Lore Segal

Shakespeare's Kitchen
"After two decades, Lore Segal, beloved for her novels Other People's Houses and Her First American, has finally published a new book, Shakespeare's Kitchen. Although the 13 stories stand alone as brilliant distillations of everyday life, each is told from the perspective of various members of the Concordance Institute, a stuffy Connecticut think tank." Tina Jordan, Entertainment Weekly

"Lore Segal is an astute and gentle observer..." Sue Halpern, The New York Times Book Review

"But as the stories unspool and intertwine, one realizes that only in the hands of a master do a few vaguely defined characters and themes create such an exquisite tapestry...The cumulative power of Shakespeare's Kitchen lies in Segal's dazzling ability to merge the mundane details of life -- a missing pencil sharpener, a tipped-over garbage can -- with the arc of human emotions." Caroline Preston, The Washington Post

The stories in this book take place in a particular situation; they may have a chronology. There is a protagonist, some main characters and a chorus of minor ones, whom you don’t always need to tell apart. There is a theme: I was thinking about our need not only for family and sexual love and friendship but for a “set” to belong to: the circle made of friends, acquaintances and all the people one knows.

The immigrant’s loss of a circle of blood cousinships creates only one acute sample of a modern experience. I once did a poll of the American-born Americans of my acquaintance. How many of them lived where they grew up? It seemed that only the natives of the northern suburbs of Chicago stayed or returned home. I had moved my own family there for the first two of the fourteen years I taught at the University of Illinois’ Circle Campus. My mother, walking between the trim front lawns under a flowering of trees said, “How happy people must be who are happy here.” We moved back to Riverside Drive.

Her First American
”Though Her First American...was not written by a man, though its main characters are a number of black Americans and a handful of Jewish refugees in New York City...Lore Segal may have come closer than anyone to writing The Great American Novel.”

Other People's Houses
Nine months after Hitler takes Austria, a ten-year-old girl leaves Vienna aboard a children's transport that is to take her and several hundred children to safety in England. For the next seven years she lives in "other people's houses," the homes of the wealthy Orthodox Jewish Levines, the working-class Hoopers, and two elderly sisters in their formal Victorian household.

More Mole Stories and Little Gopher Too
Mole eats all the chocolate chip cookies and the pretzels, won't share with Little Gopher or let Grandmother Mole have a nice talk on the telephone.

Why Mole Shouted and Other Stories
Once there was a Mole who lived with his Grandmother Mole in a hole in the forest, and most of the time they got on well enough...But see what happens when Mole loses his glasses, doesn't zip his jacket, shouts, and keeps asking why. What is a Grandmother Mole to do except kiss him on his nose?

The Story of Mrs. Lovewright and Purrless her Cat
Mrs. Lovewright was a chilly person. When it got night outside, she closed her door and made herself a fire; then she took off her shoes and put her feet up on the stool, and that's when Mrs. Lovewright knewthat there was something and she didn't have it. "There's no being cozy without a cat," she said.

Morris the Artist
Morris the Artist discovers the growing liability of holding a package when everybody else is playing with toys. He eventually unwraps the box of paints he himself wants and he paints; the birthday boy, the guests all paint--they paint each other, they paint stars, moons, the very sun. (Let’s not tell the kiddies: This is about art and what you give up for it, what a nuisance you make of yourself, and its bliss).

The Juniper Tree and Other Tales from Grimm
A work of art, a work of love, a collector's item. The twenty-seven stories chosen from Grimm's tales include some of the most and some of the least familiar, and they have been translated with fidelity--no expurgation or adaptation. The strnght of the prose is echoed in the illustrations, strong in composition, delicate in detail, imaginative in concept, and truly beautiful. Maurice Sendak is without peer.

Tell Me a Mitzi
Originally published in 1970, Tell Me a Mizi won First Prize in the Book World Spring Festival and was named an ALA Notable Book.

"Tell Me a Mitzi" is a must!" Best of the Best Books, 1966-78.