought somewhat on the other side of the first thought -- hence the display of thought like iron filings around two ends of a magnet.

In 1943, after parachuting into Sardinia to raid a German airfield, John Verney and several of his comrades from the British irregular forces were captured and sent to a POW camp in Italys Abruzzo region. As the Allies attempted to retake the country, Verney and two others made their escape. For months, they survived on the generosity and bravery of the local Italians who fed them and kept them hidden in haylofts and mountain caves -- despite the scarcity of resources and the dangers they themselves faced by harboring English soldiers. Twenty years after the war, Verney revisited the scenes of his imprisonment and escape, and the result is both an enchanting evocation of Southern Italy and an exhilarating story of wartime daring. He recounts the ironic upsides of being a prisoner of war (for the first time in four long years, I was free to do entirely what I wanted, which was to read as much as possible and try to learn to draw and write) as well as the anxiety aroused by the possibility of attempting an escape. He describes the extremes of boredom, hunger, discomfort, and mutual irritation that he and his companions faced after their escape, and the immense capacity for tolerance and goodness that they discovered in each other -- and especially in the desperately poor Italian families who helped them. Verney writes with a deceptive ease and wit, which reveals a subtlety and a candor that make this book as penetrating as it is delightful.

Duncan Wheeler is a successful architect who savors the quotidian pleasures in life until a car accident leaves him severely paralyzed and haunted by the death of his young assistant. Now, Duncan isnt sure what there is left to live for, when every day has become a broken series of unsuccessful gestures. Duncan and his wife, Laura, find themselves in conflict as Duncans will to live falters. Laura grows desperate to help him. An art conservator who has her own relationship to the repair of broken things, Laura brings home a highly trained helper monkeya tufted capuchin named Ottolineto assist Duncan with basic tasks. Duncan and Laura fall for this sweet, comical, Nutella-gobbling little creature, and Duncans life appears to become more tolerable, fuller, and funnier. Yet the question persists: Is it enough? Katharine Weber is a masterful observer of humanity, and Still Life with Monkey, full of tenderness and melancholy, explores the conflict between the will to live and the desire to die.

This book instantly transports you to small-town Arkansas over a half-century ago -- a world of catfish and bourbon-and-Coke; of tent revival meetings and less boisterous discussions about heaven and hell; of finding love or just dreaming about it. A neighbourly community, but with its share of intrigues. And instantly you are under the spell of Ruby Davidson, the magnetic central character of "Where Somebody Waits". Self-assured, kind, always willing to take a stand for people less fortunate, at "five foot ten inches, with masses of red hair and a pompadour that increases her stature to six feet", she's also strikingly beautiful. Ruby loves her husband, adores her nephews and nieces, and more or less dutifully respects the tightly knit Jewish family into which she has married. Her life is filled with triumphs and failings, joy and sadness, lived with all possible grace, and told in a spirit of admirable and honest reflection. A full life, yes, but not an untroubled one, because Ruby also still loves her high-school sweetheart. How she comes to terms with this old, old conundrum and how it affects the lives of everyone around her shape the heart of Where Somebody Waits. Margaret Kaufman has written five books of poetry. A resident of Kentfield, California, she leads poetry workshops, teaches at the From Institute at the University of San Francisco, and edits both fiction and poetry. This is Kaufman's first book of fiction.