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Showing 2681 - 2700 of 5834 items
By Alexandra Wiktorek, Galina Kopytova, Dario Sarlo. 2014
Notoriously reticent about his early years, violinist Jascha Heifetz famously reduced the story of his childhood to "Born in Russia.…
First lessons at 3. Debut in Russia at 7. Debut in Carnegie Hall at 17. That's all there is to say." Tracing his little-known upbringing, Jascha Heifetz: Early Years in Russia uncovers the events and experiences that shaped one of the modern era's most unique talents and enigmatic personalities. Using previously unstudied archival materials and interviews with family and friends, this biography explores Heifetz's meteoric rise in the Russian music world--from his first violin lessons with his father, to his studies at the St. Petersburg Conservatory with the well-known pedagogue Leopold Auer, to his tours throughout Russia and Europe. Spotlighting Auer's close-knit circle of musicians, Galina Kopytova underscores the lives of artists in Russia's "Silver Age"--an explosion of artistic activity amid the rapid social and political changes of the early 20th century."Freud’s Trip to Orvieto is at once profound and wonderfully diverse, and as gripping as any detective story. Nicholas Fox…
Weber mixes psychoanalysis, art history, and the personal with an intricacy and spiritedness that Freud himself would have admired.” -John Banville, author of The Sea and The Blue Guitar"This is an ingenious and fascinating reading of Freud’s response to Signorelli’s frescoes at Orvieto. It is also a meditation on Jewish identity, and on masculinity, memory, and the power of the image. It is filled with intelligence, wit, and clear-eyed analysis not only of the paintings themselves, but how we respond to them in all their startling sexuality and invigorating beauty.” -Colm Tóibín, author of Brooklyn and Nora WebsterAfter a visit to the cathedral at Orvieto in Italy, Sigmund Freud deemed Luca Signorelli’s frescoes the greatest artwork he’d ever encountered; yet, a year later, he couldn’t recall the artist’s name. When the name came back to him, the images he had so admired vanished from his mind’s eye. This is known as the "Signorelli parapraxis” in the annals of Freudian psychoanalysis and is a famous example from Freud’s own life of his principle of repressed memory. What was at the bottom of this? There have been many theories on the subject, but Nicholas Fox Weber is the first to study the actual Signorelli frescoes for clues.What Weber finds in these extraordinary Renaissance paintings provides unexpected insight into this famously confounding incident in Freud’s biography. As he sounds the depths of Freud’s feelings surrounding his masculinity and Jewish identity, Weber is drawn back into his own past, including his memories of an adolescent obsession with a much older woman.Freud’s Trip to Orvieto is an intellectual mystery with a very personal, intimate dimension. Through rich illustrations, Weber evokes art’s singular capacity to provoke, destabilize, and enchant us, as it did Freud, and awaken our deepest memories, fears, and desires.Nicholas Fox Weber is the director of the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation and author of fourteen books, including biographies of Balthus and Le Corbusier. He has written for the New Yorker, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, Le Monde, ARTnews, Town & Country, and Vogue, among other publications.By Mark Schimmoeller. 2013
"My speedometer says zero," a Missouri woman said, leaning toward the passenger window of her red Camaro, which she had…
slowed to a near stop. Unicyclist Mark Schimmoeller was surprised. After all, he had made it from North Carolina, traveling around a thousand miles at this speed. Her message was the same as one he'd received from a Tennessee man yelling at him, "You ain't going nowhere," only gentler in tone. He chose to be encouraged. From Missouri, Mark Schimmoeller unicycled on (still going zero) to northern Arizona, exploring these questions of speed, progress, and meaning. Mark was twenty-four then; he is forty-six now, married and living in a small off-the-grid cabin in the Kentucky woods. Slowspoke: A Unicyclist's Guide to America is told from the perspective of the present-day homesteader. The adventures of Schimmoeller's youth are recalled when he encounters the emotional equivalent of a tractor-trailer gust: the news that the beloved old woods near his house is about to be logged and developed. Mark begins an effort to save the woods and as he does so he retreats into stories that buffer him with happy endings. As a young man, his unicycle slowed his pace; now, thinking about it slows time for him, keeps the tall trees standing. As the narrative alternates between past and present, dream and reality, he looks with a fresh gaze at his Kentucky home, with the precise love of someone slated to give a eulogy. People who have gone back to the land or wonder if they could, who have slowed down to experience life at a unicycle's speed or who long to do so, who have fallen in love, who have treasured tall trees or mourned their loss, will find a voice in Slowspoke. Written with poise and humor, Slowspoke is for anyone who still leans against prevailing winds toward a better America and world.By Linda Kelly. 1995
"One of the best books on the Grateful Dead. " --Rolling Stone Just what was it about the Grateful Dead…
that made them rock and roll’s most beloved band? In Deadheads, those with the real story, who were there and are still listening to the music, explain it all. Grateful Dead lyricist John Perry Barlow talks about his lifelong friendship with Dead guitarist Bob Weir. Cajun chef Rick Begneaud shares his memories of feeding the Dead. John Popper of Blues Traveler recalls playing with the Dead at Bill Graham’s memorial tribute, while publicist Dennis McNally shares some wild adventures of working with the band for more than thirty years. Author Linda Kelly recalls being dragged to her very first Dead show, hanging with Jerry in New York City, and more. First-show revelations, backstage adventures, parking lot hoopla, how-to-live-life philosophies, strange tangential experiences stemming from being in that certain place at that certain time--these intriguing anecdotes evoke wonderful images, lots of smiles, and a close look into a fascinating phenomenon in the history of music. This twentieth-anniversary edition of Deadheads celebrates fifty years of music and includes the best stories from the original 1995 edition, two new chapters, as well as new interviews with various friends, artists, and followers of the Grateful Dead.By Nathaniel Philbrick, Thomas Philbrick, William Reynolds. 2004
One of the finest nineteenth-century first-person narratives of a sea voyage in existence, and a principle source for Sea of…
Glory, The Private Journal of William Reynolds brings to life the boisterous world traversed by the six vessels that comprised America's first ocean-going voyage of discovery, the U. S. Exploring Expedition of 18381842. With great eloquence and verve Midshipman William Reynolds describes the harrowing 87,000-mile, four-year circuit of the globe, and relates the story of how the abusive commander of the Ex. Ex. , Lieutenant Charles Wilkes, gradually lost the support of his crew. With a seaman's understanding and an artist's appreciation for the wild beauty that surrounds him, the Journal is a tour de force combining meticulous observations with a young man's sense of wonder and, on occasion, terror as he is tossed about by the tremendous seas. .By Benjamin Taylor. 2012
It is a city of seemingly irreconcilable opposites, simultaneously glorious and ghastly. And it is Ben Taylor’s remarkable ability to…
meld these contradictions into a whole that makes this the exciting and original book it is. He takes his stroll around the bay with the acute sensitivity of a lover, the good humor of a friend, and the wisdom of a seeker who has immersed himself in all aspects of this contrapuntal culture. His curiosity leads him to many byways, both real and metaphoric, and his passion for this ancient city and its people becomes, in his graceful prose and amusing anecdotes, irresistibly contagious. .By Kurt Caswell. 2015
Writer, teacher, and adventurer Kurt Caswell has spent his adult life canoeing, hiking, and pedaling his way toward a deeper…
understanding of our vast and varied world. Getting to Grey Owl: A Man's Journey across Four Continents chronicles over twenty years of Caswell's travels as he buys a rug in Morocco, rides a riverboat in China, attends a bullfight in Spain, climbs four mountains in the United Kingdom, and backpacks a challenging route through Iceland's wild Hornstrandir Peninsula. Writing in the tradition of such visionary nomads as Hermann Hesse, Robert Louis Stevenson, Bruce Chatwin, Paul Theroux, Pico Iyer, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and William Wordsworth, Caswell travels through wild and urban landscapes, as well as philosophical and ideological vistas, championing the pleasures of a wandering life. Far from the trappings of the everyday, he explores a range of ideas: the meaning of roads and pathways, the story of Cain and Abel, nomadic life and the evolution of the human animal, the role of agriculture in the making of the modern world, and the fragility of love.By Katharine Weber. 2011
The Memory of All That is Katharine Weber's memoir of her extraordinary family. Her maternal grandmother, Kay Swift, was known…
both for her own music (she was the first woman to compose the score to a hit Broadway show, Fine and Dandy) and for her ten-year romance with George Gershwin. Their love affair began during Swift's marriage to James Paul Warburg, the multitalented banker and economist who advised (and feuded with) FDR. Weber creates an intriguing and intimate group portrait of the renowned Warburg family, from her great-great-uncle, the eccentric art historian Aby Warburg, whose madness inspired modern theories of iconography, to her great-grandfather Paul M. Warburg, the architect of the Federal Reserve System whose unheeded warnings about the stock-market crash of 1929 made him "the Cassandra of Wall Street." Her mother, Andrea Swift Warburg, married Sidney Kaufman, but their unlikely union, Weber believes, was a direct consequence of George Gershwin's looming presence in the Warburg family. A notorious womanizer, Weber's father was a peripatetic filmmaker who made propaganda and training films for the OSS during World War II before producing the first movie with smells, the regrettable flop that was AromaRama. He was as much an enigma to his daughter as he was to the FBI, which had him under surveillance for more than forty years, and even noted Katharine's birth in a memo to J. Edgar Hoover.Colorful, evocative, insightful, and very funny, The Memory of All That is an enthralling look at a tremendously influential--and highly eccentric--family, as well as a consideration of how their stories, with their myriad layers of truth and fiction, have both provoked and influenced one of our most prodigiously gifted writers.By Pamela Logan. 2002
The culture and artifacts of Tibet, like those of other remote indigenous societies, are under siege by the relentless modern…
world. The fate of monasteries in Tibet has been a subject of concern to many in the West; but until Tibetan Rescue little specific information had been published. As president of a non-governmental organization that brings foreign aid into Tibet, Pamela Logan brings a first-hand account of her journey through Tibet.Pamela evolves from solo traveler to expedition leader on her mission: to save the precious ancient murals of Pewar Monastery. To reach her goal she travels a long and circuitous path raising funds, getting permission from the Chinese bureaucracy, assembling an international team, and leading four expeditions by bus, truck, and horse caravan to Pewar Monastery. Along the way she meets a memorable parade of characters, overcomes bureaucrats and blizzards, and survives a brutal attack by a pack of Tibetan dogs. Her book is an insider's look at a remote and little known part of Tibet, her story an inspiration to those who cherish challenge and adventure.By Laura Ponsonby, Marianne North. 2010
In 1871, Marianne North, a brilliant artist with a keen interest in botany, set-forth to travel the world on a…
quest to paint indigenous plants in their natural habitat. Encouraged by her friend Charles Darwin, North travelled by boat, train, mule, foot and palanquin to every continent except Antarctica. She circled the globe twice over fifteen years and accumulated an extensive and valuable collection of more than eight hundred paintings, which today comprise the esteemed Marianne North Gallery at the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew, London.North - high-spirited, indefatigable, and brave - also kept detailed journals, which were posthumously published in three volumes in the late 1800s. Abundant Beauty collects the most engaging writings from those journals in one edition, including rich descriptions of botanica and delightful accounts of local people and customs from her sometimes dangerous travels. Abundant Beauty is a fascinating and informative read for botanists, gardeners, historians, and armchair travellers.By Karen Pond, Akiko Saito. 2012
The unexpected gift of a favored bottle of shiraz from her husband leads to the adventure of a lifetime for…
Karen Pond and her family--moving from rural Maine to the largest city in the world: Tokyo, Japan.Getting Genki in Japan is a collection of illustrated essays and musings of a Down East Mom's absurd and exhilarating adventures in the Far East. From bewildered and befuddled (and back again) to (somewhat) wise, these narratives recount a journey of cultural discoveries, experiences and the follies of a newcomer to Japan; including (mis)identifying food, (mis)pronouncing Japanese, (mis)pantomiming for necessities, and finally figuring out how to flush the Japanese toilet!By David Ritz, Rick James. 1979
Best known for his song "Super Freak," hitmaker, singer, innovator, producer, award-winning pioneer in the fusion of funk groove and…
rock, the late Rick James collaborated with music biographer David Ritz in this posthumously published, wildly entertaining, and profound expression of a rock star's life and soul.He was the nephew of Temptations singer Melvin Franklin; a boy who watched and listened, mesmerized from underneath cocktail tables at the shows of Etta James and Miles Davis. He was a vagrant hippie who wandered to Toronto, where he ended up playing with Neil Young and Joni Mitchell, and he became a household name in the 1980s with his hit song "Super Freak." Later in life, he was a bad boy who got caught up in drug smuggling and ended up in prison. But since his passing in August 2004, Rick James has remained a legendary icon whose name is nearly synonymous with funk music--and who popularized the genre, creating a lasting influence on pop artists from Prince to Jay-Z to Snoop Dogg, among countless others. In Glow, Rick James and acclaimed music biographer David Ritz collaborated to write a no-holds-barred memoir about the boy and the man who became a music superstar in America's disco age. It tells of James's upbringing and how his mother introduced him to musical geniuses of the time. And it reveals details on many universally revered artists, from Marvin Gaye and Prince to Nash, Teena Marie, and Berry Gordy. James himself said, "My journey has taken me through hell and back. It's all in my music--the parties, the pain, the oversized ego, the insane obsessions." But despite his bad boy behavior, James was a tremendous talent and a unique, unforgettable human being. His "glow" was an overriding quality that one of his mentors saw in him--and one that will stay with this legendary figure who left an indelible mark on American popular music.By Maddie Ziegler, Mackenzie Ziegler. 2018
An inspirational, upbeat collection of relatable lessons from the teen sensation, Mackenzie Ziegler—an award-winning dancer, singer/songwriter, and actress.Growing up is…
hard, but growing up in the spotlight is even harder. However, Mackenzie Ziegler is taking it all in stride, thanks to her positive attitude on life. From getting her start on Dance Moms, to her sold-out tour alongside Johnny Orlando, there’s nothing that she can’t do. In Kenzie’s Rules for Life, the dance prodigy, singer/songwriter, actress, and model offers her advice on friendship, family, fitness, style, and positivity. She shares lessons drawn from her own experiences for those navigating through their tween years on how to be happy, healthy, and confident in all aspects of their lives.By Thomas Shevory. 2017
The Great Lakes are a remarkable repository of millions of years of complex geological transformations and of a considerably shorter,…
crowded span of human history. Over the course of four summers, Thomas Shevory rode a bicycle along their shores, taking in the stories the lakes tell—of nature’s grandeur and decay, of economic might and squandered promise, of exploration, colonization, migration, and military adventure. This book is Shevory’s account of his travels, shored up by his exploration of the geological, environmental, historical, and cultural riches harbored by North America’s great inland seas.For Shevory, and his readers, his ride is an enlightening, unfailingly engaging course in the Great Lakes’ place in geological time and the nation’s history. Along the northern shore of Lake Huron, one encounters the scrubbed surfaces of the Canadian Shield, the oldest exposed rock in North America. Growing out of the crags of the Niagara Escarpment, which stretches from the western reaches of Lake Michigan to the spectacular waterfalls between Erie and Ontario, are the white cedars that are among the oldest trees east of the Mississippi. The lakes offer reminders of the fur trade that drew voyageurs to the interior, the disruption of Native American cultures, major battles of the War of 1812, the shipping and logging industries that built the Midwest, the natural splendors preserved and exploited, and the urban communities buoyed or buried by economic changes over time. Throughout The Great Lakes at Ten Miles an Hour, Shevory describes the engaging characters he encounters along the way and the surprising range of country and city landscapes, bustling and serene locales that he experiences, making us true companions on his ride.By Nicholas Jennings. 2017
The definitive, full-access story of the life and songs of Canada's legendary troubadourGordon Lightfoot’s name is synonymous with timeless songs…
about trains and shipwrecks, rivers and highways, lovers and loneliness. His music defined the folk-pop sound of the 1960s and ‘70s, topped charts and sold millions. He is unquestionably Canada’s greatest songwriter, and an international star who has performed on the world’s biggest stages. While Lightfoot’s songs are well known, the man behind them is elusive. He’s never allowed his life to be chronicled in a book—until now.Biographer Nick Jennings has had unprecedented access to the notoriously reticent musician. Lightfoot takes us deep inside the artist’s world, from his idyllic childhood in Orillia, the wild sixties, and his canoe trips into Canada’s North to his heady times atop the music world. Jennings explores the toll that success took on his personal life—including his troubled relationships, his battle with alcohol and his near-death experiences—and the extraordinary drive and tenacity that pulled him through it all.Rich in voices from fellow musicians, close friends, Lightfoot’s family and the singer’s own reminiscences, the biography tells the stories behind some of his best-known love songs, including “Beautiful” and “Song for a Winter’s Night,” as well as the infidelity and divorce that resulted in classics like “Sundown” and “If You Could Read My Mind.” Kris Kristofferson has called Lightfoot’s songs “some of the most beautiful and lasting music of our time.” Lightfoot is an unforgettable portrait of a treasured singer-songwriter, an artist whose work has been covered by everyone from Joni Mitchell, Barbra Streisand and Nico to Bob Dylan, Elvis Presley and Gord Downie. Revealing and insightful, Lightfoot is both an inspiring story of redemption and an exhilarating read.By Mark Dake. 2016
A Bill-Brysonesque romp through this often-overlooked travellers’ gem of East Asia. For seventeen years, journalist, teacher, and coach Mark Dake…
has called South Korea home. Now, with his longtime Korean friend Heju, he sets out on a four-month, ten-thousand-kilometre road trip, determined to uncover the real country. From the electric street life of Seoul to the tense northern border, where deadly skirmishes still erupt, the pair’s shoestring, wing-and-a-prayer trek takes them well off the beaten trail and across the complicated nation. Along the way are prisons, dinosaurs, anthropology, history, marine life, art, and abundant nature. There are Buddhist temples, fairgrounds, palaces, national parks, bridges, historical sites, forts, churches, and cemeteries. Whether standing amidst ancient stone tombs and religious architecture unrivalled in Asia, or at military briefings under the steely eyes of North Korean sentries, Mark and Heju are tireless explorers in search of the culture, geography, and beauty of this enigmatic peninsula.By Travis Thrasher, Mattyb. 2016
An uplifting and candid memoir from thirteen-year-old YouTube sensation, boy-next-door heartthrob, and musical artist MattyB."Don't worry about what others think.…
Don't try to be cool or be someone else or be this-that-or-the-other. Be you." --MattyB Matthew David Morris, better known as MattyB, was virtually unknown just a few short years ago. After posting his first rap cover to YouTube at just seven years old, he quickly catapulted to record-breaking Internet stardom. Now thirteen, MattyB is an accomplished recording artist: he has sold out shows all over the world; appeared and performed on national television; recorded the smash hits "Right Now I'm Missing You," "My Oh My," and "New Kids"; is approaching 3 billion views on YouTube, and loves meeting his fans every step of the way. Although his success is more than he could have ever dreamed of, MattyB wants his fans to know that he's a regular kid, just like you. In his first memoir, That's a Rap, MattyB opens up about his journey so far, including what it's like to go from the boy next door to a global sensation, grow up with a sister with Down syndrome (and how he uses his songs to spread awareness about it), the heart and soul that goes into making his music, and the importance of the Christian values that have kept him and his family grounded through every up and down along the way. Totally honest and 100 percent personal, That's a Rap tells MattyB's incredible story, offering B-Boys and B-Girls a look into his fun-loving, family-oriented, one-of-a-kind world.In the fourth Railroad Semantics collection, Aaron takes you along on an epic train journey through desolate stretches of Wyoming,…
Colorado, and Utah. His personal accounts of train hopping are paired with newspaper clippings, photos, rail yard graffiti, and ephemera to fill in the story. In this volume, Aaron survives encounters with police, railroad workers, and hipsters posing as hobos. He drinks under overpasses, is injured alone in the desert, and even takes a legitimate, ticketed Amtrak ride.By John Howard, Michael H. Kater, Michaela Haas, Coco Schumann, Max Christian Graeff. 2016
"From his early enthusiasm for American jazz in Berlin cabarets to his membership of Terezin's celebrated Ghetto Swngers and surviving…
Auschwitz through his music, to post-war appearances with the likes of Dizzy Gillespie, jazz remains a constant in a remarkable life story."- Ron Simpson, The Jazz RagSchumann's memoir offers an intimate look at the redemptive and sustaining power of music.By Barry Denenberg. 2001