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DEATH TANGO: Ariel Sharon, Yasser Arafat and Three Fateful Days in March

by Yossi Alpher

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Contact: Rachel Tarlow Gul, rachel@otrpr.com 

ADVANCE PRAISE:

“Anyone seeking to understand how Israelis and Palestinians traded the hopes of Oslo for something approaching hopelessness is well-advised to read this book. With penetrating analysis and elegant prose, Yossi Alpher has told the gripping story of three days nearly two decades ago that continue to haunt would-be peacemakers. Yossi’s faithful readers will not be disappointed with his latest effort.”

— Ambassador Frederic C. Hof, Bard College

 “A riveting account of the crucial days in March 2002 when the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was profoundly changed for the worse. The peace camp has never recovered from those wrenching days, and we live now without any hope of a just settlement. Alpher is a highly respected expert who has spent decades studying this conflict from both sides.”

— Bruce Riedel, director of the Brookings Intelligence Project

“A critical assessment of a key period in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict never before presented in such detail. The best and most capable players at the executive and political levels proved unable to forge any resolution, final or partial, because both parties continued to maintain an insurmountable gulf between themselves. This is a MUST read for anyone daring to tackle the future of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and of Israel-Arab relations in general.”

— Efraim Halevy, former Head of the Mossad (1998-2002)

In his latest book, DEATH TANGO: Ariel Sharon, Yasser Arafat, and Three Fateful Days in March, Yossi Alpher, a former Mossad official and one of Israel’s foremost analysts of Israeli strategic issues, traces the current fraught relationship between Israel and Palestine to three dramatic events that occurred in March 2002. First, there was a bloody suicide bombing at the Park Hotel in Netanya, Israel on March 27th at a Passover celebration. Then, the Arab League met in Beirut on March 28th and approved the Arab Peace Initiative. Finally, on March 29th, Israel reinvaded the West Bank in Operation Defensive Shield. Taken together, Alpher argues, these three events were a catalyst for extensive change in the Middle East.

Based on many interviews and the author’s unique experience and inside knowledge, DEATH TANGO is filled with thorough and thoughtful analysis that has never before been published. Rowman & Littlefield will release Alpher’s new book on February 15th (Hardcover, 978-1538162071, $36; Ebook, 978-1538162088, $34).

Why write this book twenty years after the events took place? “It took time for the significance of these events to sink in, and for me to recognize their strategic impact on Israel and the region,” Alpher explains. “The chronological distance was helpful in understanding what went on in late March 2002 among Israel, the Palestinians, the Arab world and the United States. Taken alone, each of the three major events described in the book is not so exceptional. When viewed as a three-day continuum, however, something exceptional is seen to have happened—even in Middle East terms.”

DEATH TANGO is about the interaction among these three critical events, and the key personalities involved. It moves from Israel’s Prime Minister’s Office where Ariel Sharon rants against Yasser Arafat, to Washington, DC where the US fumbles and misunderstands the dynamics at work, to the Jenin refugee camp, the “suicide capital of Palestine,” where Israeli soldiers win a bloody military battle but lose in the war of public opinion.  The book also includes:

  • An exclusive interview with New York Time’s commentator Tom Friedman, in which he explains how he sold the Saudis a peace plan.
  • Why Sharon invited himself to the Arab League meeting in Beirut and why the Arabs, who saw him as Genghis Khan incarnate, turned him down.
  • A blow-by-blow account of the worst terrorist attack in Israel’s history.
  • What Sharon and Arafat had in common and what they did not.
  • Why the Arab Peace Initiative of March 2002 delivered a measure of stability and co-existence, but not peace.
  • Why there won’t be a two-state solution anytime soon between Israel and the Palestinians – but there won’t be all-out war either.

Alpher concludes that the new Arab-Israel and Palestinian-Israeli realities forged by these three pivotal events are here to stay. The combination of Palestinian overreach, Israeli security concerns and territorial greed, and Arab state indifference ensures that a two-state solution will not happen. In parallel, the Arabs need Israel as a partner against Iran and militant Islam. When pressured on any of these issues, their leaders fall back on the Arab Peace Initiative as the authoritative legitimizer of the status quo. Palestinians and Israelis, like Arafat and Sharon in their day, are dancing “a kind of death tango.”

A must read for anyone interested in history, Middle East politics, Israel, the United States in the Middle East, and international strategic affairs.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Yossi (Joseph) Alpher is a consultant and writer on Israel-related strategic issues. He is the author of the prize-winning Periphery: Israel’s Search For Middle East Allies and No End Of Conflict: Rethinking Israel-Palestine (Rowman & Littlefield, 2015 and 2016, respectively). His latest book is Winners and Losers in the ‘Arab Spring’: Profiles in Chaos (Routledge, 2020), which won the Chaikin Prize in 2021.

Born in Washington, DC, Alpher served in the Israel Defense Forces as an intelligence officer in the late 1960s, followed by service in the Mossad in the ‘70s.  From 1981 to 1995 he was associated with the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, ultimately serving as director of center.  From 1995 to 2000 he served as director of the American Jewish Committee’s Israel/Middle East Office in Jerusalem. In July 2000 (during the Camp David talks) he served as Special Adviser to the Prime Minister of Israel. From 2001 to 2012 he was coeditor, with Ghassan Khatib (until recently vice-president of Bir Zeit University) of the bitterlemons.net family of internet publications.

DEATH TANGO:

Ariel Sharon, Yasser Arafat, and Three Fateful Days in March

By Yossi Alpher

Rowman & Littlefield; February 15, 2022

(Hardcover, 978-1538162071, $36, 224 Pages; Ebook, 978-1538162088, $34)

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The Easy Life in Kamusari by Shion Miura Translated into English by Juliet Winters Carpenter

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Rachel Tarlow Gul, Rachel@otrpr.com

From Shion Miura, the award-winning author of The Great Passage, comes a rapturous novel where the contemporary and the traditional meet amid the splendor of Japan’s mountain way of life.

“Fans of all ages should enjoy the author’s blend of the traditional and the contemporary.” Kirkus Reviews

“Shion Miura, award-winning and world renown Japanese author of The Great Passage (2011), delivers yet another fascinating introspection into how the ancient and traditional worlds meet the modern and contemporary way of life in The Easy Life in Kamusari (2021) – the first book in Miura’s new Forest series. Translated into English by superb veteran translator, Juliet Winters Carpenter, this upcoming novel…unravels into a beautiful coming-of-age tale that makes the reader long for a greener life – one without phones, the internet, and where sentences end in ‘naa-naa.’” Asia Media International

Just in time for the holiday season comes, THE EASY LIFE IN KAMUSARI, an uplifting and absorbing story that is both simply told and full of beauty and depth.  Written by the award-winning Japanese author, Shion Miura and translated into English for the first time by Juliet Winters Carpenter, one of the foremost translators of Japanese literature, the novel will be out November 2nd from Amazon Crossing.

The narrator of the novel, Yuki Hirano, is just out of high school when his parents enroll him, against his will, in a forestry training program in the remote mountain village of Kamusari.  No phone, no internet, no shopping. Just a small, inviting community where the most common expression is “take it easy.”

At first, Yuki is exhausted, fumbles with the tools, asks silly questions, and feels like an outcast. Kamusari is the last place a city boy from Yokohama wants to spend a year of his life. But as resistant as he might be, the scent of the cedars and the staggering beauty of the region have a pull.

Yuki learns to fell trees and plant saplings. He begins to embrace local festivals, he’s mesmerized by legends of the mountain, and he might be falling in love. In learning to respect the forest on Mt. Kamusari for its majestic qualities and its inexplicable secrets, Yuki starts to appreciate Kamusari’s harmony with nature and its ancient traditions.

In this warm and lively coming-of-age story, Miura transports us from the trappings of city life to the trials, mysteries, and delights of a mythical mountain forest.

For further information and review copy requests, please contact Rachel Tarlow Gul at Over the River Public Relations: rachel@otrpr.com.

THE EASY LIFE IN KAMUSARI

By Shion Miura

Translated by Juliet Winters Carpenter

Amazon Crossing; November 2, 2021

Literary Fiction | 208 pp. | Paperback: $14.95, ISBN#: 978-1542027168;

Kindle: $4.99, ISBN#: 978-1542027144

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March and April Blog Tour for THE VINES by Shelley Nolden

Release Date: March 23, 2021 from Freiling Publishing

Mark your calendars for this great Blog Tour lineup for Shelley Nolden‘s THE VINES, which is historical fiction and suspense at its best. It’s both a breathtaking novel that explores a long-forgotten place and an ominous thriller that keeps you on the edge of your seat as the story unravels. In this debut—the first book in a planned series—Nolden skillfully weaves together a page turner, spanning over a hundred years, that’s set on New York City’s abandoned North Brother Island.  

ADVANCE PRAISE: “THE VINES weaves beautiful writing around an unsettling mystery:  Who is the strange, scarred woman living on a seemingly uninhabitable island? Shelley Nolden’s debut seems not just prescient – given the world’s current focus on virology and immunizations – but also timeless, as it illustrates in painful detail how mankind seems destined to repeat our cruelest mistakes. Luckily for us readers, there’s a bright thread of hope running through this book as well as the promise of a sequel.”  —Sarah Pekkanen, #1 NYT bestselling co-author of You Are Not Alone

“Highly original and richly drawn, Shelley Nolden’s THE VINES features one of the most fascinating central characters you’ll ever meet. Drawing on both the dark history of North Brother Island and today’s painfully immediate worries about immunity and transmission of deadly disease, this debut transcends genre to combine history, thrills, obsession, medical ethics, and more into the compelling story of three generations of doctors and one remarkable woman.”— Greer Macallister, bestselling author of The Magician’s Lie and The Arctic Fury 

“Eerily timely and profoundly compelling, THE VINES is an unputdownable, unforgettable saga, the journey of a seemingly helpless, persecuted American woman who survives and battles back, against all odds; this first in what promises to be an explosive series signals the arrival of Shelley Nolden’s masterful new voice in hybrid fiction.”— May Cobb, author of The Hunting Wives

SYNOPSIS: In the shadows of New York City’s North Brother Island stand the remains of a shuttered hospital and the haunting memories of quarantines and human experiments. The ruins conceal the scarred and beautiful Cora, imprisoned there by contagions and the doctors who torment her. When Finn, a young urban explorer, arrives on the island and glimpses the enigmatic woman through the foliage, intrigue turns to obsession as he seeks to uncover her past–and his own family’s dark secrets.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: A graduate of the University of Minnesota, Shelley Nolden is an entrepreneur and writer, now residing in Wisconsin. Previously, she lived in the New York City area, where she worked on Wall Street and first learned of North Brother Island. At the age of 31, Shelley was diagnosed with leukemia and completed treatment three years later. The sense of isolation and fear she experienced during her cancer ordeal influenced her spellbinding debut novel, THE VINES

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Jerome Charyn’s New Novel About Jerzy Kosinksi is Getting a lot of Attention

Critically acclaimed author, Jerome Charyn is getting a lot of attention for his new novel, JERZY that is just out from Bellevue Literary Press.

In JERZY, Jerome Charyn lends his unmistakable style to this most American story of personal disintegration, told through the voices of multiple narrators—a homicidal actor, a dominatrix, and Joseph Stalin’s daughter—who each provide insights into the shifting facets of Kosinski’s personality. The story unfolds like a Russian nesting doll, eventually revealing the lost child beneath layers of trauma, while touching on the nature of authenticity, the atrocities of WWII, the allure of sadomasochism, and the fickleness of celebrity.

Ruth Franklin wrote this great review and fascinating article for The New Yorker in which she describes the book as “a moving attempt to trace the connections between Kosinski’s wartime struggles and postwar fictions.

Benjamin Markovits in his review for The New York Times Book Review writes that JERZY is “a novel with a light touch that’s still capable of lifting heavy subjects. Charyn knows what he wants to do and knows how to do it.”

And JERZY was included in Jane Ciabattari’s 5 Books Making News This Week column for LitHub for the week of April 4th.

If you are looking for an intriguing and engaging book to read this Spring, add JERZY by Jerome Charyn to your list. This reader’s guide will also help make it an excellent choice for your next book club selection.

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Reviewers Love CRIME PLUS MUSIC!

CRIME PLUS MUSIC: Twenty Stories of Music-Themed Noir is a fantastic new collection edited by novelist and Wall Street Journal rock and pop music critic, Jim Fusilli (Three Rooms Press). The book is a collection of darkly intense, music-related noir stories by world-renowned mystery authors, including: Craig Johnson (The Cold Dish), David Liss (A Conspiracy of Paper), Val McDermid (The Mermaids Singing), Gary Phillips (The Darker Mask), and Alison Gaylin (Hide Your Eyes), plus notable authors from the world of pop music including Galadrielle Allman (Please Be With Me: A Song for My Father, Duane Allman), Willy Vlautin (singer/songwriter of indie band Richmond Fontaine), and more.

The Washington Post says, “There’s plenty here to chew on for fans of rock-and-roll and crime fiction.”

CRIME_PLUS_MUSIC_Jim_Fusilli

Other reviewers are loving CRIME PLUS MUSIC as well:

“Fusilli’s music-themed anthology rocks with superb solos from a number of big-name mystery writers and others who deserve to be better known. . . . Splendid compilation.” – PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

“ Hits the mark . . . superb collection!” —LIBRARY JOURNAL

“ A strong lineup of talent . . . hilarious . . . raw . . . exciting!” —A LA BOOKLIST

“ The music behind the stories in this volume ranges from country to rock to pop to contemporary electronic dance music to (get this!) bagpipes . . . The stories are little gems.” —DEADLY PLEASURES

“ The lineup of authors is impressive . . . and crime of every form playing alongside music of every form is a great idea!” —BOOKLOONS

“ This short story collection could fill an Award shortlist all on its own. . . . Don’t-miss new writings from some of your favorite crime fiction authors— as well as some well-known folks from the music industry.” — BOLO BOOKS

“ In the hands of these modern masters of mystery fiction, CRIME PLUS MUSIC exposes the nasty side of the world of popular music, revealing it to be the perfect setting for noir.” — THE BOOK REPORTER

CRIME PLUS MUSIC exposes the nasty side of the world of popular music, revealing it to be the perfect setting for noir.

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