I can’t sing. I never listen to music. I can’t remember where I heard about this book or why I tried the sample, but once I started reading, I could not stop.
Harmon is a master novelist. She invites us into a new world, wraps us up in the characters’ lives, and doesn’t let go. It’s the 1960s U.S., with mobs running the show, with racism running rampant, with lives in danger in so many ways, especially when a white songwriter and a black singer fall in love and decide to marry.
I’m usually a fast reader, but this book took me a long time. I had to stop after every two or three chapters to give myself time to fully absorb the story. When I was done, I had a powerful urge to reread it, an urge I put aside with full intent to reread the book at a…
From the bestselling author of What the Wind Knows and From Sand and Ash comes a powerful love story about a musical duo who put everything on the line to be together.
New York, 1960: For Benny Lament, music is his entire life. With his father's deep ties to the mob, the Bronx piano man has learned that love and family can get you in trouble. So he keeps to himself, writing songs for other musicians, avoiding the spotlight...until the night his father brings him to see Esther Mine sing.
Esther is a petite powerhouse with a gorgeous voice. And…
I first read about Helen Keller when I was in 4th grade. When I took swimming, I had two classmates who were blind like Stevie Wonder because they had been born premature and placed in oxygen-enriched incubators. I became curious about what it was like to live in a dark world. I walked around my house and neighborhood with my eyes closed, learning my way around. I gave a book report to my class about Helen Keller’s autobiography, and my classmates became excited about her, too. I learned to read braille, and proofread books for the blind when I was in junior high. I also learned the deaf sign language hand positions.
Stevie Wonder’s artistry inspired Quincy Troupe to write a poem about his life and songs, about what he believed in, and how he influenced others.
Stevie was born prematurely and placed in an incubator with extra oxygen in the air. The extra oxygen was helpful for his developing lungs, but it damaged his eyes, blinding him. He discovered his love of music early. His family and neighbors recognized his talent and told others.
Motown released his first album when he was 12. His sense of love and joy has influenced the world. This book is both a tribute and a work of art in itself.
Eleven-year-old Stevland Judkins Morris Hardaway hit the big time when he signed a Motown recording contract. At the age of thirteen, Little Stevie Wonder had millions of fans dancing to the number-one song in the nation.
Little Stevie Wonder is the true story of a boy who lost his sight shortly after birth, grew up in Detroit, Michigan, and became one of the twentieth century’s most creative and influential musicians—an instrumentalist, singer, songwriter, musical innovator, and cultural activist.
Here in Quincy Troupe’s joyful poem and Lisa Cohen’s vibrant art is an uplifting celebration of life, peace, and music.
When I used to pick up my youngest from elementary school, instead of asking about her day, I’d say, “Tell me your stories.” Her stories always ended with, “And in my head I said…” After laughing at all her unspoken responses, I finally started to tease, “You’re really funny in your head.” That’s me too. She and I see the world as a cartoon for entertainment. I don’t have the comedic timing to say my funny thoughts aloud, but they transfer well to paper where I can share them with readers. And I still look for stories from people who are funny in their head.
I’m a sucker for a great ending, and this book offers the best. Though the beginning is pretty great, as well. Paige is a fish out of water when she heads from Chicago to Sydney, Australia to work for a mega-church even though she’s become jaded against organized religion. She doesn’t realize the guy she’s instantly attracted to on the flight overseas is the pastor’s son. To make things worse, Josh has an ex who abused alcohol, so when Paige barfs on his shoes, he suspects she’s inebriated even though she’s simply airsick. When forced to work together, they assume the worst of each other in spite of grudging respect and growing attraction. These characters are absolutely enjoyable, though be prepared to go through some tough stuff with them too.
RITA Award 2018 Winner - Romance with Religious or Spiritual Elements Paige McAllister needs to do something drastic. Her boyfriend can't even commit to living in the same country, her promised promotion is dead on arrival and the simultaneous loss of her brother and her dream of being a concert violinist has kept her playing life safe and predictable for six years. Things need to change. A moment of temporary insanity finds her leaving her life in Chicago to move to Sydney, Australia. There she finds herself, against many of her convictions, as a logistics planner for one of Australia's…
When Sir Terry passed away in 2015, I was devastated. I
met him once at a book signing in Denver. The only person I’ve ever seen live
that got more laughs per minute while on stage was George Carlin. Sir Terry was
this beautiful, mischievous presence.
There were a few of his books that I
hadn’t read that I held off on reading because I wanted to save them. I’ve read
all of the Discworld novels several times, or so I thought. I thought this book was a stand-alone that wasn’t based in the Discworld. When I
realized it was a Discworld novel, I couldn’t put it down. I read it all in one
sitting. It was like receiving a letter from a beloved, long-past uncle.
Every town on Discworld knows the stories about rats and pipers, and Maurice - a streetwise tomcat - leads a band of educated ratty friends (and a stupid kid) on a nice little earner. Piper plus rats equals lots and lots of money.
Until they run across someone playing a different tune.
Now he and his rats must learn a new concept: evil . . .
I grew up on the movies of John Hughes and Cameron Crowe, the writing of Nora Ephron, and every YA, horror, and adventure novel I could devour. I’m a YA novelist and still heavily influenced by the stories that shaped my young brain and perspective. There is something about the teenage experience that compels me. Maybe it’s that everything we feel as teenagers is so visceral, exhilarating, and scary. If you’re a teen, these five books should help you feel more seen or give you that little bit of escape that you crave (and deserve).
Tegan and Sara zero in on their high school years to perform an autopsy on that formative period where we find our passion, discover ourselves, and fall in love in sometimes unexpected ways. I’m around the same age as the authors and this book was like walking back in time to those weird years where everything was both exciting and scary. It skimps on the normal musician bio tropes to give an honest look at being a teenager in the 1990s. I also couldn’t help but think of My So-Called Life while reading High School. If you’re unfamiliar with this series, trust me, it’s a compliment.
From iconic musicians Tegan and Sara comes a nostalgic memoir about high school, detailing their first loves and first songs in a compelling look back at their origin story.
'Genius' Augusten Burroughs, author of Running with Scissors 'A gift' Elliot Page, actor 'Utterly charming' Carmen Maria Machado, author of Her Body and Other Parties
Before they became international musicians and LGBTQ+ icons, twin sisters Sara and Tegan Quin came of age in 90s Canada. They argued relentlessly, skipped school, dropped acid and fell in and out of love - sometimes with their best friends.
I’m a Professor of Cultural Sociology at Edinburgh, UK, and have written extensively on contemporary culture and particularly technological mediations of popular music. I have undertaken empirical research on cultures of popular music in places like Iceland, Japan, and the UK, and I have supervised around 25 doctoral students to successful completion. My work is widely cited in the field of cultural sociology, and I am regularly interviewed by national broadcasters and the press. I’m also an amateur musician, making homespun electronic music in my bedroom and releasing it under the monikers Sponge Monkeys and Triviax.
I wasn’t expecting this! One of the most gifted and quirky songsmiths of the age, the lead singer of art pop band The Talking Heads no less, turns his attention to the technological evolution of music.
I found profound insight and erudition on every page, but it’s not preachy or overly auto-biographical. Instead, Byrne limns out the changing shapes of music and how it comes into being in composition, performance, and education. He is as much at ease with Hume and Adorno as he is with scales, harmonies, and DJ culture, and the payoff is enormous.
Whenever I pick this book up, which is regularly, it takes me on unexpected journeys and provokes new ideas. My favorite quote on the creative process: “The idea is to allow the chthonic material the freedom it needs to gurgle up.”
How Music Works is David Byrne's buoyant celebration of a subject he has spent a lifetime thinking about.
Equal parts historian and anthropologist, raconteur and social scientist, Byrne draws on his own work over the years with Talking Heads, Brian Eno, and his myriad collaborators - along with journeys to Wagnerian opera houses, African villages, and anywhere music exists - to show that music-making is not just the act of a solitary composer in a studio, but rather a logical, populist, and beautiful result of cultural circumstance.
A brainy, irresistible adventure, How Music Works is an impassioned argument about music's…
I've always loved history and it was the subject I took my degree in. After a career in business I've come back to history. I have an interest in how Britain has shaped our world; it has influenced more parts of the world than any other nation, sometimes for the better, but often for the worse. Jerusalem is the most pivotal city in the world and Britain has played a role in its long history. One part of this history is what led me to tell the story of an incredible British-led expedition to Jerusalem at the start of the 20th century, which sought the Ark of the Covenant.
Wasif Jawhariyyeh was a musician and composer belonging to the Greek
Orthodox community of Jerusalem who lived in the city during the late
Ottoman and Mandatory eras.
He was acquainted with many of the
ruling families in the city and worked within the British
administration. This book chronicles his life and provides a vivid
depiction of the city throughout the Ottoman and Mandate periods until
1948 when he went into exile.
The book offers a captivating
perspective on the lives of the city's inhabitants during those times
and the amalgamation of diverse populations. Jawhariyyeh occasionally
reminisces through a nostalgic lens, suggesting that issues between
various groups only arose after the British arrival.
Nonetheless, the book provides an insightful and engaging glimpse into the city's social fabric.
The memoirs of Wasif Jawhariyyeh are a remarkable treasure trove of writings on the life, culture, music, and history of Jerusalem. Spanning over four decades, from 1904 to 1948, they cover a period of enormous and turbulent change in Jerusalem's history, but change lived and recalled from the daily vantage point of the street storyteller. Oud player, music lover and ethnographer, poet, collector, partygoer, satirist, civil servant, local historian, devoted son, husband, father, and person of faith, Wasif viewed the life of his city through multiple roles and lenses. The result is a vibrant, unpredictable, sprawling collection of anecdotes, observations,…
I can’t imagine going through a day without listening to music. I remember buying my first Beatles album at eight years old. I saw Elvis on his last tour, Whitney Houston on her first, and Barbra Streisand on her comeback tour—twice. I remember listening to “Kind of Blue” the first time. I remember seeing Ella Fitzgerald late in her career at a club in Houston; her body was failing her—she had to sit in a chair to sing—but her voice was as beautiful as ever. Of all the artists I’ve admired over the years, the one whose work has consistently spoken to me most profoundly is Billie Holiday.
One of the treasures of American show business is Hazel Scott. A child prodigy on piano who attended Julliard, a headliner at Café Society thanks to Billie Holiday’s mentorship, and eventually the wife of Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., she was the first African American to host her own television show, “The Hazel Scott Show,” in 1950.
A confrontation with the House Un-American Activities Committee prompted the cancellation of her network show, which led her to go into a kind of exile in Paris where she set up a salon that saw as guests everyone from Lester Young to the Beatles.
Karen Chilton vividly documents the life and times of the singer in this book. I love the book because it captures the artistry of a true original. In the future, more attention should be paid to Hazel Scott, who has become show business history’s forgotten genius.
Hazel Scott was an important figure in the later part of the Black renaissance onward. Even in an era where there was limited mainstream recognition of Black Stars, Hazel Scott's talent stood out and she is still fondly remembered by a large segment of the community. I am pleased to see her legend honored. ---Melvin Van Peebles, filmmaker and director""This book is really, really important. It comprises a lot of history---of culture, race, gender, and America. In many ways, Hazel's story is the story of the twentieth century."" ---Murray Horwitz, NPR commentator and coauthor ofAin't Misbehavin'""Karen Chilton has deftly woven…
Music has been a passion ever since I joined my mother’s hippie jam sessions as a toddler. During my 17 years as a professional cellist-in-training, I tried Yo-Yo Ma’s Stradivarius and played Pachelbel’s Canon at a gazillion weddings. I even made it to Carnegie Hall, performing in a university orchestra on the gilded stage. But injuries, both physical and psychological, put an end to my classical music career. Trying to forget my cello years, I entered journalism, eventually becoming a staff health reporter at Canada’s national newspaper, The Globe and Mail. Later, when a percussion workshop triggered a dramatic shift in my perspective, I answered the call to explore music in a more expansive way.
Natalie Hodges had me at stage fright and quantum physics.
In poignant descriptions of her life as a violinist-in-training, I recognized a kindred tormented soul. Both of us abandoned classical music in our 20s, drained by the dilemma she so aptly articulates: “Why keep trying to love something that doesn’t love you back.” But Hodges’s relationship to music, like mine, did not end there.
Moving beyond painful memories, she dances between the hard and soft sciences to reveal the interplay of music, improvisation, and elastic time. The book itself is a virtuosic riff on personal reinvention.
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD LONGLIST NPR "BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR" SELECTION NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS' CHOICE
A virtuosic debut from a gifted violinist searching for a new mode of artistic becoming
How does time shape consciousness and consciousness, time? Do we live in time, or does time live in us? And how does music, with its patterns of rhythm and harmony, inform our experience of time?
Uncommon Measure explores these questions from the perspective of a young Korean American who dedicated herself to perfecting her art until performance anxiety forced her to give up the dream of becoming a concert…
When I was a kid, I knew that my gender was different. I didn’t feel like a boy or a girl, but I didn’t know the word “nonbinary.” There were no kid’s books about people like me. I grew up with a lot of questions, which drove me to become a doctor of Women’s and Gender Studies and an expert on transgender history. Now I’m passionate about writing the kind of picture books that I needed as a child. If you want the kids in your life to understand transgender identity and feel loved whatever their gender may be, you’ll enjoy the books on my list.
I love lyrical picture books with colorful illustrations. If you do too, you’ll enjoy The Boy & the Bindi. Vivek Shraya tells the story of a boy who wants to wear a bindi, the red dot Southeast Asian women often wear on their foreheads to show where creation began. Instead of chastising him for wanting to do something reserved for women, the boy’s mother welcomes him into the beauty of the bindi, explaining its significance. This book does a wonderful job of meeting children who are exploring their gender exactly where they are.
In this beautiful children’s picture book by Vivek Shraya, author of the acclaimed God Loves Hair, a five-year-old South Asian boy becomes fascinated with his mother’s bindi, the red dot commonly worn by Hindu women to indicate the point at which creation begins, and wishes to have one of his own. Rather than chastise her son, she agrees to it, and teaches him about its cultural significance, allowing the boy to discover the magic of the bindi, which in turn gives him permission to be more fully himself.
Beautifully illustrated by Rajni Perera, The Boy & the Bindi is a…
