Fiction. "I don't know how Jacob Appel does it. I'm not talking about the fact that Appel is a physician and attorney and teacher in addition to the work that he does with a pencil in his hand. I'm talking, too, about the stories that he writes, sto...

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Fiction. Jacob Appel's narratives pull you in from the first entrance of their characters, whether it's a woman picking up her errant grandson from the police station, or two US-Canadian border guards with too much time to kill. The portraits are sh...

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Fiction. "Jacob Appel's acrobatic imagination is always a thrill to watch in action. These stories fly through the air and grip your heart. Appel's naturalness as a storyteller makes THE LIARS' ASYLUM a total pleasure, a collection in a league of it...

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Fiction. Named one of Kirkus Reviews' The Best Fiction Books of 2015. "Appel presents a cast of characters worthy of his quirky title. Among them Red Ziggy, a restaurateur from a distant planet who opens Birmingham, Alabama's only Latvian eatery, an...

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Fiction. Named one of Kirkus Reviews' Best Fiction Books of 2014. Each of the characters in SCOUTING FOR THE REAPER faces an unanticipated challenge: transporting a truckload of penguins across the country, arranging a proper Jewish burial for the r...

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Fiction. History teacher Horace Edgecomb finds himself teaching the daughter of a leading "American Civil War denier" and must confront an organization determined to disprove the occurrence of the Civil War in this satire of historical revisionism.

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Fiction. The eight stories in THE TOPLESS WIDOW OF HERKIMER STREET are smart, funny, and humane. In "Bioethics for Dunces," which takes its name from the title of a college course its main character Leonard teaches, Leonard suddenly finds that acade...

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Fiction. "Another title for Jacob Appel's engrossing new story collection could be what one character calls 'a conspiracy of fantasies.' Characters imagine rekindling romances from the distant past, pursue prestigious apprenticeships and dramatic de...

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