New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2003. First Edition [Stated], First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. 268, [4] pages. Signed by the author on the title page. Stories include Squeak, Memory; Splinters, The Return of Eros to Academe, Paper Hero, The Suburbiad, The Swap, Filophilia, But, Microsoft! What Byte Through Wonder Windows Breaks?, Tongue of the Jews, The Two Franzes, and The War Lovers. Ranging from turn-of-the-twentieth-century Prague to the site of a Central American rebellion to the home of a certain Seattle software magnate to the roof of an urban skyscraper, each of these outrageous (though occasionally tender) stories offers keen insight into human nature. The wicked exploits of an assortment of louts and losers occupy Bukiet's latest collection hints at the deceitful nature of its multiple protagonists. An aspiring writer talks Vladimir Nabokov across midtown Manhattan one afternoon in the summer of Watergate. A young co-ed's seduction of her elderly history professor delivers her an A and him lasting happiness. Max, "a liar and a voyeur, like any true artist,' wanders the East Village taking photographs of murder victims. Melvin Jules Bukiet, MFA, Columbia University, is an author and literary critic. He has written a number of novels, including Sandman's Dust, After, While the Messiah Tarries, Signs and Wonders, Strange Fire, and A Faker's Dozen. He edited the collections Neurotica: Jewish Writers on Sex, Nothing Makes You Free, and Scribblers on the Roof. He won the 1992 Edward Lewis Wallant Award and other prizes; stories published in Antaeus, Paris Review, and essays published in The New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times. More