Download or read book The Wisdom of the Shire written by Noble Smith and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2012-10-30 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Wisdom of the Shire, Noble Smith sheds a light on the life-changing ideas tucked away inside the classic works of J. R. R. Tolkien and his most beloved creation—the stouthearted Hobbits. How can simple pleasures such as gardening, taking long walks, and eating delicious meals with friends make you significantly happier? Why is the act of giving presents on your birthday instead of getting them such a revolutionary idea? What should you do when dealing with the Gollum in your life? And how can we carry the burden of our own "magic ring of power" without becoming devoured by it? The Wisdom of the Shire holds the answers to these and more of life's essential questions.

Download or read book The Rolling Stones All the Songs written by Philippe Margotin and published by Black Dog & Leventhal. This book was released on 2016-10-25 with total page 1024 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Comprehensive visual history of the "World's Greatest Rock & Roll Band" as told through the recording of their monumental catalog, including 29 studio and 24 compilation albums, and more than a hundred singles. Since 1963, The Rolling Stones have been recording and touring, selling more than 200 million records worldwide. While much is known about this iconic group, few books provide a comprehensive history of their time in the studio. In The Rolling Stones All the Songs, authors Margotin and Guesdon describe the origin of their 340 released songs, details from the recording studio, what instruments were used, and behind-the-scenes stories of the great artists who contributed to their tracks. Organized chronologically by album, this massive, 704-page hardcover begins with their 1963 eponymous debut album recorded over five days at the Regent Studio in London; through their collaboration with legendary producer Jimmy Miller in the ground-breaking albums from 1968 to 1973; to their later work with Don Was, who has produced every album since Voodoo Lounge. Packed with more than 500 photos, All the Songs is also filled with stories fans treasure, such as how the mobile studio they pioneered was featured in Deep Purple's classic song "Smoke on the Water" or how Keith Richards used a cassette recording of an acoustic guitar to get the unique riff on "Street Fighting Man."

Download or read book The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci Complete written by Leonardo da Vinci and published by Library of Alexandria. This book was released on 2020-09-28 with total page 1118 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A singular fatality has ruled the destiny of nearly all the most famous of Leonardo da Vinci's works. Two of the three most important were never completed, obstacles having arisen during his life-time, which obliged him to leave them unfinished; namely the Sforza Monument and the Wall-painting of the Battle of Anghiari, while the third—the picture of the Last Supper at Milan—has suffered irremediable injury from decay and the repeated restorations to which it was recklessly subjected during the XVIIth and XVIIIth centuries. Nevertheless, no other picture of the Renaissance has become so wellknown and popular through copies of every description. Vasari says, and rightly, in his Life of Leonardo, "that he laboured much more by his word than in fact or by deed", and the biographer evidently had in his mind the numerous works in Manuscript which have been preserved to this day. To us, now, it seems almost inexplicable that these valuable and interesting original texts should have remained so long unpublished, and indeed forgotten. It is certain that during the XVIth and XVIIth centuries their exceptional value was highly appreciated. This is proved not merely by the prices which they commanded, but also by the exceptional interest which has been attached to the change of ownership of merely a few pages of Manuscript. That, notwithstanding this eagerness to possess the Manuscripts, their contents remained a mystery, can only be accounted for by the many and great difficulties attending the task of deciphering them. The handwriting is so peculiar that it requires considerable practice to read even a few detached phrases, much more to solve with any certainty the numerous difficulties of alternative readings, and to master the sense as a connected whole. Vasari observes with reference to Leonardos writing: "he wrote backwards, in rude characters, and with the left hand, so that any one who is not practised in reading them, cannot understand them". The aid of a mirror in reading reversed handwriting appears to me available only for a first experimental reading. Speaking from my own experience, the persistent use of it is too fatiguing and inconvenient to be practically advisable, considering the enormous mass of Manuscripts to be deciphered. And as, after all, Leonardo's handwriting runs backwards just as all Oriental character runs backwards—that is to say from right to left—the difficulty of reading direct from the writing is not insuperable. This obvious peculiarity in the writing is not, however, by any means the only obstacle in the way of mastering the text. Leonardo made use of an orthography peculiar to himself; he had a fashion of amalgamating several short words into one long one, or, again, he would quite arbitrarily divide a long word into two separate halves; added to this there is no punctuation whatever to regulate the division and construction of the sentences, nor are there any accents—and the reader may imagine that such difficulties were almost sufficient to make the task seem a desperate one to a beginner. It is therefore not surprising that the good intentions of some of Leonardo s most reverent admirers should have failed.

Download or read book All The Songs written by Philippe Margotin and published by Hachette+ORM. This book was released on 2012-03-20 with total page 769 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this lively and fully-illustrated work, two music historians break down every album and every song ever released by the Beatles, from "Please Please Me" (U.S. 1963) to "The Long and Winding Road" (U.S. 1970). All the Songs delves deep into the history and origins of the Beatles and their music. This first-of-its-kind book draws upon decades of research, as music historians Margotin and Guesdon recount the circumstances that led to the composition of every song, the recording process, and the instruments used. Here, we learn that one of John Lennon's favorite guitars was a 1958 Rickenbacker 325 Capri, which he bought for £100 in 1960 in Hamburg, Germany. We also learn that "Love Me Do," recorded in Abbey Road Studios in September 1962, took 18 takes to get right, even though it was one of the first songs John and Paul ever wrote together. And the authors reveal that when the Beatles performed "I Want to Hold Your Hand" on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964, John's microphone wasn't turned on, so viewers heard only Paul singing. The hundreds of photographs throughout the book include rare black-and-white publicity stills, images of Beatles instruments, and engaging shots of the musicians in-studio. All the Songs is the must-have book for the any true Beatles fan.

Download or read book Leave Me Alone I m Reading written by Maureen Corrigan and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2007-12-18 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this delightful memoir, the book critic for NPR’s Fresh Air reflects on her life as a professional reader. Maureen Corrigan takes us from her unpretentious girlhood in working-class Queens, to her bemused years in an Ivy League Ph.D. program, from the whirl of falling in love and marrying (a fellow bookworm, of course), to the ordeal of adopting a baby overseas, always with a book at her side. Along the way, she reveals which books and authors have shaped her own life—from classic works of English literature to hard-boiled detective novels, and everything in between. And in her explorations of the heroes and heroines throughout literary history, Corrigan’s love for a good story shines.

Download or read book Dragon Slayer written by Rosemary Sutcliff and published by Puffin. This book was released on 1966 with total page 107 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of Beowulf's life, his battle with the monster Grendel, and his death after a fight with a dragon.

Download or read book Crimes Committed by Terrorist Groups written by Mark S. Hamm and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on 2011 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a print on demand edition of a hard to find publication. Examines terrorists¿ involvement in a variety of crimes ranging from motor vehicle violations, immigration fraud, and mfg. illegal firearms to counterfeiting, armed bank robbery, and smuggling weapons of mass destruction. There are 3 parts: (1) Compares the criminality of internat. jihad groups with domestic right-wing groups. (2) Six case studies of crimes includes trial transcripts, official reports, previous scholarship, and interviews with law enforce. officials and former terrorists are used to explore skills that made crimes possible; or events and lack of skill that the prevented crimes. Includes brief bio. of the terrorists along with descriptions of their org., strategies, and plots. (3) Analysis of the themes in closing arguments of the transcripts in Part 2. Illus.

Download or read book Plum and Jaggers written by Susan Shreve and published by Farrar Straus Giroux. This book was released on 2000 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The McWilliams family troupe rises from open-mike venues to small comedy clubs to a late-night television slot, creating a stir - and unwittingly exposing the family to new dangers that cost Sam his resilient wit and threaten his sanity."--BOOK JACKET.

Download or read book Elton John s Blue Moves written by Matthew Restall and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2020-05-14 with total page 157 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By 1976, Elton John was the best-selling recording artist and the highest-grossing touring act in the world. With seven #1 albums in a row and a reputation as a riveting piano-pounding performer, the former Reggie Dwight had gone with dazzling speed from the London suburbs to the pinnacles of rock stardom, his songs never leaving the charts, his sold-out shows packed with adoring fans. Then he released Blue Moves, and it all came crashing down. Was the commercially disappointing and poorly reviewed double album to blame? Can one album shoot down a star? No, argues Matthew Restall; Blue Moves is a four-sided masterpiece, as fantastic as Captain Fantastic, as colorful as Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, a showcase for the three elements--piano-playing troubadour, full orchestra, rock band--with which Elton John and his collaborators redirected the evolution of popular music. Instead, both album and career were derailed by a perfect storm of circumstances: Elton's decisions to stop touring and start his own label; the turbulent shiftings of popular culture in the punk era; the minefield of attitudes toward celebrity and sexuality. The closer we get to Blue Moves, the better we understand the world into which it was born--and vice versa. Might that be true of all albums?

Download or read book Jubilee Hitchhiker written by William Hjortsberg and published by Catapult. This book was released on 2012-04-01 with total page 1454 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Confident and robust, Jubilee Hitchhiker is an comprehensive biography of late novelist and poet Richard Brautigan, author of Troutfishing in America and A Confederate General from Big Sur, among many others. When Brautigan took his own life in September of 1984 his close friends and network of artists and writers were devastated though not entirely surprised. To many, Brautigan was shrouded in enigma, erratic and unpredictable in his habits and presentation. But his career was formidable, an inspiration to young writers like Hjortsberg trying to get their start. Brautigan's career wove its way through both the Beat–influenced San Francisco Renaissance in the 1950s and the "Flower Power" hippie movement of the 1960s; while he never claimed direct artistic involvement with either period, Jubilee Hitchhiker also delves deeply into the spirited times in which he lived. As Hjortsberg guides us through his search to uncover Brautigan as a man the reader is pulled deeply into the writer's world. Ultimately this is a work that seeks to connect the Brautigan known to his fans with the man who ended his life so abruptly in 1984 while revealing the close ties between his writing and the actual events of his life. Part history, part biography, and part memoir this etches the portrait of a man destroyed by his genius.

Download or read book The Annotated Mona Lisa written by Carol Strickland and published by Andrews McMeel Publishing. This book was released on 2007-10 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Like music, art is a universal language. Although looking at works of art is a pleasurable enough experience, to appreciate them fully requires certain skills and knowledge." --Carol Strickland, from the introduction to The Annotated Mona Lisa: A Crash Course in Art History from Prehistoric to Post-Modern * This heavily illustrated crash course in art history is revised and updated. This second edition of Carol Strickland's The Annotated Mona Lisa: A Crash Course in Art History from Prehistoric to Post-Modern offers an illustrated tutorial of prehistoric to post-modern art from cave paintings to video art installations to digital and Internet media. * Featuring succinct page-length essays, instructive sidebars, and more than 300 photographs, The Annotated Mona Lisa: A Crash Course in Art History from Prehistoric to Post-Modern takes art history out of the realm of dreary textbooks, demystifies jargon and theory, and makes art accessible-even at a cursory reading. * From Stonehenge to the Guggenheim and from Holbein to Warhol, more than 25,000 years of art is distilled into five sections covering a little more than 200 pages.

Download or read book One Last Stop written by Casey McQuiston and published by St. Martin's Griffin. This book was released on 2021-06-01 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER* *INSTANT USA TODAY BESTSELLER* *INSTANT #1 INDIE BESTSELLER* From the New York Times bestselling author of Red, White & Royal Blue comes a new romantic comedy that will stop readers in their tracks... For cynical twenty-three-year-old August, moving to New York City is supposed to prove her right: that things like magic and cinematic love stories don’t exist, and the only smart way to go through life is alone. She can’t imagine how waiting tables at a 24-hour pancake diner and moving in with too many weird roommates could possibly change that. And there’s certainly no chance of her subway commute being anything more than a daily trudge through boredom and electrical failures. But then, there’s this gorgeous girl on the train. Jane. Dazzling, charming, mysterious, impossible Jane. Jane with her rough edges and swoopy hair and soft smile, showing up in a leather jacket to save August’s day when she needed it most. August’s subway crush becomes the best part of her day, but pretty soon, she discovers there’s one big problem: Jane doesn’t just look like an old school punk rocker. She’s literally displaced in time from the 1970s, and August is going to have to use everything she tried to leave in her own past to help her. Maybe it’s time to start believing in some things, after all. Casey McQuiston’s One Last Stop is a magical, sexy, big-hearted romance where the impossible becomes possible as August does everything in her power to save the girl lost in time. "A dazzling romance, filled with plenty of humor and heart." - Time Magazine, "The 21 Most Anticipated Books of 2021" "Dreamy, other worldly, smart, swoony, thoughtful, hilarious - all in all, exactly what you'd expect from Casey McQuiston!" - Jasmine Guillory, New York Times bestselling author of The Proposal and Party for Two

Download or read book Casanova s Chinese Restaurant written by Anthony Powell and published by Random House. This book was released on 2011-01-11 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'He is, as Proust was before him, the great literary chronicler of his culture in his time.' GUARDIAN 'A Dance to the Music of Time' is universally acknowledged as one of the great works of English literature. Reissued now in this definitive edition, it stands ready to delight and entrance a new generation of readers. In this fifth volume, Nick Jenkins finally seems to be settling down and enjoying the life he has made for himself in London. However, the same cannot be said of his friends, who are each dealing with their own drama and heartache. The composer Hugh Moreland is risking his marriage for a pointless affair, while, Nick’s old school pal Stringham has nearly destroyed himself with drink. But with the rumblings of war getting louder and nearer, the future is starting to look uncertain for all of them.

Download or read book A Memory of Ice written by Elizabeth Truswell and published by ANU Press. This book was released on 2019-08-01 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the southern summer of 1972/73, the Glomar Challenger was the first vessel of the international Deep Sea Drilling Project to venture into the seas surrounding Antarctica, confronting severe weather and ever-present icebergs. A Memory of Ice presents the science and the excitement of that voyage in a manner readable for non-scientists. Woven into the modern story is the history of early explorers, scientists and navigators who had gone before into the Southern Ocean. The departure of the Glomar Challenger from Fremantle took place 100 years after the HMS Challenger weighed anchor from Portsmouth, England, at the start of its four-year voyage, sampling and dredging the world’s oceans. Sailing south, the Glomar Challenger crossed the path of James Cook’s HMS Resolution, then on its circumnavigation of Antarctica in search of the Great South Land. Encounters with Lieutenant Charles Wilkes of the US Exploring Expedition and Douglas Mawson of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition followed. In the Ross Sea, the voyages of the HMS Erebus and HMS Terror under James Clark Ross, with the young Joseph Hooker as botanist, were ever present. The story of the Glomar Challenger’s iconic voyage is largely told through the diaries of the author, then a young scientist experiencing science at sea for the first time. It weaves together the physical history of Antarctica with how we have come to our current knowledge of the polar continent. This is an attractive, lavishly illustrated and curiosity-satisfying read for the general public as well as for scholars of science.

Download or read book Postwar written by Tony Judt and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2006-09-05 with total page 1000 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize • Winner of the Council on Foreign Relations Arthur Ross Book Award • One of the New York Times' Ten Best Books of the Year “Impressive . . . Mr. Judt writes with enormous authority.” —The Wall Street Journal “Magisterial . . . It is, without a doubt, the most comprehensive, authoritative, and yes, readable postwar history.” —The Boston Globe Almost a decade in the making, this much-anticipated grand history of postwar Europe from one of the world's most esteemed historians and intellectuals is a singular achievement. Postwar is the first modern history that covers all of Europe, both east and west, drawing on research in six languages to sweep readers through thirty-four nations and sixty years of political and cultural change-all in one integrated, enthralling narrative. Both intellectually ambitious and compelling to read, thrilling in its scope and delightful in its small details, Postwar is a rare joy. Judt's book, Ill Fares the Land, republished in 2021 featuring a new preface by bestselling author of Between the World and Me and The Water Dancer, Ta-Nehisi Coates.

Download or read book The Emperor of All Maladies written by Siddhartha Mukherjee and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2011-08-09 with total page 624 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and a documentary from Ken Burns on PBS, this New York Times bestseller is “an extraordinary achievement” (The New Yorker)—a magnificent, profoundly humane “biography” of cancer—from its first documented appearances thousands of years ago through the epic battles in the twentieth century to cure, control, and conquer it to a radical new understanding of its essence. Physician, researcher, and award-winning science writer, Siddhartha Mukherjee examines cancer with a cellular biologist’s precision, a historian’s perspective, and a biographer’s passion. The result is an astonishingly lucid and eloquent chronicle of a disease humans have lived with—and perished from—for more than five thousand years. The story of cancer is a story of human ingenuity, resilience, and perseverance, but also of hubris, paternalism, and misperception. Mukherjee recounts centuries of discoveries, setbacks, victories, and deaths, told through the eyes of his predecessors and peers, training their wits against an infinitely resourceful adversary that, just three decades ago, was thought to be easily vanquished in an all-out “war against cancer.” The book reads like a literary thriller with cancer as the protagonist. Riveting, urgent, and surprising, The Emperor of All Maladies provides a fascinating glimpse into the future of cancer treatments. It is an illuminating book that provides hope and clarity to those seeking to demystify cancer.

Download or read book Dreaming the Beatles written by Rob Sheffield and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2017-04-25 with total page 339 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An NPR Best Book of the Year • Winner of the Virgil Thomson Award for Outstanding Music Criticism “This is the best book about the Beatles ever written” —Mashable Rob Sheffield, the Rolling Stone columnist and bestselling author of Love Is a Mix Tape offers an entertaining, unconventional look at the most popular band in history, the Beatles, exploring what they mean today and why they still matter so intensely to a generation that has never known a world without them. Dreaming the Beatles is not another biography of the Beatles, or a song-by-song analysis of the best of John and Paul. It isn’t another exposé about how they broke up. It isn’t a history of their gigs or their gear. It is a collection of essays telling the story of what this ubiquitous band means to a generation who grew up with the Beatles music on their parents’ stereos and their faces on T-shirts. What do the Beatles mean today? Why are they more famous and beloved now than ever? And why do they still matter so much to us, nearly fifty years after they broke up? As he did in his previous books, Love is a Mix Tape, Talking to Girls About Duran Duran, and Turn Around Bright Eyes, Sheffield focuses on the emotional connections we make to music. This time, he focuses on the biggest pop culture phenomenon of all time—The Beatles. In his singular voice, he explores what the Beatles mean today, to fans who have learned to love them on their own terms and not just for the sake of nostalgia. Dreaming the Beatles tells the story of how four lads from Liverpool became the world’s biggest pop group, then broke up—but then somehow just kept getting bigger. At this point, their music doesn’t belong to the past—it belongs to right now. This book is a celebration of that music, showing why the Beatles remain the world’s favorite thing—and how they invented the future we’re all living in today.