"What Henry James did for the geographically disoriented, Bellow does for the culturally traumatized in the six stories gathered in this collection. Truly, Bellow is one of God's spies." -Los Angeles Times

In six darkly comic tales, Saul Bellow presents the human experience in all its preposterousness, poignancy, and pathos. In the title story, a professor well-known for his wit struggles to animate his memoirs as he teeters on the brink of despair; in "the old System," a distinguished biochemist tries to find room in his life for love; and in "A Father to Be," a man is...

Saul Bellow's fiction, honored by a Nobel Prize and a Pulitzer, among other awards, has made him a literary giant. Now the man himself and a lifetime of his insightful views on a range of topics spring off the page in this, his first nonfiction collection, which encompasses articles, lectures, essays, travel pieces, and an "Autobiography of Ideas." It All Adds Up is a fascinating journey through literary America over the last forty years, guided by one of the "most gifted chroniclers in the Western World" (The London Times).

Abe Ravelstein is a brilliant professor at a prominent midwestern university and a man who glories in training the movers and shakers of the political world. He has lived grandly and ferociously-and much beyond his means. His close friend Chick has suggested that he put forth a book of his convictions about the ideas which sustain humankind, or kill it, and much to Ravelstein's own surprise, he does and becomes a millionaire. Ravelstein suggests in turn that Chick write a memoir or a life of him, and during the course of a celebratory trip to Paris the two share thoughts on mortality,...

Nobel laureate Saul Bellow's revealing interviews and meditations, steeped in history and literature, on the unique spirit and challenges of Israel

A powerful, stimulating testament, To Jerusalem and Back is a rigorous attempt to come to grips with Israel's history and future. Immersing himself in the landscape and culture of this "small state in perpetual crisis," Bellow records the opinions, passions, and dreams of Israelis of varying viewpoints--Yitzak Rabin, Amos Oz, the editor of the largest Arab-language newspaper in Israel, a kibbutznik escaped from the Warsaw...

In one of his finest achievements, Nobel Prize winner Saul Bellow presents a multifaceted portrait of a modern-day hero, a man struggling with the complexity of existence and longing for redemption.
This is the story of Moses Herzog, a great sufferer, joker, mourner, and charmer. Although his life steadily disintegrates around him--he has failed as a writer and teacher, as a father, and has lost the affection of his wife to his best friends--Herzog sees himself as a survivor, both of his private disasters and those of the age. He writes unsent letters to friends and enemies,...

"What makes all of this so remarkable is not merely Bellow's eye and ear for vital detail. Nor is it his talent for exposing the innards of character in a paragraph, a sentence, a phrase. It is Bellow's vision, his uncanny ability to seize the moment and to see beyond it." -Chicago Sun-Times

Fading charmer Tommy Wilhelm has reached his day of reckoning and is scared. In his forties, he still retains a boyish impetuousness that has brought him to the brink of chaos: He is separated from his wife and children, at odds with his vain, successful father, failed in his acting...

"An enduring testament and prophecy." -Chicago Sun-Times
Mr. Artur Sammler, Holocaust survivor, intellectual, and occasional lecturer at Columbia University in 1960s New York City, is a "registrar of madness," a refined and civilized being caught among people crazy with the promises of the future (moon landings, endless possibilities). His Cyclopean gaze reflects on the degradations of city life while looking deep into the sufferings of the human soul. "Sorry for all and sore at heart," he observes how greater luxury and leisure have only led to more human suffering. To Mr....

"The Adventures of Augie March is the great American Novel. Search no further." -Martin Amis

As soon as it first appeared in 1953, this novel by the great Saul Bellow was hailed as an American classic. Augie, the exuberant narrator-hero is a poor Chicago boy growing up during the Great Deptression. A "born recruit," Augie makes himself available for a series of occupations, then proudly rejects each one as unworthy. His own oddity is reflected in the companions he encounters--plungers, schemers, risk-takers, and "hole-and corner" operators like the would-be tycoon Einhorn...

An essential masterwork by Nobel laureate Saul Bellow--now with an introduction by J. M. Coetzee
Expecting to be inducted into the army to fight in World War II, Joseph has given up his job and carefully prepared for his departure to the battlefront. When a series of mix-ups delays his induction, he finds himself facing a year of idleness. Saul Bellow's first novel documents Joseph's psychological reaction to his inactivity while war rages around him and his uneasy insights into the nature of freedom and choice.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading...

For over forty years Saul Bellow has been writing fiction that denounces the destructive forces that have dominated the literature of this century--existential nihilism and historicist pessimism. In novel after novel--The Adventures of Augie March, Herzog, Humbolt's Gift, Mr. Sammler's Planet, and others--he has tried to restore the integrity of the private life, the value of human feeling, and the primacy of social contract, while proclaiming each individual's perennial access to age-old truths.

In this collection of interviews spanning the period from 1953 to 1991, Bellow elaborates...