The Crying Book

The Crying Book
Author: Heather Christle
Publisher: Catapult
Total Pages: 208
Release: 2019-11-05
Genre: Family & Relationships
ISBN: 1948226456

This bestselling "lyrical, moving book: part essay, part memoir, part surprising cultural study" is an examination of why we cry, how we cry, and what it means to cry from a woman on the cusp of motherhood confronting her own depression (The New York Times Book Review). Heather Christle has just lost a dear friend to suicide and now must reckon with her own depression and the birth of her first child. As she faces her grief and impending parenthood, she decides to research the act of crying: what it is and why people do it, even if they rarely talk about it. Along the way, she discovers an artist who designed a frozen–tear–shooting gun and a moth that feeds on the tears of other animals. She researches tear–collecting devices (lachrymatories) and explores the role white women’s tears play in racist violence. Honest, intelligent, rapturous, and surprising, Christle’s investigations look through a mosaic of science, history, and her own lived experience to find new ways of understanding life, loss, and mental illness. The Crying Book is a deeply personal tribute to the fascinating strangeness of tears and the unexpected resilience of joy.

Songs in the Key of My Life

Songs in the Key of My Life
Author: Ferentz Lafargue
Publisher: Crown Archetype
Total Pages: 194
Release: 2010-02-10
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 030749795X

“Music is a world within itself, with a language we all understand.” —Stevie Wonder, “Sir Duke” In 2003, young professor Ferentz LaFargue traveled to Paris, where his fiancée, Tricia, declared she wasn’t happy with their relationship, ending what he thought was a wonderful engagement. After days of “craying”—“that sorrow-laden blend of crying and praying delivered in perfect pitch by those in mourning”—Ferentz happened upon Stevie Wonder’s 1976 classic double album Songs in the Key of Life. Listening to it anew was a healing, spiritual trip down memory lane, helping him to come to terms with his breakup and reflect on how songs in general have been linked to his life. In this book, Ferentz invites us to get cozy and listen as he hits PLAY on meaningful tracks from Wonder and others, including Lauryn Hill, Wyclef Jean, LL Cool J, Beenie Man, Sheryl Crow, Roberta Flack, Donny Hathaway, and Black Sabbath. He recalls: How the fusion of rock and rap in the breakthrough Run-D.M.C./Aerosmith video “Walk This Way” helped to change an adolescent Ferentz from outcast to authority figure How Michael Jackson’s Thriller brought back a traumatic childhood experience How Kanye West’s “Jesus Walks” speaks to the tension between his Christian beliefs and his need to rip it up in clubs as a hip-hop head In the tradition of Nick Hornby’s Songbook¸ these words paint a portrait of a life framed by sounds, allowing all of us to think about what songs have been key in our own lives.

Behind the Muse

Behind the Muse
Author: Bill DeMain
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2001
Genre: Composers
ISBN: 9780967597324

From Promise to Peril

From Promise to Peril
Author: James Allen
Publisher: FriesenPress
Total Pages: 329
Release: 2021-03-12
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1525586661

The upwardly mobile Landesburg family sells off their modest German dairy farm to seek financial success in early-twentieth century Berlin, where their son Sigmund eventually graduates from a prestigious medical school. Sigmund’s medical practice thrives and together with his wife Marissa, the great granddaughter of Otto von Bismarck, they rise to social prominence. As a dramatic symbol of his love, Sigmund gifts Marissa with a beautiful, uniquely crafted diamond and sapphire ring to be passed down through following generations. As she grows up, Sigmund and Marissa’s daughter, Anna, an intellectual prodigy, becomes fast friends with another gifted young woman, Marta, who is to become a world-renowned violin virtuoso. By the 1930s, the rise of Nazism has begun, and the Jewish Anna and gentile Marta find themselves and their families swept into the riptide of history. From Promise to Peril: A Family Saga is the first book in the trilogy Tracks of Our Tears, which traces the Landesburgs through overwhelming obstacles as they face escalating persecution and must struggle to protect their family from the tyranny and violence that begins to surround them. A gripping, meticulously researched melding of fiction and little-known historical facts, this amazing story offers a vivid perspective on the Nazi menace through the eyes of two brilliant young women who must seize their own power to survive.

Standing in the Shadows of Motown

Standing in the Shadows of Motown
Author: James Jamerson
Publisher: Hal Leonard Corporation
Total Pages: 212
Release: 1989
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780881888829

(Guitar Book). Bassist James Jamerson was the embodiment of the Motown spirit and groove the invisible entity whose playing inspired thousands. His tumultuous life and musical brilliance are explored in depth through hundreds of interviews, 49 transcribed musical scores, two hours of recorded all-star performances, and more than 50 rarely seen photos in this stellar tribute to behind-the-scenes Motown. Features a 120-minute CD! Allan Slutsky's 2002 documentary of the same name is the winner of the New York Film Critics "Best Documentary of the Year" award!

Crossing the Tracks

Crossing the Tracks
Author: Barbara Stuber
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 274
Release: 2010-07-06
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
ISBN: 1416997059

At fifteen, Iris is a hobo of sorts—no home, no family, no plan. Her mother died when she was six, and her selfish father hires her out as a companion to a country doctor’s elderly mother. Iris, stuck in the middle of 1920s rural Missouri, discovers that "hobo" is short for "homeward bound," and cultivates an eccentric cast of folks into family, creating the home she never had. But when she learns that a neighboring tenant farmer may have had more than his hands on his pregnant daughter, Iris must intervene to save the girl and her unborn baby. The many facets of what makes a family are illuminated with warmth and charm in this beautifully crafted tale.

Stuart Adamson

Stuart Adamson
Author: Allan Glen
Publisher: Birlinn
Total Pages: 292
Release: 2011-05-01
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0857900269

The book that fans of the Skids, Big Country and the Raphaels have been waiting for - a critical perspective not only of Adamson's music and its wider cultural influence, but also the excesses of fame and how the music business really works. Stuart Adamson: In A Big Country tells the story of how a teenager who was raised in a small Fife village released his first single at 19, wrote three Top 40 albums in the next three years and was written off as a has-been at 23, but then went on to form a new band and sell more than 10 million records worldwide, touring with the Rolling Stones and David Bowie. Although Adamson was one of the most respected and popular figures in the music industry, his personal life was complex and ultimately tragic, ending with his alcohol-fuelled suicide in a Hawaiian hotel in December 2001.

Claudette's Miraculous Motown Adventure

Claudette's Miraculous Motown Adventure
Author: Claudette Robinson
Publisher:
Total Pages: 42
Release: 2019-09-02
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 9781943343034

As an original member of The Miracles, the first act to sign with Berry Gordy's Tamla/Motown Records, Claudette Robinson was also the iconic label's very first female artist. In 1960, The Miracles' "Shop Around" became Tamla/Motown's first million-seller, prompting Mr. Gordy to bestow a special official title on Claudette: "The First Lady of Motown." Born Claudette Annette Rogers in New Orleans, Louisiana, she was bright and adventurous. At a very young age she embraced her grandmother's Christian values and service to her church when she sang in the choir. Claudette's family relocated to Detroit, Michigan where she excelled academically with honors and graduated from Commerce High School at the young age of 15. At age 16, she attended Wayne State University through her sophomore year of college, before joining the United States Marine Corps Reserves, where she was a member of the Rifle Team with accomplished sharpshooter status. Claudette always had a love for music, and in her free time, she sang with several female groups and performed in local talent shows in the Detroit area. While her brother Emerson "Sonny" Rogers was away serving in the Army, his Matadors groupmate was William "Smokey" Robinson. Claudette was a member of their sister group, the Matadorettes. As fate would have it, they met Motown founder Berry Gordy in 1957. A friendship and partnership was created that has thrived for more than 60 years. Claudette and her groupmates William "Smokey" Robinson, Warren "Pete" Moore, Ronald "Ronnie" White, and Robert "Bobby" Rogers became The Miracles. Their first Tamla single, "Got A Job," was released on February 19, 1958. During The Miracles' six-decade career, the group has sold more than 60 million records to date. Four Miracles hits -- "The Tracks of My Tears," "Ooo Baby Baby," "Shop Around," and "You've Really Got a Hold on Me"-- have been selected by the National Recording Preservation Board for the United States Library of Congress' National Recording Registry, which honors and preserves culturally, historically and aesthetically significant American recordings. These same four Miracles songs have also been inducted into the GRAMMY(R) Hall of Fame, honoring recordings of lasting qualitative or historical significance. In 2019, commemorating Motown's 60th Anniversary celebration, Claudette will debut her first children's book entitled: CLAUDETTE'S MIRACULOUS MOTOWN ADVENTURE. The story is a wonderful journey of her adventures as a little girl in the magical kingdom of Motown. Claudette's goal is to inspire and educate children of their music history of the past, so that it will be retained and passed on to future generations. Claudette has enjoyed the wonders of motherhood as a mother of two, (Berry and Tamla), and grandmother of three, (Lyric, Thomas, and Alexis).

My Father's Tears

My Father's Tears
Author: John Updike
Publisher: Random House
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2009-06-02
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0307272028

A sensational collection of stories of the American experience from the Depression to the aftermath of 9/11, by one of the most gifted American writers of the twentieth century and the author of the acclaimed Rabbit series. John Updike mingles narratives of Pennsylvania with stories of New England suburbia and of foreign travel: “Personal Archaeology” considers life as a sequence of half-buried layers, and “The Full Glass” distills a lifetime’s happiness into one brimming moment of an old man’s bedtime routine. High-school class reunions, in “The Walk with Elizanne” and “The Road Home,” restore their hero to youth’s commonwealth where, as the narrator of the title story confides, “the self I value is stored, however infrequently I check on its condition.” Exotic locales encountered in the journeys of adulthood include Morocco, Florida, Spain, Italy, and India. The territory of childhood, with its fundamental, formative mysteries, is explored in “The Guardians,” “The Laughter of the Gods,” and “Kinderszenen.” Love’s fumblings among the bourgeoisie yield the tart comedy of “Free,” “Delicate Wives,” “The Apparition,” and “Outage.”

Other Side of the Tracks

Other Side of the Tracks
Author: Charity Alyse
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 464
Release: 2023-10-17
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
ISBN: 1534497722

This “stirring…emotionally raw” (Publishers Weekly) young adult debut novel about three teens entangled by secret love, open hatred, and the invisible societal constraints wrapped around people both Black and white is perfect for readers of All American Boys and The Hate U Give. There is an unspoken agreement between the racially divided towns of Bayside and Hamilton: no one steps over the train tracks that divide them. Or else. Not until Zach Whitman anyway, a white boy who moves in from Philly and who dreams of music. When he follows his dream across the tracks to meet his idol, the famous jazz musician who owns The Sunlight Record Shop in Hamilton, he’s flung into Capri Collins’s path. Capri has big plans: she wants to follow her late mother’s famous footsteps, dancing her way onto Broadway, and leaving this town for good, just like her older brother, Justin, is planning to do when he goes off to college next year. As sparks fly, Zach and Capri realize that they can help each other turn hope into a reality, even if it means crossing the tracks to do it. But one tragic night changes everything. When Justin’s friend, the star of Hamilton’s football team, is murdered by a white Bayside police officer, the long-standing feud between Bayside and Hamilton becomes an all-out war. And Capri, Justin, and Zach are right in the middle of it.