High Art

Matt Pinfield is the ultimate music fan. He's the guy who knows every song, artist, and musical riff ever recorded, down to the most obscure band's B-side single on its vinyl-only EP import. As a child, music helped Pinfield make sense of the world. Later he would approach his music idols after concerts and explain why he loved their music. As an adult, rock music inspired his career, fueled relationships, and, at times, became a life raft.

Fifteen years ago, Alice Hoffman received a diagnosis that changed everything about the life she'd been living. Most significant - aside from the grueling physical ordeal she underwent - was the way it changed how she felt inside and what she thought she ought to be doing with her days. Now she has written the book that she needed to read then. In this honest, wise, and upbeat guide, Alice Hoffman provides a road map for the making of one's life into the very best it can be.

In That Time of Year, Garrison Keillor looks back on his life and recounts how a Brethren boy with writerly ambitions grew up in a small town on the Mississippi in the 1950s and, seeing three good friends die young, turned to comedy and radio. Through a series of unreasonable lucky breaks, he founded A Prairie Home Companion and put himself in line for a good life, including mistakes, regrets, and a few medical adventures.

A concentrated study of Johann Sebastian Bach's creative output and greatest pieces, capturing the essence of his art.

Should we still read William Faulkner in this new century? What can his works tell us about the legacy of slavery and the Civil War, that central quarrel in our nation's history? These are the provocative questions that Michael Gorra asks in this historic portrait of the novelist and his world.

Internationally best-selling author Lyndsay Faye became enamored with tales of Sherlock Holmes and his esteemed biographer, Dr. John Watson, as a child and later began spinning these quintessential characters into her own works of fiction - from her acclaimed debut novel, Dust and Shadow, which pitted the famous detective against Jack the Ripper, to a series of short stories for the Strand Magazine, whose predecessor published the very first Sherlock Holmes short story in 1891.

Discover the transformative powers of metallurgy in "The Art of Alchemy in Metalworking." This comprehensive eBook is an intricate mosaic crafted from the most enduring and versatile substances on Earth—metals and their alloys. It's a journey through time, from the ancient forges to the high-tech labs of today, where metals continue to shape our world in countless, unseen ways. Starting from the bedrock of metallurgy, Chapter 1 unveils a sweeping panorama of the alloys that have revolutionized industries and become the silent backbone of modern engineering. Explore the alchemical journey ...

Alexandra Styron's parents—the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Sophie’s Choice and his political activist wife, Rose—were, for half a century, leading players on the world’s cultural stage. Alexandra was raised under both the halo of her father’s brilliance and the long shadow of his troubled mind. Reading My Father portrays the epic sweep of an American artist’s life. It is also a tale of filial love, beautifully written with humor, compassion, and grace.

It began with a handful of East Berlin teens who heard the Sex Pistols on a British military radio broadcast to troops in West Berlin, and it ended with the collapse of the East German dictatorship. Punk rock was a life-changing discovery. The buzz-saw guitars, the messed-up clothing and hair, the rejection of society and the DIY approach to building a new one: In their gray surroundings, where everyone's future was preordained by some communist apparatchik, punk represented a revolutionary philosophy - quite literally, as it turned out.

Sales Rizz is the ultimate playbook for uncovering your purpose, mastering emotional intelligence, and achieving extraordinary success—your way. This modern guide fuses cutting-edge strategies in personal development, emotional mastery, and practical sales techniques to help you thrive in every area of life. Whether you're striving to boost self-awareness, strengthen relationships, or crush your professional goals, this book delivers the insights and tools to make it happen.Inside, You’ll Discover How To: Master emotional intelligence to tackle challenges with confidence. Redefine ...

It's one of the most revered movies of Hollywood's golden era. Starring screen legend Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly in her first significant film role, High Noon was shot on a lean budget over just 32 days but achieved instant box-office and critical success. It won four Academy Awards in 1953, including a best actor win for Cooper. And it became a cultural touchstone, often cited by politicians as a favourite film, celebrating moral fortitude.

He hired me to capture his soul on canvas. I never expected to hand him my own. I’m Sienna Vale—an artist who reads people with a single brushstroke. My latest commission: Nico Moretti, Dallas’s reclusive “philanthropist.” One look at him and every color on my palette turns to danger. His mother wants a portrait. Nico wants me. The FBI wants dirt on his empire—using my studio as the perfect listening post. Now I’m trapped between the man who ruins me with a glance and the agents who can ruin us both. If I spy on Nico I could finally learn what really happened to my family. If ...

As Paris rediscovers its joie de vivre, Tabitha Knight, recently arrived from Detroit for an extended stay with her French grandfather, is on her own journey of discovery. Thanks to her neighbor and friend Julia Child, another ex-pat who's fallen head over heels for Paris, Tabitha is learning how to cook for her Grandpere and Oncle Rafe and Tabitha's sojourn is proving thoroughly delightful. That is, until the cold December day they return to Julia's building and learn that a body has been found in the cellar.

Billy Collins, U.S. poet laureate from 2001 to 2003, plays a game called, "I can feel it coming in the air tonight", in which he responds to questions about musician Phil Collins. Al Gore tries to match his former boss’ mastery of the My Little Pony children’s show in a game called "Maybe you can beat Bill Clinton at this". Olympian Jackie Joyner-Kersee rhymes with "cursy", so she is invited to play a game called "May Thunder Blast Your Head!" about curses from around the world. Of course.

In a world filled with trolls, we all need to live life more like a goblin. What does it mean to "live life like a goblin"? It means to give no f--ks, but also all the f--ks in the world at the same time. It means to be constantly anxiety-ridden while also eternally optimistic. A goblin's heart, specifically John Goblikon's, is filled with love, joy, angst, constant quandary, Chili's Southwestern egg rolls, metal, and empathy. Through goblin eyes, we learn about life, death, business, food, music, travel, culture, dating, school, drinking, compassion, and much more!

Alexandra Fuller tells the idiosyncratic story of her life growing up white in rural Rhodesia as it was becoming Zimbabwe. The daughter of hardworking, yet strikingly unconventional English-bred immigrants, Alexandra arrives in Africa at the tender age of two. She moves through life with a hardy resilience, even as a bloody war approaches. Narrator Lisette Lecat reads this remarkable memoir of a family clinging to a harsh landscape and the dying tenets of colonialism.

Mallory Storm knows one thing for certain: trust is a luxury she can’t afford. With her abusive husband dead under suspicious circumstances, Mallory escapes the shadows of her past by taking on a high-stakes undercover assignment in Italy. Her target? Dylan Hyde... a seductively mysterious Englishman with a reputation as dangerous as his smile. As Mallory infiltrates his world, their chemistry ignites, threatening to derail her carefully guarded plans. Beneath the glittering world of high-stakes auctions exists a maze of lies, and Dylan seems to be holding the map. But when a twist of ...

John Hay, Lincoln's private secretary and later secretary of state under presidents McKinley and Roosevelt, and Samuel Langhorne Clemens, famous as "Mark Twain", grew up 50 miles apart on the banks of the Mississippi River in the same rural antebellum stew of race, class, and want. This shared history drew them together in the late 1860s, and their mutual admiration never waned in spite of sharp differences.

Doomed to Fail explores the heaviest music the world has ever heard, tracing doom, sludge, and post-metal as their own distinct (and incredibly loud) traditions. Anselmi covers the bands and musicians that have impacted those styles most - Black Sabbath, Candlemass, Melvins, Eyehategod, Godflesh, Neurosis, Saint Vitus, and many others - while diving into the cultural doom that has spawned such music, from the bombing of Birmingham and hurricane devastation of New Orleans to glaring economic inequality, industrial alienation, climate change, and widespread addiction.

Here is everything you need to know about the crucial first months of your puppy's life, from monks who have been breeding, raising, and training German Shepherds for more than 25 years. Their extraordinary grasp of every facet of puppy behavior has gained them worldwide attention.