The Heart of the Matter "Morris Berman wrote one of the best works of cultural history (the "Consciousness" trilogy) and one of the best works of political history (the "American Decline" trilogy) in recent decades. Since retiring, his output has been equally impressive: essays, memoirs, fiction, broad-gauged appraisals of Japanese and Italian culture. The stories in The Heart of the Matter, especially the title story, are astonishingly, even maniacally inventive. His imagination almost tires you out." --George Scialabba, author of The Modern Predicament, How To Be Depressed, and other works A group of would-be moon travelers takes a time machine back to Los Alamos in 1945, disrupts the Manhattan Project, and heads off the Cold War. A woman of 24, and a man of 85, copy Gandhi's practice of lying together naked without having sex. An archivist at the Met stumbles across a manuscript of Anaximenes, 6th century BC, which contains material that Plato apparently plagiarized. A 7-year-old boy gives his parents the slip and joins a traveling circus act, where he learns about love and magic. These are just a few of the delightfully fresh stories in Morris Berman's new collection of page-turners, which are at once funny, erotic, droll, and politically incorrect. Guaranteed to have you laughing out loud on cold winter nights. Other thoroughly engaging works by Morris Berman, available from Echo Point Books, include Spinning Straw Into Gold: Straight Talk for Troubled Times-one man's meditation on the meaning of his life to date (ISBN 1635610532 hardcover); Coming to Our Senses-a provocative analysis of the relationship between culture, mind, and body in the history of Western society (ISBN 1626542929 hardcover; 1626542910 paperback), Are We There Yet?-which analyzes what has gone wrong with the United States since its inception, and the problems we now face as a result (ISBN 1635610567 hardcover), and Genio: The Story of Italian Genius-a study of the Italian genius for imbuing art with motion (ISBN 1626548838 hardcover; 164837039X paperback). The Heart of the Matter is also available from Echo Point Books in paperback (ISBN 1635619319).