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Dorothy, a baby, was rescued. Both her parents died in a blazing fire. The orphan peasant raised by a family. One day Dorothy marries Mr Wendell. Mrs Wendell life changes from rags to riches. Mrs Wendell befriends children. She works in a shoe shop. Life becomes a tragedy when Mrs Wendell has an affair! All the children she befriended had abandoned and deserted her. Years pass by, Mrs Wendell becomes an alcoholic. She has a miscarriage. In a drunken state, Mrs Wendell committed suicide; she jumped off a cliff. Her life tragic. But remarkable! Mrs Wendell had a camaraderie with all the children! The shoes Mr Wendell, the cobbler, made for his beloved wife were unique, special and exclusive.

Painter-storyteller Ari's novel is a true original, with roots in Jewish mysticism and Yiddish folklore … extravagant, charming, and deeply serious in its matter-of-fact mingling of moral history, prophecy and magic.—Kirkus ReviewsA Chagall painting brought to life, the novel traces the episodic journey of an orphaned 18th-century cobbler in search of the legendary Jewish rabbi and miracle worker, the Baal Shem Tov.

From an exciting new voice in literary fiction, a transfixing story about an expatriate in southern China and his burgeoning relationship with a seamstress intent on inspiring dramatic political change. Alex Cohen, a twenty-six-year-old Jewish Bostonian, is living in southern China, where his father runs their family-owned shoe factory. Alex reluctantly assumes the helm of the company, but as he explores the plant's vast floors and assembly lines, he comes to a grim realisation: employees are exploited, regulatory systems are corrupt and Alex's own father is engaging in bribes to protect the bottom line. When Alex meets a seamstress named Ivy, his sympathies begin to shift. She is an embedded organiser of a pro-democratic Chinese party, secretly sowing dissonance among her fellow labourers. Will Alex remain loyal to his father and his heritage? Or will the sparks of revolution ignite? Deftly plotted and vibrantly drawn, The Emperor of Shoes is a timely meditation on idealism, ambition, father-son rivalry and cultural revolution, set against a vivid backdrop of social and technological reform.

Although it was probably conceived as a trilogy, only the first two parts of Thomas Deloney's prose romance were completed, dealing with the origins of the shoemaker's trade and how it succeeded in London. The Gentle Craft is best known as the principal source of Thomas Dekker's The Shoemaker's Holiday. But Deloney's tale of Simon Eyre, who founded Leadenhall, the centre of the leather trade, and rose to be Lord Mayor of London, is itself significant for its adaptation of euphemistic romances and jestbooks. In this volume the author offers in modern typography, with explanatory notes and an extensive introduction, an account of the sources and influence of the book, its publication history and what is known of its author. He suggests that Deloney's combination of romance with the practical morality of an emerging social class produced a text that is uniquely important for those interested in late-Elizabethan popular culture.

'Where Love Is, God Is'is a short story about a shoemaker named Martin Avdeitch. The story begins with a background on Martin's life. He was a fine cobbler as he did his work well and never promised to do something that he could not do. He stayed busy with his work in his basement that had only one window. Through this window he could see only the feet of people. He was still able to recognise most people by their shoes as he had worked with most of the shoes at least once. He had a wife, but she died, and all their children had died in their infancy except a three-year-old son. After he thought about sending him off to live with his sister he decided to care for the child himself. Martin however, was not destined to have a child as his son died a few years later with a fever. In grief, he denied God wondering how He could allow such a thing to happen to him. (Excerpt from Wikipedia)

Rake, drunkard, aesthete, gossip, raconteur extraordinaire: the narrator of Bohumil Hrabal's rambling, rambunctious masterpiece Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age is all these and more. Speaking to a group of sunbathing women who remind him of lovers past, this elderly roué tells the story of his life—or at least unburdens himself of a lifetime's worth of stories. Thus we learn of amatory conquests (and humiliations), of scandals both private and public, of military adventures and domestic feuds, of what things were like “in the days of the monarchy” and how they've changed since. As the book tumbles restlessly forward, and the comic tone takes on darker shadings, we realize we are listening to a man talking as much out of desperation as from exuberance. Hrabal, one of the great Czech writers of the twentieth century, as well as an inveterate haunter of Prague's pubs and football stadiums, developed a unique method which he termed “palavering,” whereby characters gab and soliloquize with abandon. Part drunken boast, part soul-rending confession, part metaphysical poem on the nature of love and time, this astonishing novel (which unfolds in a single monumental sentence) shows why he has earned the admiration of such writers as Milan Kundera, John Banville, and Louise Erdrich.