Titles starting with L from James Sroda, Bookseller

Two novellas: LADIES AND GENTLEMEN is about Isaac Gantz, a musicologist who becomes obsessed with a musical interpretation of the Hebrew alphabet, the secret of which lies with an enigmatic man named Friedmann, whom Gantz tracks down in Budapest; WEEKENDS IN MUSTARA is about a man named (like the author) Leviant who becomes involved in a search for a missing antiquity during a research trip to an Eastern European town.

An examination of life and politics in postcolonial Africa, written by a white journalist who grew up in Rhodesia in the 1950s. Despite Boynton's sympathy for African independence and his relief at the dismantlement of apartheid, he concedes that daily life for the vast majority of Africans has grown harder in almost every sense--economically, medically, politically--during the last 30 years.

An reexamination of sexual mores and the cultural perceptions of sexuality in America today. Roiphe, the author of "The Morning After: Sex, Fear, and Feminism", finds that the disappearance of traditional sexual taboos during the last 30 years have not only demystified sex but robbed it of much of its allure as well. Her argument is controversial rather than academic, and makes reference to popular films such as "Philadelphia" and "Savage Nights" in making its case.