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Showing 141 - 160 of 4024 items
By Donald Hall. 2014
Former United States Poet Laureate and author of Unpacking the Boxes (DB 68474), Hall (born 1928) ruminates on the life…
he has lived, as well as lives of his ancestors. Discusses writing, smoking and drinking, and traveling through post-WWII Europe. 2014By Issa Rae. 2015
Creator of the YouTube comedy series Awkward Black Girl discusses a childhood spent in Los Angeles, Senegal, and Maryland; family…
relationships; career ambitions; and her experience of blackness. Humorously analyzes racial, cultural, and personality stereotypes. Strong language and some descriptions of sex. 2015By John Szwed, John F Szwed. 2015
Jazz scholar Szwed begins his examination of singer Billie Holiday by looking at the many contradictory stories told about her…
and by her, especially in her own 1956 autobiography Lady Sings the Blues. He analyzes Holiday's influences, iconic songs, and unique gifts as a singer. Some strong language. 2015By Nikki Giovanni. 2013
Collection of seventy-eight poems and essays by the author of The Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni, 1968-1998 (DB 69494). "Artichoke…
Soup" is a paean to a favorite meal. Other subjects examined include nature, music, friends, and family. 2013By Ricky Skaggs. 2013
Grammy Award-winning bluegrass and country-music star (born 1954) recounts his life and career. Details his formative years in rural Kentucky,…
professional success, and personal relationships. Describes his recommitment to his Christian faith after his second marriage and his friendship with the Reverend Billy Graham. 2013By Kathleen Jamie. 2013
Fourteen essays explore connections within the natural world. In "Pathologies" the author reflects on her mother's death and examines the…
role of diseases in our lives. "Three Ways of Looking at St Kilda" details three trips the author took to the island off the coast of Scotland. 2012By Elizabeth Gilbert, Jason Wilson. 2013
Author of Eat, Pray, Love (DB 61789) edits nineteen previously published travel essays infused with a sense of marvel and…
wonder. In "The Way I've Come" author Judy Copeland describes backpacking along the border of Papua New Guinea and Indonesia. 2013By Penn Jillette. 2012
Twenty-five essays from comedic magician about the theme of holidays and what they mean to atheists. Jillette also discusses being…
a celebrity and atheist in a culture that he claims places a high value on religious beliefs. Strong language. 2012By Jonathan Cott. 2013
Rolling Stone magazine editor details his dinner with music virtuoso Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990) in November 1989--the last long interview the…
composer gave before his death the following October. Recounts Bernstein's discussions on the state of music performance and contemporary popular personalities such as John Lennon and the Beatles. 2013By David Wild, Brad Paisley. 2012
Grammy-winning country-music star chronicles his development as an entertainer, beginning with the gift of his first guitar from his grandfather.…
Details his personal life and profiles the people--famous and not--who have influenced him, including Buck Owens, Vince Gill, and Steve Wariner. 2011By Edward O Wilson. 2013
Pulitzer Prize winner and biology professor reflects on what it takes to succeed in science. Discusses his own career's ups…
and downs, ways to be creative in the field, the day-to-day life of a scientist, and the importance of understanding the big picture. Young adult appeal. 2013By James Bowen. 2013
London street musician and recovering drug addict Bowen recounts his 2007 discovery of an injured stray cat he named Bob,…
with whom he became inseparable. Describes the ways the companions have helped each other and become known around the world. Bestseller. 2013By Daniel Tammet. 2013
Author of Born on a Blue Day (DB 63862) explores "the math of life" in twenty-five essays. Topics covered include…
the calendar created by Omar Khayyám in 1074 CE and the concept of zero in Shakespeare's work. Also discusses why years feel shorter as we age. 2012By Rita Moreno. 2013
Eighty-two-year-old Hispanic recipient of Oscar, Tony, Emmy, and Grammy awards reflects on her life. Describes moving to New York with…
her Puerto Rican single mother and breaking into acting as a teen. Discusses her two great loves--Brando and her husband--and parenthood. Some strong language and some descriptions of sex. 2013By Jen Lin-Liu. 2013
Chef makes a pilgrimage in 2010 from Beijing to Rome, tracing the evolution of food and culture along the ancient…
Silk Road. Focuses on the migration of noodles as a menu staple and explores other foods, including saffron and rhubarb. Includes recipes she learned from cooks along the route. 2013By Jody Rosen. 2002
When Irving Berlin first conceived the song "White Christmas," he envisioned it as a "throwaway" -- a satirical novelty number…
for a vaudeville-style stage revue. By the time Bing Crosby introduced the tune in the winter of 1942, it had evolved into something far grander: the stately yuletide ballad that would become the world's all-time top-selling and most widely recorded song. In this vividly written narrative, Jody Rosen provides both the fascinating story behind the making of America's favorite Christmas carol and a cultural history of the nation that embraced it. Berlin, the Russian-Jewish immigrant who became his adopted country's greatest pop troubadour, had written his magnum opus -- what one commentator has called a "holiday Moby-Dick" -- a timeless song that resonates with some of the deepest themes in American culture: yearning for a mythic New England past, belief in the magic of the "merry and bright" Christmas season, longing for the havens of home and hearth. Today, the song endures not just as an icon of the national Christmas celebration but as the artistic and commercial peak of the golden age of popular song, a symbol of the values and strivings of the World War II generation, and of the saga of Jewish-American assimilation. With insight and wit, Rosen probes the song's musical roots, uncovering its surprising connections to the radition of blackface minstrelsy and exploring its unique place in popular culture through six decades of recordings by everyone from Bing Crosby to Elvis Presley to *NSYNC. White Christmas chronicles the song's legacy from jaunty ragtime-era Tin Pan Alley to the elegant world of midcentury Broadway and Hollywood, from the hardscrabble streets where Irving Berlin was reared to the battlefields of World War II where American GIs made "White Christmas" their wartime anthem, and from the Victorian American past that the song evokes to the twenty-first-century present where Berlin's masterpiece lives on as a kind of secular hymnBy Tony Bennett. 2012
Winner of seventeen Grammy Awards, singer Bennett (born 1926) reminisces about growing up in New York City, his sixty years…
in the entertainment industry, and his friendships with musicians. Forward by Mitch Albom, author of The Time Keeper (DB 75616). 2012By Meredith Maran. 2013
Twenty essays by popular authors on the reasons behind their pursuit of writing. Sue Grafton, author of A is for…
Alibi (DB 35069), ruminates on the source of "writer's block" and David Baldacci discusses his compulsion for writing. Also includes Isabel Allende, Jodi Picoult, and others. 2013By Cissy Houston. 2013
Grammy Award-winning gospel singer Cissy Houston recalls the life of her daughter, singer/actress Whitney (1963-2012). Discusses Whitney's career and family…
relationships, including her tumultuous marriage to fellow entertainer Bobby Brown. Speculates on Whitney's drug use and the pitfalls of fame. Foreword by Dionne Warwick. 2013By William Zinsser. 2012
Collection of fifty-eight of journalist Zinsser's essays previously published on the American Scholar website. Topics include culture and arts, the…
craft of writing, the tech age, and language. In "Hats Off" Zinsser ruminates on the state of men's hats and where to store them. 2013