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The music of silence: New Edition (Amadeus Ser.)
By Andrea Bocelli. 2011
Using a third-person narrative, opera singer Bocelli, who as a young boy lost his vision to congenital bilateral glaucoma, describes…
his childhood in Italy and his interest, education, and career in music. Relates challenges he faced and overcame. Originally published in Italian. 2011Piano starts here: the young Art Tatum
By Robert Andrew Parker, Robert A. Parker. 2008
Flying free: Corey's Underground Railroad diary (My America Ser.My America)
By Sharon Dennis Wyeth. 2002
June 1858 to March 1859. Nine-year-old Corey Birdsong and his family, fugitive slaves from Kentucky, settle into their new life…
of freedom in Amherstburg, Ontario, Canada. Corey makes friends, goes to school for the first time, and rescues Mingo--an old friend. For grades 2-4. 2002Songs in the whirlwind
By June Masters Bacher, June M. Bacher. 1992
Poverty continues, and, regardless of their faith, a better life on their barren Texas land seems doubtful for Marvel Harrington…
and her family. The winds blow, the water becomes contaminated, and folks get typhoid. Yet in the midst of all this affliction, Marvel hears from Titus, and hope for a future with him becomes real--until her family decides to move to Oregon. Sequel to No Time for Tears (DB 36077)Orphans of Empire: A Novel
By Grant Buday. 2020
Finalist for the 2021 BC and Yukon Book Prizes' Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Prize"Meticulously researched and vividly drawn, Orphans of Empire…
brings to life the half-forgotten world of early British Columbia. This is an immersive, shimmering novel." —Steven Price, author of #1 nationally bestselling By Gaslight and Giller-shortlisted LampedusaIn Grant Buday's new novel, three captivating stories intertwine at the site of the New Brighton Hotel on the shores of Burrard Inlet. In 1858 the serious and devoted Sir Richard Clement Moody receives the commission of a lifetime when he is sent to help establish "a second England"—what is now British Columbia. In 1865 Frisadie, an eighteen-year-old Kanaka housemaid, who is more entrepreneur than ingénue, arrives in New Brighton from Hawaii. She convinces Maxie Michaud to purchase the hotel with her, and it soon becomes the toast of the inlet. In 1885 Henry Fannin, a young, curious embalmer and magnetism devotee, having struck out in London and San Francisco, arrives in New Brighton and promptly falls in love with a tragic woman he hears crying on his first night at the hotel.Endearing, funny, and highly evocative of time and place, Orphans of Empire celebrates those living in the shadow of history's supposed heroes, their private struggles and personal agendas. Readers who loved Michael Crummey's Galore and Eowyn Ivey's To the Bright Edge of the World, will love this vivid novel of arrivals that prods at the ethics of settlement.Né à Québec
By Alain Grandbois. 2004
"Dans sa toute première œuvre qu'il fait paraître à Paris en 1933, Alain Grandbois a voulu rappeler les grandes réalisations…
et les principales explorations de Louis Jolliet, l'une des figures les plus marquantes de la Nouvelle-France. L'auteur le suit à la trace dans ses expéditions sur le Mississippi en compagnie du père Jacques Marquette. Si Jolliet incarne les visées économiques et politiques de l'époque, Marquette représente bien sûr les aspirations religieuses de son temps. Grandbois accompagne aussi l'explorateur dans son expédition à la baie James et au Labrador où Jolliet entend conclure une alliance avec les Amérindiens. Tout en faisant œuvre d'historien, Granbois laisse libre cours à son imagination pour rendre encore plus vivante l'image héroïque et légendaire de l'un des grands personnages de l'histoire québécoise." -- 4e de couvHonor Edgeworth
By Douglas Lochhead, Kate Madeleine Bottomley. 1973
In Honor Edgeworth the sole and sincere motive of the authoress has been to hold up to the mass the…
little picture of society, in one of its most marked phases, that she has sketched, as she watched its freaks and caprices from behind the scenes.Ottawa, in this work, is taken merely as a representative of all other fashionable cities, for the simple reason that it is better known to the writer than any other city of social repute. Her object in publishing the volume at all, if not clearly defined throughout the work, may be discovered here: it is primarily, to attract the attention of those who, if they wished, could exercise a beneficial influence over the sphere in which they live, to the moral depravities that at present are allowed so passively to float on the surface of the social tide. It would with the same word appeal to the minds and hearts of those women who are satisfied to remain slaves to the exactions of an unscrupulous society, at the sacrifice of their most womanly impulses, and their noblest energies; and would also remind some reckless sons of Ottawa, of how miserably they are contributing towards the future prosperity of their country, by adopting, as the only aim of their lives, the paltry ambition of an unworthy self-indulgence.The predominant feeling throughout the entire composition has been one of pure philanthropy, as the authoress desires to benefit her fellow-creatures, in as far as it lies in her very limited power.Guilty
By Douglas Lochhead, Lance Bilton. 1973
In the Midst of Alarms
By Robert Barr, Douglas Lochhead. 1973
My Lady of the Snows
By Douglas Lochhead, Margaret A. Brown. 1973
This work cannot be fully understood unless the reader is aware of the writer's motives. The book has a twofold…
meaning -- that of a political novel, and that of the portrayal of a great love and a religious drama. As Disraeli in his novels portrayed the political and social conditions of certain eras of his country, in a simple way this work is intended to portray the conditions existing in Canada at an era when the country was in a state of transition, with the idealistic conception of what the government of a country should be, the conception being based upon a knowledge of the inherent principles of Divine Right and upon Plato's Republic of Justice. The scene is laid prior to the last election during Sir John A. Macdonald's administration. There are no great questions at issue, politics are seen in their lowest form; the protective tariff had been adopted, and with the advent of machinery the old order of things was passing away; the new order had not yet brought any great issues before the people, and the election, commonly called the "Old Flag" election, was run merely on a sentiment of loyalty to the motherland. "My Lady of the Snows" is a woman who has been born "great," and one who has based her life on principles rather than the emotions, or Plato's theory that the emotions should remain subservient to the will.Dot It Down
By Douglas Lochhead, Alexander Begg. 1973
Bandbox: A Novel (Harvest Book Ser.)
By Thomas Mallon. 2004
From the author of Henry and Clara, a dazzling, hilarious novel that captures the heart and soul of New York…
in the Jazz Age.Bandbox is a hugely successful magazine, a glamorous monthly cocktail of 1920s obsessions from the stock market to radio to gangland murder. Edited by the bombastic Jehoshaphat "Joe" Harris, the magazine has a masthead that includes, among many others, a grisly, alliterative crime writer; a shy but murderously determined copyboy; and a burned-out vaudeville correspondent who's lovesick for his loyal, dewy assistant.As the novel opens, the defection of Harris's most ambitious protégé has plunged Bandbox into a death struggle with a new competitor on the newsstand. But there's more to come: a sabotaged fiction contest, the NYPD vice squad, a subscriber's kidnapping, and a film-actress cover subject who makes the heroines of Fosse's Chicago look like the girls next door. While Harris and his magazine careen from comic crisis to make-or-break calamity, the novel races from skyscraper to speakeasy, hops a luxury train to Hollywood, and crashes a buttoned-down dinner with Calvin Coolidge.Thomas Mallon has given us a madcap and poignant book that brilliantly portrays the gaudiest American decade of them all.From the Hardcover edition.Tiger Rag: A Novel
By Nicholas Christopher. 2013
The acclaimed author of Veronica and A Trip to the Stars returns with a dazzling new novel based on one…
of the great legends of musical history. New Orleans, 1900. The virtuoso cornet player Charles "Buddy" Bolden invents jazz, but after a life consumed by tragedy, the groundbreaking sound of his horn vanishes with him. Rumors persist, though, that Bolden recorded a phonograph cylinder, and over the course of a century it evolves into the elusive holy grail of jazz. Florida, the present day. Dr. Ruby Cardillo's life is falling apart. Her husband, a prominent cardiologist, has left her for a twenty-six-year-old. Her daughter, Devon, a once promising jazz pianist, has recently finished an enforced stint picking up trash along the interstate after a drug conviction. Ruby's estranged mother has just died, but not before conjuring up ghosts that Ruby thought she had put behind her long ago. After a long career as a well-respected anesthesiologist, Ruby suddenly jumps the tracks, forgetting to eat and sleep, indulging her every whim, wearing only purple, consuming only bottles of 1988 Château Latour. Then Ruby enlists Devon to accompany her on an impulsive road trip to New York, and both mother and daughter get more than they bargained for, discovering that their own shrouded family history is connected to the tantalizing search for Buddy Bolden's long-lost cylinder. Ranging from turn-of-the-century Louisiana to Roaring Twenties Chicago to contemporary Manhattan, Tiger Rag is at once a moving story of loss and redemption and an intricate historical mystery from one of our most brilliant storytellers. "A literary omnivore, Nicholas Christopher is versed in classical lore and pulp fiction, and his novels [provide] a thrilling amalgam of the two: erudite, lyrical and breathlessly paced."--The New York Times Book ReviewThe Moon Opera
By Howard Goldblatt, Bi Feiyu, Sylvia Li-chun Lin. 2007
The debut novel of one of China's rising young literary talents--a gem of a book that takes a piercing look…
into the world of Chinese opera and its female stars In a fit of diva jealousy, Xiao Yanqiu, star of The Moon Opera, disfigures her understudy with boiling water. Spurned by the troupe, she turns to teaching. Twenty years later, a rich cigarette-factory boss offers to underwrite a restaging of the cursed opera, but only on the condition that Xiao Yanqiu return to the role of Chang'e. So she does, this time believing she has fully become the immortal moon goddess. Set against the drama, intrigue, jealousy, retribution, and redemption of backstage Peking opera, The Moon Opera is a stunning portrait of women in a world that simultaneously reveres and restricts them. Bi Feiyu, one of China's young literary stars, re-creates all the temptations and triumphs of the stage the world over in this gem of a novel.The Moon Opera
By Howard Goldblatt, Bi Feiyu, Sylvia Li. 2007
The debut novel of one of China's rising young literary talents--a gem of a book that takes a piercing look…
into the world of Chinese opera and its female stars In a fit of diva jealousy, Xiao Yanqiu, star of The Moon Opera, disfigures her understudy with boiling water. Spurned by the troupe, she turns to teaching. Twenty years later, a rich cigarette-factory boss offers to underwrite a restaging of the cursed opera, but only on the condition that Xiao Yanqiu return to the role of Chang'e. So she does, this time believing she has fully become the immortal moon goddess. Set against the drama, intrigue, jealousy, retribution, and redemption of backstage Peking opera, The Moon Opera is a stunning portrait of women in a world that simultaneously reveres and restricts them. Bi Feiyu, one of China's young literary stars, re-creates all the temptations and triumphs of the stage the world over in this gem of a novel.Disgraceland: Musicians Getting Away with Murder and Behaving Very Badly
By Jake Brennan. 2019
From the creator of the popular rock 'n' roll true crime podcast, DISGRACELAND comes an off-kilter, hysterical, at times macabre…
book of stories from the highly entertaining underbelly of music history.You may know Jerry Lee Lewis married his thirteen-year-old cousin but did you know he shot his bass player in the chest with a shotgun or that a couple of his wives died under extremely mysterious circumstances? Or that Sam Cooke was shot dead in a seedy motel after barging into the manager's office naked to attack her? Maybe not. Would it change your view of him if you knew that, or would your love for his music triumph? Real rock stars do truly insane thing and invite truly insane things to happen to them; murder, drug trafficking, rape, cannibalism and the occult. We allow this behavior. We are complicit because a rock star behaving badly is what's expected. It's baked into the cake. Deep down, way down, past all of our self-righteous notions of justice and right and wrong, when it comes down to it, we want our rock stars to be bad. We know the music industry is full of demons, ones that drove Elvis Presley, Phil Spector, Sid Vicious and that consumed the Norwegian Black Metal scene. We want to believe in the myths because they're so damn entertaining.DISGRACELAND is a collection of the best of these stories about some of the music world's most beloved stars and their crimes. It will mix all-new, untold stories with expanded stories from the first two seasons of the Disgraceland podcast. Using figures we already recognize, DISGRACELAND shines a light into the dark corners of their fame revealing the fine line that separates heroes and villains as well as the danger Americans seek out in their news cycles, tabloids, reality shows and soap operas. At the center of this collection of stories is the ever-fascinating music industry--a glittery stage populated by gangsters, drug dealers, pimps, groupies with violence, scandal and pure unadulterated rock 'n' roll entertainment.The Ghosting of Anne Armstrong (Goldsmiths Press Ser.)
By Michael Cawood Green. 2019
A novel that tells a four-hundred-year-old tale of witchcraft and intrigue, reimagining the life of a servant girl who accuses…
her neighbors of being witches.Michael Cawood Green's novel The Ghosting of Anne Armstrong calls up the lost voice of a fourteen-year-old girl who, between January and May 1673, made some of the most dramatic accusations in the history of English witchcraft and then disappeared, leaving behind the mystery of what drove her to insist, in the face of rejection after rejection, on telling so strange a story—ultimately at the cost of her own life.Fantastic yet compelling, Anne Armstrong's accusations against her neighbors in an isolated part of the Tyne Valley were recorded in the court depositions that form the basis for this literary thriller from Goldsmiths Press. Following a fictional historian who becomes obsessed with tracking Anne through each twist and turn of the legal proceedings, the reader is drawn ineluctably into the shadowy world where Anne's dark tale plays out to its devastating end. The narrative is shot through with questions: Why does Anne risk being suspected of witchcraft herself as she accuses an ever-increasing number of others? Is she seeking revenge, or does she want to earn money as a witch finder? How does a young, illiterate woman have such detailed knowledge of esoteric forms of witchcraft? How does she learn to understand and manipulate the legal process? Is she a victim of her own hallucinations? Or is she telling the truth—the truth as she sees it, as perhaps only she can see it? And, finally, how does she meet her lonely death in the building which—if reports about appearances of her ghost are to be believed—she has never left?An Unofficial Marriage: A Novel about Pauline Viardot and Ivan Turgenev
By Joie Davidow. 2021
For Fans of Alexander Chee's best-selling novel, The Queen of the Night and opera fans everywhere. Set against the backdrop of the…
tumultuous events of 19th century Europe, An Unofficial Marriage dramatizes the equally tumultuous real-life love affair of two great artists—the famous Russian author, Ivan Turgenev, and the celebrated French opera singer, Pauline Viardot. From the moment he encounters her on the St. Petersburg stage, Ivan falls completely for Pauline. Though Pauline returns his feelings, she is bound by her singular passion for her art and her devotion to her gentle, older husband, Louis. Nevertheless, Ivan pursues Pauline across countries and continents—from Russia to France to Germany to Prussia—and in the decades that follow their fateful meeting, the lives of Pauline, Ivan, and Louis remain permanently intertwined as the lovers face jealousy, separation, the French Revolution of 1848, the cholera epidemic of 1849, the Franco-Prussian War, Turgenev&’s arrest in Russia, Louis&’s heartbreak and resignation, and the highs and lows of their artistic careers. &“You know those unofficial marriages,&” Turgenev would write almost thirty years after meeting Pauline, &“They sometimes turn out more poisonous than the accepted form.&” With beautiful and compelling prose and employing multiple perspectives, Joie Davidow (who herself has a background in opera) illuminates not only the interior lives of these two intensely passionate artists, but also the grand historic moments that Pauline and Ivan experienced and the celebrated figures who moved in their circles—including George Sand, Leo Tolstoy, Frédéric Chopin, Franz Liszt, and Ary Scheffer—providing insight into the dynamic worlds of 19th century opera, literature, art, and politics. Epic in the tradition of the Russian writers whom we encounter, and as romantic and tragic as the operas that Pauline Viardot performs in, An Unofficial Marriage brings to life with great scope and great humanity this captivating story from the past and explores timeless questions about the relationship between art and passion and the complex workings of the human heart.Young Man with a Horn
By Gary Giddins, Dorothy Baker. 1938
Rick Martin loved music and the music loved him. He could pick up a tune so quickly that it didn't…
matter to the Cotton Club boss that he was underage, or to the guys in the band that he was just a white kid. He started out in the slums of LA with nothing, and he ended up on top of the game in the speakeasies and nightclubs of New York. But while talent and drive are all you need to make it in music, they aren't enough to make it through a life. Dorothy Baker's Young Man with a Horn is widely regarded as the first jazz novel, and it pulses with the music that defined an era. Baker took her inspiration from the artistry--though not the life--of legendary horn player Bix Beiderbecke, and the novel went on to be adapted into a successful movie starring Kirk Douglas, Lauren Bacall, and Doris Day.Mesmerized
By Alissa Walser. 2010
Mozart's Vienna. A crucible for scientific experimentation and courtly intrigue, as Europe's finest minds vie for imperial favour. In a…
colourful, chaotic private hospital that echoes with the shrieks of hysterical patients, Franz Anton Mesmer is developing a series of controversial cure-alls for body and mind. When he is asked to help restore the sight of a blind musical prodigy favoured by the Empress herself, he senses that fame, and even immortality, is within his grasp. Mesmer knows that he will have to gain her trust if he is to open her eyes. But at what cost to her fragile talent? And will their intimacy result in scandal?