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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
Songs 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)The earth is the Lord's: a tale of the rise of Genghis Khan
By Taylor Caldwell. 1975
Novel based upon the life of Genghis Khan, the thirteenth-century Mongol chieftain who led his swarm of shaggy barbarians over…
Asia, the Near East, and Hungary. The story begins with his birth as Temujin, the son of a petty chief in the Gobi desert, and ends with his first great victoryJishin
By Lee Riordan. 1997
In 1923, one of the greatest natural disasters ever recorded struck one of the most densely populated areas in the…
world. In Jishin, author Lee Riordan recreates this calamity, the Great Kanto Earthquake, providing both stirring adventure and touching romance.This book vividly describes the shaking and shuddering of the quake itself, during which thousands died, as much of the cities of Tokyo and Yokohama collapsed around their inhabitants. In the ensuing fires, many more perished as insatiable flames tore through the cities, destroying property and life. This gripping historical novel retells the story of the terrible quake that took over 140,000 lives.Jishin is also the story of Tatiana, the Russian countess, and Hugh, the American professor, who discover their love for one another against the backdrop of this destruction. The author built his tale on the recollections of Tatiana and Hugh, who were his parents, providing the book with an authenticity that gives it unusual poignancy and realism.Jishin
By Lee Riordan. 1997
In 1923, one of the greatest natural disasters ever recorded struck one of the most densely populated areas in the…
world. In Jishin, author Lee Riordan recreates this calamity, the Great Kanto Earthquake, providing both stirring adventure and touching romance.This book vividly describes the shaking and shuddering of the quake itself, during which thousands died, as much of the cities of Tokyo and Yokohama collapsed around their inhabitants. In the ensuing fires, many more perished as insatiable flames tore through the cities, destroying property and life. This gripping historical novel retells the story of the terrible quake that took over 140,000 lives.Jishin is also the story of Tatiana, the Russian countess, and Hugh, the American professor, who discover their love for one another against the backdrop of this destruction. The author built his tale on the recollections of Tatiana and Hugh, who were his parents, providing the book with an authenticity that gives it unusual poignancy and realism.Bing: From Farmer's Son to Magistrate in Han China
By Michael Loewe. 2011
Much is known of life during the Han Empire, but the historical evidence remains fragmentary, and nowhere do we find…
a continuous account of the life of any one individual.In this engaging volume, Michael Loewe mines the written and material records to depict the imagined life of an ordinary person, Bing Wu, from the hardships of his earliest years on a rural farm to his retirement from a respected position in government service. Underlying the tale of Bing is a richly detailed portrait of life during the Han--the arduous tasks of the conscript laborer; military service on the defense lines of the north; the travels of a merchant; the grueling conditions in an iron foundry; the construction of tombs; preparations for entering the civil service; the duties of a junior clerk and the governing of a commandery. Along the way, we are introduced to the operation of a crossbow; methods of telling time; the practice of writing; the rituals of divination; the ceremony of a state occasion, laws and the harsh consequences of breaking them; the workings of the central government and much more.Included are a concise introduction, explanatory endnotes to each chapter, a selection of illustrations, a map of the Han Empire, notes for further reading and an essay by Loewe entitled, "A Brief History of the Han Empire."The Trials of Zion: A Novel
By Alan M. Dershowitz. 2010
"No one knows more about Israel's existential dilemma than Alan Dershowitz-or writes about it better. From its explosive beginning to…
its startling climax, THE TRIALS OF ZION excites and intrigues, even as it depicts the unique dangers of a lethal part of the world. This is a terrific novel. " -Richard North Patterson "For a legalist, mired for years in towers of ivory not even hewn from the teeth of endangered elephants but constructed, indeed, and solely, of the casuistic and notional, Mr. Dershowitz writes a real good rip-snorter. " -David Mamet "A thought-provoking thriller set in two of the world's most gripping arenas of conflict, the Middle East and the courtroom. " -Steven Pinker, author ofThe Stuff of Thought,and Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, author of36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction "As in all his essays, in his novel also, Alan Dershowitz demonstrates his great love for Israel as well as his inspired passion for Jewish memory, justice, and storytelling. " -Elie Wiesel A shocking act of terror brings the Middle East to the point of explosion. As the resulting political conflict threatens to erupt, a young Jewish-American lawyer joins the defense team of an arrested but possibly innocent Palestinian. Soon the lawyer's father, a famed criminal attorney, must win the Palestinian's case or risk losing his daughter forever. To do so, he must take into account the tormented history of the Holy Land from every possible angle. THE TRIALS OF ZION combines the tension of the greatest courtroom dramas with the action of a fast-moving thriller, all set against the colorful backdrop of one of the most complex cultural settings in the world. Filled with memorable characters, this novel offers readers not only compelling suspense, but a panoramic view of the history of a beloved and bitterly contested land, and a sharply controversial perspective on the sources of--and the possible solutions to--the world's longest and most crucial international crisis.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 ReviewBasti
By Intizar Husain, Asif Farrukhi, Frances W. Pritchett. 1979
An NYRB Classics OriginalBasti is a beautifully written reckoning with the tragic history of Pakistan. Basti means settlement, a common…
place, and Intizar Husain's extraordinary novel begins with a mythic, even mystic, vision of harmony between old and young, man and woman, Muslim and Hindu. Then Zakir, the hero, wakes to the modern world. Crowds gather. Slogans echo. Cities burn. Whether hunkered down with family or furtively meeting to exchange news with friends in cafés, Zakir is alone in a country lost to the politics of loneliness.history. The new country of Pakistan is born, separating him once and for all from the woman he loves, and in a jagged and jarring sequence of scenes we witness a nation and a psyche torn into existence only to be torn apart again and again by political, religious, economic, linguistic, personal, and sexual conflicts--in effect, a world of loneliness. Zakir, whose name means "remember," serves as the historian of this troubled place, while the ties he maintains across the years with old friends--friends who run into one another in cafés and on corners and the odd other places where history takes a time-out--suggest that the possibility of reconciliation is not simply a dream. The characters wait for a sign that minds and hearts may still meet. In the meantime, the dazzling artistry of Basti itself gives us reason to hope against hope.The 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.Wintry Night (Modern Chinese Literature from Taiwan)
By Qiao Li. 2001
An epic spanning more than half a century of Taiwan's history, this breathtaking historical novel traces the fortunes of the…
Pengs, a family of Hakka Chinese settlers, across three generations from the 1890s, just before Taiwan was ceded to Japan as a result of the Sino-Japanese war, through World War II. Li Qiao brilliantly re-creates the dramatic world of these pioneers—and the colonization of Taiwan itself—exploring their relationships with the aboriginal peoples of Taiwan and their struggle to establish their own ethnic and political identities.This carefully researched work of fiction draws upon Li's own experiences and family history, as well as oral and written histories of the era. Originally published in Chinese as a trilogy, this newly translated edition is an abridgement for English-speaking readers and marks the work's first appearance in the English-speaking world. It was well-received in Taiwan as an honest—and influential—recreation of Taiwan's history before the relocation of the Republic of China from the mainland to Taiwan.Because Li's saga is so deeply imbued with the unique culture and complex history of Taiwan, an introduction explaining the cultural and historical background of the novel is included to help orient the reader to this amazingly rich cultural context. This informative introduction and the sweeping saga of the novel itself together provide an important view of Taiwan's little known colonial experience.Quelling the Demons' Revolt: A Novel from Ming China (Translations from the Asian Classics)
By Guanzhong Luo. 2017
In this Ming-era novel, historical narrative, raucous humor, and the supernatural are interwoven to tell the tale of an unsuccessful…
attempt to overthrow the Song dynasty. A poor young girl meets an old woman who gives her a magic book that allows her to create rice and money. Her father, terrified that his daughter's demonic nature might be discovered, marries her off. Forced to flee, she and others with supernatural abilities find themselves in the midst of a grotesque version of a historical uprising, in which facts are intermingled with slapstick humor and wild fictions.Attributed to the writer Luo Guanzhong, Quelling the Demons' Revolt is centered on the events of the rebellion led by Wang Ze in 1047–48. But it is a distorted, humorous version, in which Wang Ze's lieutenants show up as a comical peddler and a mysterious Daoist priest and a celebrated warrior appears despite having died many years earlier. Rather than fantastic adventures and supernatural marvels, the author points to human vanities and fixations as well as social injustice, warning of the vulnerability of any pursuit of order in a world plagued by demonic forces as well as mundane corruption. Although the story takes place long before the era in which it was written, ultimately Quelling the Demons' Revolt is the story of the Ming dynasty in Song masquerade, presciently warning of the dynasty's downfall. The novel is divided into chapters, but in many ways it is an arrangement of self-contained stories that draw on vernacular storytelling. This translation offers English-speaking readers a spirited example of social critique combined with caustic humor from the era of Luo Guanzhong.Twilight in a Knotted World
By Mr Sidhhartha Sarma. 2020
The soil of central India hides more than the bones of long-dead giants. The East India Company is master of…
almost the entire subcontinent, but real power is now with the Crown. Far from the great games of the empire, Captain William Henry Sleeman is content to administer Jabalpur district and dig for remnants of petrified bones with his charming and knowledgeable wife. Until he is tasked with investigating the activities of an obscure group of criminals who are said to strangle their victims. As Sleeman uncovers the many layers of the Phansigar problem, he finds a language unlike any other, and a set of beliefs, lore and superstitions seemingly drawn from the soul of the countryside. He finds orchards of corpses, and a hierarchy of stranglers, but also ordinary men driven to murder. He hears subtle murmurs of discontentment at the changes which have come to a land believed by some to be unchanging. He finds auguries of a conflict to come. And behind it all, the legend of a mysterious, beautiful man, whose capture might be the key to understanding the Phansigars. Sleeman&’s inquiries will make him confront the nature of his beloved adopted homeland and of the mighty people in Calcutta who he serves. Through the prism of caste, the consequent web of intricate social and cultural relationships, and the nature of travel in the hinterland, he will see the real face of India and come across its uncomfortable, bleak truths. But to unravel such truths is not easy…The Sing-song Girls of Shanghai (Weatherhead Books on Asia)
By Bangqing Han. 2005
Desire, virtue, courtesans (also known as sing-song girls), and the denizens of Shanghai's pleasure quarters are just some of the…
elements that constitute Han Bangqing's extraordinary novel of late imperial China. Han's richly textured, panoramic view of late-nineteenth-century Shanghai follows a range of characters from beautiful sing-song girls to lower-class prostitutes and from men in positions of social authority to criminals and ambitious young men recently arrived from the country. Considered one of the greatest works of Chinese fiction, The Sing-song Girls of Shanghai is now available for the first time in English. Neither sentimental nor sensationalistic in its portrayal of courtesans and their male patrons, Han's work inquires into the moral and psychological consequences of desire. Han, himself a frequent habitué of Shanghai brothels, reveals a world populated by lonely souls who seek consolation amid the pleasures and decadence of Shanghai's demimonde. He describes the romantic games played by sing-song girls to lure men, as well as the tragic consequences faced by those who unexpectedly fall in love with their customers. Han also tells the stories of male patrons who find themselves emotionally trapped between desire and their sense of propriety. First published in 1892, and made into a film by Hou Hsiao-hsien in 1998, The Sing-song Girls of Shanghai is recognized as a pioneering work of Chinese fiction in its use of psychological realism and its infusion of modernist sensibilities into the traditional genre of courtesan fiction. The novel's stature has grown with the recent discovery of Eileen Chang's previously unknown translation, which was unearthed among her papers at the University of Southern California. Chang, who lived in Shanghai until 1956 when she moved to California and began to write in English, is one of the most acclaimed Chinese writers of the twentieth century.The Blue Wolf: A Novel of the Life of Chinggis Khan (Weatherhead Books on Asia)
By Inoue Yasushi. 2008
One of the world's most ruthless warriors, Chinggis Khan conquered nearly all of Asia in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries,…
transforming the scattered and impoverished Mongols into an exceptionally proud and powerful nation. In this riveting and thoroughly researched portrait, Japan's celebrated epic novelist drives at the root of the khan's great desires and insatiable appetite for supremacy.Beginning with his birth in 1162, The Blue Wolf follows the crucial alliances that led to Chinggis Khan's great campaigns in North China, Bukhara, and Samarkand, as well as the state of Khorazm. The khan was obsessed with his ancestry, not knowing whether he was the descendent of the blue wolf (mythical progenitor of the Mongols and the noble Borjigin line) or merely the bastard son of a Merkid tribesman. For Inoue Yasushi, Chinggis's ancestral anxiety lies at the center of his relentless push for empire. He struggled with his paternity as intensely as he fought his battles, and his victories stood as proof that the brave warrior was a true Mongol. The question of paternity also formed the largest wedge between Chinggis and his eldest son, Jochi, a boy born in captivity and of similarly questionable heritage. Hailed for its sophistication and rich imagining of a remote world, The Blue Wolf puts a human cast on a legendary force that changed Asia and the world.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.