Liana Finck – illustratör

Scott Simon’s household does not make much distinction between humans and other animals. Whether two legged or four, flesh-covered, fur-covered, feathered, or gilled–everyone is family. Today, the beloved radio host lives with the haiku-writing and absolument charmant French poodle Daisy; the daringly audacious foster cat Gato Blanco; and the energetic, cage-escaping hamster Bagel, who was almost Gato’s meal. And that’s just the start. In Ulysses S. Cat and Other Animals I Have Known, Simon warmly philosophises on the unforgettable and utterly ordinary but enduring moments in the remarkable relationships between species, along with their joys, worries, love and humour. From a cat who escaped the British Embassy—Simon had to promise she’d keep her accent—to street dogs during Sarajevo’s siege, to a series of beta fish all named Salman Fishdie, this enchanting work is a profusion of exuberant memories and musings on a life spent in animal company.

Pondering the questions only kids would think to ask, this hilarious, poignant collection captures the wonder of a child's imagination, brought to life by beloved New Yorker cartoonist Liana Finck.'A chance to leave all adult frippery behind and ponder what's really important - our children have known it all along. This book is cleansing, reassuring, funny, and frequently profound; I loved it'. Susie DentWhy does a ghost wander? Are bubbles in drinks their thoughts? Do dogs have chins? Where does the dark go when the light comes on? How will it feel on the last day I'm a child?What's the best question a kid ever asked you? When Sarah Manguso posted this question online, she immediately received hundreds of answers. Gathering more than one hundred of the best questions from this poll and bringing them brilliantly to life with illustrations by New Yorker cartoonist Liana Finck, Do Dogs Have Chins? ranges from the ridiculous to the sublime - encompassing birth, death, love dinosaurs, and everything in between - to show us the wit and wisdom of children in all their wondrous glory.'This book is for anyone who has secret questions in their mind they are too embarrassed to ask out loud. In other words, this book is for everyone' Lemony Snicket, bestselling author of A Series of Unfortunate Events and All the Wrong Questions

A gorgeously produced, bilingual edition of Nobel Prize laureate Isaac Bashevis Singer's canonical story—one of the most influential of the 20th century—about a hapless yet charmingly resilient baker named Gimpl, who resists taking revenge on the town that makes him the butt of every joke. Singer's original Yiddish appears alongside his own partial translation, now completed and edited by writer and scholar David Stromberg, and the 1953 translation by fellow Nobel laureate Saul Bellow. With illustrations by Liana Finck and an afterword by David Stromberg.Isaac Bashevis Singer’s “Gimpl tam” was published on March 30, 1945, in the obscure Yiddish-language journal Idisher kempfer, about a month before the Nazi surrender. A story of bullying and the potential for revenge, it tells the deathbed confession of an orphaned baker who is targeted by his own community for ridicule and practical jokes. Gimpl has come to be seen as a symbol of the Jewish people in the diaspora, and, by synecdoche, minorities in general. Should they be passive in the face of aggression? Or should they defend themselves? What role must the individual of that minority play when the pack behaves badly?When Irving Howe and Eliezer Greenberg opted to include “Gimpl tam” in their Treasury of Yiddish Tales, Howe asked Saul Bellow to help with the translation. It was finished in a single sitting and published in 1953 in The Partisan Review as “Gimpel the Fool”—the version that has since been canonized as one of the fundamental stories of the twentieth century. Yet, unlike every other major work of Singer’s published in his lifetime, the author had no involvement in the English translation. In 2006, Joseph Landis, editor of Yiddish, published a draft play script titled “Simple Gimpl,” made by Singer directly from the Yiddish original—the closest extant rendition of the story in the author’s own translation. Literary scholar David Stromberg has completed Singer’s translation, allowing readers to see another dimension of the original. This definitive edition, a treat for literature lovers, features Singer’s story in Yiddish along with the two English versions. Having them together shows Gimpl as anything but a fool—but rather someone accepting the complexity of his life and faith.