High Tech

The author is the descendant of Jewish Germans who were sent to concentration camps when Nazism rose in their country, while the rest of their family were able to immigrate to the United States throughout the 1930s. In these pages, Neuburger offers a partially fictionalized account, focusing on three connected German nuclear families over two decades as antisemitism and nationalism spiraled out of control in their home country. The book begins with the author’s relative, Selma, meeting her future husband, Jacob Herrmann. At Selma and Jacob’s wedding, Selma’s brother Julius meets the Herrmanns’ close friends, the Heidelbergers, and is immediately smitten with their daughter, Rose; the two have an epistolary love affair for years before they finally marry. The novel recounts the extended family’s struggles and joys, their horror at their neighbors turning against them, and their varying opinions on whether leaving a country they regard as home is the right decision: “For so long, he had...

King Finn, son of Folcwald, is a Frisian king. Unlike many great men and kings of his time, he is not a warlord—though he finds himself occasionally concerned about being known as “a king who traded rather than raided,” he knows he has built a solid home for his people and his family. Queen Hildeburh, Finn’s beloved, does not share his even temperament; ruled by her emotions, her temper can run hot. Together, they strike a delicate balance to lead their subjects. When their oldest son, Friðuwulf, returns from fostering with Hildeburh’s brother, Hnæf, he is accompanied by Hengest to make any potential raiders rethink attacking the returning party. Before leaving, Hengest was told of a bad omen warning that this journey promises dark days ahead for him and his family. As unrest and uprisings come to Finnsburg, the royal family and their visitors must work together to return peace to the land. Will Hengest be able to return to his home and family and find them safe and sound, or will the...

“The decision I made in 1992 to be baptized as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was not a particularly popular one among my Jewish family,” writes Blank in his introduction. In these pages, the author discusses events from his own spiritual journey while offering broader reflections on faith from the perspective of a licensed clinical psychologist. The volume begins with a look at Blank’s Jewish heritage; the author describes his father’s escape from Nazi occupied Sighet, Hungary, and his mother’s equally harrowing flight from Soviet pogroms in her Russian village (they eventually settled in the Bronx). As committed Jews, the couple ensured that Blank attended Hebrew school while growing up. The author attributes a chance encounter with Holocaust survivor and humanitarian Elie Wiesel with helping to inspire Blank’s lifelong endeavor to help people through psychology, but reveals that while Judaism made intellectual sense to him, it wasn’t until Blank stepped...

Rae, an author, academic, and musician, examines the Grateful Dead’s eventful history and “points to the unique fusion of the band’s ethos and praxis with elements of Buddhist thought.” Certainly, the band’s countercultural milieu was awash in Eastern and Native American spirituality, and, though none of the group’s members practiced Buddhism as such, many of their precursors, peers, and followers did. Moreover, the Dead frequently emphasized the spiritual aspect of their project, placing it squarely in what Rae’s subtitle calls “the American quest for transcendence.” Rather than offering a traditional history or bold claim about the band, he follows the Dead’s own approach, which he describes as “a web of interconnections, a participatory exploration rather than a fixed position.” Each chapter catalogs the points of contact between the Dead’s lyrics, interviews, experiences, and psychedelic adventures with Buddhist beliefs and practices. The author casts Beat icon Neal Cassady, who i...

Drusilla Blackthorn is on the verge of death after trying to save her friend Clary from Janus the Huntsman. But a pale figure with wings saves her—Ash Morgenstern, from “the hell dimension Thule,” who’s the son of the Seelie Queen and Sebastian Morgenstern. Ash brings Dru to Faerie with Janus and Clary, making cryptic references to their shared history and asking Dru to train him like a Shadowhunter. Something is wrong: Shadowhunters are disappearing, and the doorways between Faerie and the mortal world are closed. While Dru and Clary try to survive the Seelie Court, Ty Blackthorn and Kit Herondale are the only Shadowhunters who didn’t disappear. Embarking on a quest that only Kit (the true Faerie heir) can complete, Ty and Kit outwit and outrun danger at every turn, gathering artifacts that will allow them to open a door to Faerie and save their family. Devoted fans of the Shadowhunter series will be thrilled to revisit old storylines, but others may find this book overstuffed with n...

Nothing in Tyler Owens’ background could prepare him for the maelstrom of Lorna Eads. The son of “Sawdust Republicans who nonetheless spoke cordially of FDR and Carter,” he grew up in Guthrie, Oklahoma, and moved to California to study economics at USC. Although he was raised to have practical plans for the future, Tyler drops out of college to pursue a writing career. A late-night drive through Los Angeles changes the trajectory of his life when he gets into a fender bender with Lorna Eads, an aspiring actress from Rhode Island. She gives Tyler her phone number, and a relationship quickly develops between the pair. While Tyler works a series of odd jobs to make ends meet, Lorna finds short-lived success as the star of a series of viral murder mystery videos. They seem like any other couple trying to establish careers in LA until they move in together and Tyler discovers that Lorna is a drug addict. Although he knew she regularly took Adderall, he didn’t realize the extent of her depe...