Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview: #1 I had a conversation with Ozawa about the Beethoven Third Piano Concerto in C minor on November 16, 2010. We spent three hours discussing the concerto, and took occasional breaks to prevent Ozawa from tiring. #2 The speech by Bernstein is included in this live recording that I have here. He said that he was conducting the Brahms Piano Concerto according to the interpretation...

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • With the same trademark compassion and erudition he brought to The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Oliver Sacks explores the place music occupies in the brain and how it affects the human condition.
“Powerful and compassionate. . . . A book that not only contributes to our understanding of the elusive magic of music but also illuminates the strange workings, and misfirings, of the human mind.”...

On an eerily warm October evening in a suburb of Detroit, a new father and struggling fantasy novelist named McPhail gazes at a honey locust tree. The sight triggers a memory of the sudden, inexplicable death of Hannah, whom he loved when they were both fourteen. So begins a year-long odyssey, in which McPhail becomes obsessed with recollections of Hannah, puts his job and his marriage in jeopardy, and fears that his "obsolete consciousness" is spiraling...

Berthold Hoeckner is Associate Professor of Music and the Humanities at the University of Chicago. Programming the Absolute discusses the notorious opposition between absolute and program music as a true dialectic that lies at the heart of nineteenth-century German music. Beginning with Beethoven, Berthold Hoeckner traces the aesthetic problem of musical meaning in works by Schumann, Wagner, Liszt, Mahler, and Schoenberg, whose private messages...

"Faith, Hope and Carnage is a book about Nick Cave's inner life created from more than forty hours of intimate conversations with Seán O'Hagan"-- In conversations with O'Hagan, a journalist, Cave explored what drives his life and creativity. Here he examines questions of belief, art, music, freedom, grief, and love. Drawing candidly on his life, his loves, his work ethic and his transformation in recent years, Cave offers ladders of hope and inspiration....

"Taking a cognitive approach to musical meaning, Arnie Cox explores embodied experiences of hearing music as those that move us both consciously and unconsciously. In this pioneering study that draws on neuroscience and music theory, phenomenology and cognitive science, Cox advances his theory of the "mimetic hypothesis," the notion that a large part of our experience and understanding of music involves an embodied imitation in the listener of bodily...

"From the author of Mastered and Dominated comes the third of the Enforcers novels. Kept is the searing story of a woman who finds sanctuary in surrender... He can't change who he is. A horrific childhood has made Silas the man he is today: dangerous, distrustful and demanding. He's lived in self-imposed solitude, convinced that no woman could ever accept his need for absolute control--in business and pleasure. That is, until a young violinist walks...

"The blazing rock opera of the greatest drummer of all-time, Jim Gordon, from the legendary Wrecking Crew to redefining rock on the Seventies' biggest hits and outrageous tours, and ultimately to the most shocking crime in rock history--a story of musical genius, uncontrollable madness, and the big fill. Jim Gordon was the greatest rock drummer of all-time. Just ask the world-famous musicians who played with him--John Lennon, George Harrison, Eric...

"Feisty, passionate Beatrice Steele has never fit the definition of a true lady, according to the strict code of conduct that reigns in Swampshire, her small English township--she is terrible at needlework, has absolutely no musical ability, and her artwork is so bad it frightens people. Nevertheless, she lives a perfectly agreeable life with her marriage-scheming mother, prankster father, and two younger sisters -- beautiful Louisa and forgettable...

Kenn Nesbitt's hilarious poetry is adored by kids. They just can't get enough of the great beats, wonderful imagery, and good ol' belly laughs his poetry contains! With over a hundred poems included, most of them new but some old favorites too, My Hippo Has the Hiccups is a laugh-out-loud good time. The audio CD features lots of the great poem readings and zany humor that make Kenn one of the most widely sought school speakers in the country. From...