Most Popular Books by Howard Schwartz

This new edition includes recent developments relating to legislative approval of collective bargaining agreements; a discussion of new Supreme Court cases that recognize civil service law limits; and a new section on Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) procedures, including recent reversals in pre-arbitration deferral law. It provides a thorough description of the Dills Act -- how it works, its history, and how it fits in with other labor relations laws. Also included are PERB enforcement procedures, the text of the act, and a summary of all key cases that interpret the act, with complete citations and references to California Public Employee Relations (CPER) analyses. In addition, there is a summary of PERB rules and regulations, a case index, and a glossary of terms designed for Dills Act users.

One December evening in Minneapolis, former soldier and police officer, Tony Crow, has been shot on duty. Sustaining severe injuries, he reluctantly takes early retirement from the police force. Estranged from his ex-wife and young son, but desperate to return to their affections, Crow tries to rebuild his life. In a struggle to regain his former independence, strength and purpose, he starts a private investigation practice.To bring some muscle to the operation, Crow teams up with his old school friend and former college football player, Don Hanson. Don''s colorful personality contrasts with Crow''s no-nonsense approach to make a unique team.Like most new companies, business starts slowly, but then takes flight when a public figure hires him to find a missing person. Find a missing person? Simple enough, especially with his experience, but it soon becomes apparent that they''re out of their depth.Tony Crow pits his small team against a formidable opposition, as he becomes aware of dark secrets and hidden agendas that could bring them down without a trace, and effect the future of America.

Gershon Groysekanatsky, Russell Carrow and Dalton Dalwymple-Delacourt are three young men who are starting their new lives as college freshmen at Llenroc University in upstate New York. They come from very different social classes, ethnic groups and religious backgrounds. Gershon is the son of a poor struggling Jewish shoe salesman whose grandmother escaped the pogroms of Tsarist Russia and dreams of rising above his origins to become a doctor. Russell, on the other hand, is also Jewish but born to a very wealthy senior partner at a Wall Street law firm. His dream is to become a brother in Sigma Chi, a very elite WASP fraternity on campus. Dalton is a Mayflower descendant and a scion of the WASP elite. Unfortunately, tragedy interferes with his smooth ride into the upper- class echelons of Llenroc. Class Conflicts is the story of these young men''s lives, both before and while they are at Llenroc University. The desire for social acceptance and the role that money, ethnicity, religion and lineage play in our society overwhelm their experiences at college and prevent them from concentrating on what college is really all about; learning and experiencing new people and ideas in order to broaden their horizons for the real world. Class Conflicts also looks very closely at the issue of anti-Semitism, especially how anti-Semitism acts as a social excluding force made more potent when combined with social class discrimination. The novel opens in Tsarist Russia with the Groysekanatsky family celebrating a wedding, only to find that they are facing a pogrom which soon would drive them from their home. In the turn of the 20th century New York City, the Groysekanatskys hoped to make a better life, but again encounter prejudice that undermine their ability to adjust to their new American homeland. Social exclusion based on anti-Semitism is a major theme of the novel as Gershon Groysekanatsky, Russell Carrow and Russell''s father Raymond discover as they navigate the complex world of American private schools and universities. While the characters and theme involve American Jews and their relationship with the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant elite, social exclusion could be an issue between many other groups in the United States as well. Class Conflicts'' unsettling conclusion demonstrates how exhausting and upsetting it is for Americans to have to endure the unpleasant combination of both social class discrimination as well as discrimination based on ethnicity and religion, in order to rise in a nation that often prides itself to be relatively free of such distinctions as barriers to socio-economic betterment.Howard Schwartz

Title: In Search of a Wider Audience Subtitle: Stories, Essays, Poems and the Psychoanalysis of Dreaming. While awaiting the final editing of a book in production "Women: Biology, Culture and Literature", I read essays by several accomplished authors, including Michel de Montaigne, who coined the word essays from the French essai (trials). While not in the category of acknowledged masters of the form (Philip Roth, Janet Malcom and Zadie Smith, I have published a chapter book of children''s stories "All Aboard" and a hybrid/compilation book, "Hide and Seek/Hidden and Found- In Search of a Balanced Life"- Psychoanalytic Memoirs, Stories and Essays". With time to read essays it occurred to me to write " Essays in Search of a Wider Audience" with the subtitled topics as a road map of what to expect or perhaps, a better analogy, a chef''s favorite dishes prepared for a surprise price- fixed sampling to be digested at leisure with a sampling of wines for each course, presented as Part I,II, and III. Part I is best introduced with amuse-bouches often accompanied by a complementary wine, are served both to prepare the guest for the meal and to offer a glimpse of the chef''s style (see Wikipedia). So perhaps to start, "A dog named Duppy (ghost in Jamaican culture) that introduces the first course " Nanny: The Ashanti Warrior" that is laugh-out-loud hilarious (no spoiler alert). Followed by more substantial fare about two fraternal twins raised in foster care telling each other in a Writer''s Workshop about their need to separate, each feeling concerned because they don''t want to hurt the other who is their best friend in the world. But forced to choose from Part I, I pick "Arnold''s Story: Halvah Moments" Arnold is me and it''s about how at age sixteen I dumped my girlfriend because of a new girl in town, more urban and with attitude, who attracted me more. " Ace Powers Foils Plot to Attack New York" is as timely as today. Part II has so many favorites, including my granddaughter taking me by surprise asking me, "Grandpa, Am I Your Favorite?", prompting a wide ranging essay on the philosophy of the tension between fairness and favoritism , various religious precepts and "To Kill a Mockingbird" (Who was Atticus Finch''s favorite, his ten-year old daughter Scout, who was a tomboy and didn''t want to go to school where she was told what to read, or her brother Jem who aimed to be a lawyer like his father and risked his life to save his sister?) . My granddaughter''s poems on mortality and courage will leave you in awe . My only political essay, after Dickens'' "The Pickwick Club" satirically identifies (for me) , our Pickwickian President. It will amuse or appall you depending on your political views. A long essay, perhaps ordering a la carte to take and read at home is worth the price of the book alone: Richard Cohen''s "How to Write like Tolstoy: A Journey into the Minds of Our Greatest Writers" ( Hint: write, read out loud to get the rhythm of the words, rewrite, have plenty of paper and a large wastebasket and perhaps a wife willing to copy by hand multiple rewrites- 2000 pages- of "War and Peace".) Think, of Melville''s "Bartleby the Scrivener" who after dutifully doing his job for years one day simply said, " I choose not to." The last essay in Part II, "Dreaming Naming and Remembering- Reflections on Mortality" introduces: Part III. A Psychoanalytic Paper I wrote in 1979 "A Note on Fire in Myth, Religious Ritual and a Dream at Easter-Time" and Philip Roth: A Eulogy and "Why Write and Patrimony".