Simply a must read for anyone who seeks a behind-the-scenes peek of some of Hollywood's classic films. . .Beginning with his film debut in Breaking Away, Daniel Stern has grown up on-screen before our very eyes. His connection with audiences is cemented in movies like Home Alone and City Slickers, and in his debut memoir, Home and Alone with Daniel Stern, he is the Everyman narrator on a ride into the human side of Hollywood. Buckle up and experience what it's like driving Robert Redford in his Porsche at 100 mph, or stripping down for a nude scene in front of a group of total strangers. Share the out-of-body moments of flying alone with Mel Gibson on his jet to Las Vegas and smashing a fake mustache onto Gary Busey's face while cursing him out on the pitcher's mound of Wrigley Field in front of a sellout crowd. Join him in his triumphant stories like conquering his dyslexia as the voice of The Wonder Years, and his terrifying ones...

From Publishers WeeklyThis first collection of stories by Stern, author of nine novels ( The Suicide Academy ; Final Cut ) and the recipient of several major literary awards, can be read as a series of homages to five great writers. In six effervescently compelling stories that brim with convincing characters, Stern evokes some specific themes of E. M. Forster, Henry James, Ernest Hemingway, Lionel Trillng and (twice) Sigmund Freud. The result is a splendid, impeccably crafted array of short narratives that seize upon their sources as rootstock and grow into flourishing new specimens. Two of the stories, "A Clean Well-Lighted Place By Ernest Hemingway" and "Brooksmith By Henry James," are based on fiction, while the rest, from "The Liberal Imagination By Lionel Trilling" to "The Psychopathology of Everyday Life By Sigmund Freud," are tales that arise from subtle considerations of those classic studies of the human condition. Stern, a one-time cellist with the Indianapolis Symphony, is Director of Humanities at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan. These stories show him to be an adroit and versatile writer who succeeds in pulling off a risky literary conceit that in lesser hands could have floundered under the weight of its own concept. Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Library JournalThe six stories here echo the themes of famous works by Lionel Trilling, Freud, Hemingway, E.M. Forster, and Henry James, and hence they are "twice told." In "Brooksmith," for example, a nurse has a sensibility above her station, like a character in the original James piece; and in "A Clean Well-Lighted Place" two men find their own situation vis-a-vis life and each other comparable to that in Hemingway's classic tale. But the stories are not mere clones, for the characters, often writers, struggle to find their own story, "the shape of a life," amid a world for which they are ill equipped. They find that "what we spend everywhere is not money, stolen or earned, not energy, not talent, not love, but ourselves." And in these intelligent, witty tales, which certainly bear rereading, these spent selves become literature.- Peter Bricklebank, City Coll., CUNYCopyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Winner of the International Prix du Souvenir Award: A theater director and Holocaust survivor is confronted by a figure from his pastBehind the lights and glamour of Broadway, two men reckon with a shared past—one that hides a terrible secret. Jud Kramer is mounting his most painful and personal play while trying to enjoy life with his beautiful actress wife and baby daughter. Into his life comes Carl Walkowitz, a brooding, charismatic drifter who bears the scars of his concentration camp past.One man lives in the past, and the other is holding tight to the present. Carl methodically pursues Jud until they find themselves on an empty stage, face to face in a struggle that only one of them can survive.From Library JournalFirst published in the 1960s, these volumes both deal with the personal demons faced by soldiers and civilians who experienced the horrors of World War II and the Holocaust. With 1995 marking the 50th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps, Holocaust literature should be in demand. Both remain "highly recommended" (LJ 5/1/67, LJ 2/1/63).Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. Review“I loved it when it first appeared, I love it still. I believe it stands among the best of the genre.” —Elie Wiesel

Elly Kaufman is too young, too beautiful, and too intense to accept life on its own terms; instead, she creates havoc in the world around herIn postwar Indianapolis, young dreamer Elly is navigating adolescence in a tight-knit family. Her search for truth leads her through a variety of experiences—and loves. To a famous architect, she is a symbol of undying youth; to a struggling actor, she is the unspoiled image of creative will; to an ex-GI, she is a thief; to a young musician, she is the source of inspiration. But what will Elly be to herself?