Most Popular Books by Andrew Kaufman

All Tom''s friends really are superheroes. There''s the Ear, the Spooner, the Impossible Man. Tom even married a superhero, the Perfectionist. But at their wedding, the Perfectionist was hypnotized (by ex-boyfriend Hypno, of course) to believe that Tom is invisible. Nothing he does can make her see him. Six months later, she''s sure that Tom has abandoned her. So she''s moving to Vancouver. She''ll use her superpower to make Vancouver perfect and leave all the heartbreak in Toronto. With no idea Tom''s beside her, she boards an airplane in Toronto. Tom has until the wheels touch the ground in Vancouver to convince her he''s visible, or he loses her forever.

A magical story of love and the isolation that defines the modern condition - Andrew Kaufman pulls off the near impossible and creates a wholly original allegorical tale that is both emotionally resonant and outlandishly fun. Rebecca Reynolds is a young woman with a most unusual and inconvenient problem: no matter how hard she tries, she can''t stop her emotions from escaping her body and entering the world around her. Luckily she''s developed a nifty way to trap and store her powerful emotions in personal objects - but how many shoeboxes can a girl fill before she feels crushed by her past? Three events force Rebecca to change her ways: the unannounced departure of her husband, Stewart; the sudden death of Lisa, her musician sister; and, while on her way to Lisa''s funeral, a near-crash with what appears to be a giant frogwoman recklessly speeding in a Honda Civic. Meanwhile, Lisa''s inconsolable husband skips the funeral and flies to Winnipeg where he begins a bizarre journey that strips him of everything before he can begin to see a way through his grief… all with the help of a woman who calls herself God.

An ideal resource for both the novice and experienced surgeon, Practical Facial Reconstruction: Theory and Practice is a practical, step-by-step guide to facial repair, written by a highly experienced authority in the field. In this fully updated Second Edition, Dr. Andrew Kaufman walks you through decision making in repair design and execution, offering tips, pearls, and key points that make seemingly complicated flaps less complicated, and repairs more aesthetic and functionally successful. Abundant illustrations and numerous new videos provide real-world visual guidance on soft tissue facial reconstruction. - Covers cheek, forehead, nose, lip, ear, and eyelid reconstruction, with ample pearls, tips, and key points for each repair. - Walks you through the thought process of evaluating a surgical defect, analyzing it, and designing and executing the repair to achieve optimal functional and cosmetic results. - Shares Dr. Kaufman''s personal tips, tricks, and pearls for every repair, with the goal of simplifying and demystifying many useful reconstruction techniques. - Features hundreds of high-quality, step-by-step photographs and line drawings throughout, plus more than 25 all-new procedural videos. - Covers simpler as well as more complex repairs, including bilobed transposition flaps, helical rim advancement flaps, unilateral and bilateral rotation flaps, cartilage grafts on the nose, rhombic transposition flaps, melolabial transposition flaps, advancement flaps on the nose, lips, eyebrow, and forehead, island advancement flaps, and much more. - Provides a unique theoretical and practical framework for identifying defects and developing a reconstructive plan that can be applied to a wide variety of situations beyond those covered in the book.

The Golden Age of Fraternity was a unique time in American history. In the forty years between the Civil War and the onset of World War I, more than half of all Americans participated in clubs, fraternities, militias, and mutual benefit societies. Today this period is held up as a model for how we might revitalize contemporary civil society. But was America''s associational culture really as communal as has been assumed? What if these much-admired voluntary organizations served parochial concerns rather than the common good? Jason Kaufman sets out to dispel many of the myths about the supposed civic-mindedness of "joining" while bringing to light the hidden lessons of associationalism''s history. Relying on deep archival research in city directories, club histories, and membership lists, Kaufman shows that organizational activity in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries revolved largely around economic self-interest rather than civic engagement. And far from spurring concern for the collective good, fraternal societies, able to pick and choose members at will, fostered exclusion and further exacerbated the competitive interests of a society divided by race, class, ethnicity, and religion. Tracing both the rise and the decline of American associational life - a decline that began immediately after World War I, much earlier than previously thought - Kaufman argues persuasively that the end of fraternalism was a good thing. Illuminating both broad historical shifts - immigration, urbanization, and the disruptions of war, among them - and smaller, overlooked contours, such as changes in the burial and life insurance industries, Kaufman has written a bracing revisionist history. Eloquently rebutting those hailing America''s associational past and calling for a return to old-style voluntarism,For the Common Good?will change the terms of debate about the history - and the future - of American civil society.

The Weirds have always been a little off, but not one of them ever suspected that they''d been cursed by their grandmother. At the moment of the births of her five grandchildren Annie Weird gave each one a special power. Richard, the oldest, always keeps safe; Abba always has hope; Lucy is never lost and Kent can beat anyone in a fight. As for Angie, she always forgives, instantly. But over the years these so-called blessings ended up ruining their lives. Now Annie is dying and she has one last task for Angie: gather her far-flung brothers and sisters and assemble them in her grandmother''s hospital room so that at the moment of her death, she can lift these blessings-turned-curses. And Angie has just two weeks to do it. What follows is a quest like no other, tearing up highways and racing through airports, from a sketchy Winnipeg nursing home to the small island kingdom of Upliffta, from the family''s crumbling ancestral Toronto mansion to a motel called Love. And there is also the search for the answer to the greatest family mystery of all: what really happened to their father, whose maroon Maserati was fished out of a lake so many years ago?

Achieve optimal results in reconstructive surgery involving flaps and grafts with this up-to-date reference written by leading dermatologic surgeons. Using a systematic approach, Flaps and Grafts in Dermatologic Surgery, Second Edition, by Drs. Thomas E. Rohrer, Jonathan L. Cook, and Andrew J. Kaufman, offers practical, easily accessible guidance in this challenging area, including anatomical considerations, the delicate nature of tissue movement, principles of aesthetic surgical closures, relevant tissue biomechanics, and much more. Covering everything from the basic linear and arciform closures, to the more challenging V-Y advancement flaps, and complex staged interpolation flaps, this text clearly presents not just the "how to do it" but more importantly the thought processes behind the selection and execution of each reconstructive procedure. - Describes which flap or graft to choose in specific clinical situations, how to execute each repair (with a multitude of images and diagrams), and how to minimize the risks as well as manage potential complications. - Provides algorithms to assist with flap and graft choices, as well as hundreds of superb full-color illustrations throughout. - Includes an all-new chapter on Surgical Complications and Scar Revisions. - Includes access to high-quality videos showing exactly how the flap/graft is incised, moved, and sutured. New videos include the Rhomboid Transposition Flap for Defect on the Lower Lid, the Island Pedicle Flap with Canthal Suspension, and the Primary Lid Repair with Diagonal Tarsal Suture Sine Marginal Sutures. - Expert ConsultTM eBook version included with purchase. This enhanced eBook experience allows you to search all of the text, figures, and references from the book on a variety of devices.

Poetry. "For many years I have admired the restless and generously spirited poems of Andrew Kaufman. He really does go to both sides of the Niger—both literally and metaphorically. This is not only a splendid book but it''s also splendid journey!"—Thomas Lux "Kaufman accomplishes what few poets ever achieve—a travel and poetry book combined, which is as earthy and spiritual as anything the renowned anthropologist Levi-Straus could have written. This isn''t an Americanized poetical version of Conrad''s Heart of Darkness, but the real thing."—Hal Sirowitz "As in his earlier work, Andrew Kaufman once again assumes the voice and the manner of the traveler in the ancient sense of that particular character that recurs throughout eastern and western literature. In BOTH SIDES OF THE NIGER, the world the traveler inhabits—because he is never simply an observer here—is the otherworldly literal and figurative landscape of West Africa, where more than just hunger and dehydration are at stake. What distinguishes Mr. Kaufman''s poems from others whose work is driven by the facts and fictions of their world travels, is that the poems gathered here are illustrative of an obsessive and undeniable desire to be inside of the place the poet almost haphazardly finds himself in, and once there to participate as fully as possible in the pathologies of love and work that define our world and the world of cultures other than ours. This is a complicated gesture, especially when expressed in the form of poetry, and it can only be accomplished by having a craftsman''s ear for the turn of the line, a palpable generosity of spirit that understands the sameness of us all, and a regard for language that compels the poet to settle on nothing less than getting the words right. Andrew Kaufman understands these things and his poetry is therefore worthy of our attention and our praise."—Bruce Weigl "As in his earlier collection, Earth''s Ends, Andrew Kaufman here takes the considerable risk of writing poems based on experiences sought, at least in part, for that purpose. They splendidly transcend reportage, largely because of Kaufman''s deep knowledge of the craft. He allows traditional verse into the poems just long enough to establish the contrasting perceptions of order in the observer''s mind and in the cultures observed. Thus he creates an exhilarating balance between the joys of discovery and the tragic limits of our understanding."—Henry Taylor

“Expansive and imaginative.” —Kirkus Reviews “Irreverent and bursting prose... Fans of Mark Leyner will enjoy Kaufman’s messy string of outrageous scenarios.” —Publishers Weekly Part modern fable, part detective novel, a journey through grief in the imaginary world of Metaphoria. One cold winter night, Charlie shares a cab with a stranger in a purple hat. As they talk, a cloud of purple smoke overwhelms him and he wakes up to find himself behind the only desk in the Epiphany Detective Agency. Charlie, as it turns out, is trapped in Metaphoria, an otherworldly place that reality has forgotten, a place where everything means something else. His first client is Shirley Miller, who insists on hiring Charlie to find her husband''s missing heart. In fact, she''s so insistent that she replaces Charlie''s heart with a bomb. He has twenty-four hours to find Twiggy Miller''s heart - and its meaning - or his own will explode. Tender and brutal, optimistic and despairing, this modern fable by the author of the cult hit All My Friends Are Superheroes takes a fresh look at what it means to fall into, and out of, love.

Poetry. "Andrew Kaufman''s THE COMPLETE CINNAMON BAY SONNETS bear powerful witness to ''the last loneliness'' of the lost, the forsaken, the outcast, the humiliated, the downtrodden. Divided between the almost paradisiacal Virgin Islands and a New York City Central Booking cell, the poet offers his nightmare flashbacks/angelic visions. ''Swimming in wonder, '' deafened by ''the screaming sirens of pure pain, '' he evokes ''the intifada of the heart.'' ''Yo Professor, '' his cellmates implore him, ''We''re all sad. Tell us a poem.'' Echoing the Psalmist''s ''How can I sing the Lord''s song in a strange land?'' with brave urgency he responds: ''I am here and writing. Please listen.''" L.S. Asekoff"