It's Big Brother singing. Call it what you will -- elevator music, Moodsong ® easy listening, or Muzak ®. For a musical genre that was supposed to offend no one, it has a lot of enemies.Musical cognoscenti decry its insipid content; regular folk -- if they notice -- bemoan its pervasiveness; while hipsters and campsters celebrate its retro chic. Mindful of the many voices, Joseph Lanza's Elevator Music sings seriously, with tongue in cheek, the praises of this venerable American institution.Lanza addresses the criticisms of elites who say that Muzak and its ilk are dehumanized, vapid, or cheesy. These reactions, he argues, are based more on cultural prejudices than honest musical appraisal.Says Lanza, today's so-called mood music is the inheritor of a long tradition of mood-altering music stretching back to the ancients; Nero's fiddle and the sirens of Odysseus being two famous examples. Contemporary atmospheric music, Lanza argues, not only serves the same purpose, it is also the inevitable background for our media-dominated age.One of Lanza's premises, to quote Mark Twain, is that this music is "better than it sounds." "This book will have succeeded in its purpose," he writes, "if I can help efface...the distinction between one person's elevator music and another's prized recording."Joseph Lanza is an author, producer, and music historian. His most recent book is Russ Columbo and the Crooner Mystique.

    Now I’m taking Princess Lessons.” Katherine Saunders had every intention of enjoying her two-week study abroad trip to the tiny European country of Montavian. With nothing more on her agenda than having a good time, she envisioned sleeping til noon on downy featherbeds every day, and hitting hottest clubs by night. But a chance encounter with the world’s most cocky Crown Prince has derailed those plans, leaving her not only breathless, but wanting far more. Eric Jean-Francois Devillers III has more important things to think about than a flighty American student intent on seeing the sights, but there’s something about Kat that he can’t get out of his head. No matter how many times he cuts her down with a biting remark—more intent on convincing himself that she’s no Queen than trying to convince her—he can’t stop thinking about the petite spitfire from across the pond. But there’s more to being the future queen than just a pretty face and a sharp wit. Katherine has generations of royals to convince that she’s suitable for the role…and even has to convince herself. *BONUS BOOK*: One Night with a Bad Boy: (A Redemption Story), a full-length novel from Ella Slade, is included at the end of this book, completely FREE!

    In The Heart and Stomach of a King, Carole Levin explores contemporary representations of the unmarried, childless Elizabeth and focuses on the ways in which members of her court, foreign ambassadors, and a motley--and sometimes delusional--collection of subjects responded to her. Throughout, Levin's purpose is to explore how gender constructions, role expectations, and beliefs about sexuality influenced both Elizabeth's self-presentation and others' perceptions of her as a female, and Protestant, ruler.

    

    Boy, was I wrong. Now they’ve become my temptations… and they’re willing to share.Matt, Dereck, and Bryce made sure my high school experience was hell. They pushed me to the edge until I saw no other way out, but to run.After transferring and finishing high school far away from the cruel trio, I’m on my way to becoming the best goddamn nurse ever.Then, the boys show up on my campus, and everything goes to shit. Working as a firefighter, cop, and paramedic while going to school, they might’ve fooled everyone into thinking they’re the saviors, but I know they’re up to their old tricks. Only this time, it’s not my mind, but my body they’re after.Too bad I’m not the weak girl I used to be. This time, I won’t run. This time, I’ll face the trio and bring them down to their knees.Yet the more time I spend with them, the more I see that they’ve changed. My heart is telling me I can trust them. My soul wants all three. Will I be able to leave my past demons behind and give myself to my three men?Her Temptations is a steamy reverse harm, enemies to lovers, college romance. No cheating, No cliffhanger, plenty of heat, and a guaranteed HEA!

    In 1988, Eric Cho, an aspiring writer, arrives at Macalester College. On his first day he meets a beautiful fledgling painter, Jessica Tsai, and another would-be novelist, the larger-than-life Joshua Yoon. Brilliant, bawdy, generous, and manipulative, Joshua alters the course of their lives, rallying them together when they face an adolescent act of racism. As adults in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the three friends reunite as the 3AC, the Asian American Artists Collective - together negotiating the demands of art, love, commerce, and idealism until another racially tinged controversy hits the headlines, this time with far greater consequences. Long after the 3AC has disbanded, Eric reflects on these events as he tries to make sense of Joshua's recent suicide. With wit, humor, and compassion, The Collective explores the dream of becoming an artist, and questions whether the reality is worth the sacrifice.

    A fellow Canadian, a master of creative sociology, a writer who supplied a defining term, Coupland is the ideal chronicler of the uncanny prophet whose vision of the global village—now known as the Internet—has come to pass in the 21st century.

    Includes lead sheets for such standard vocal repertoire pieces as: Yesterday * I'm Beginning to See the Light * and I Heard it Through the Grapevine. Maximize your vocal potential with this outstanding guide

    Beginning with Ida B. Wells and the campaign against lynching in the 1890s, Fairclough chronicles the tradition of protest that led to the formation of the NAACP, Booker T. Washington and the strategy of accommodation, Marcus Garvey and the push for black nationalism, through to Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and beyond. Throughout, Fairclough presents a judicious interpretation of historical events that balances the achievements of the Civil Rights Movement against the persistence of racial and economic inequalities.

    

    Louis journalist Sarah Kendzior tackles issues including labor exploitation, racism, gentrification, media bias and other aspects of the post-employment economy. Sample titles: "The Peril of Hipster Economics", "The Wrong Kind of Caucasian", "Survival is Not an Aspiration". "Mothers Are Not 'Opting Out' -- They Are Out of Options", "Academia's Indentured Servants", "Meritocracy for Sale", "The Immorality of College Admissions", "Expensive Cities Are Killing Creativity". A former columnist for Al Jazeera English, Kendzior has spent years chronicling an America of diminishing opportunities. This collection contains the best of her work.

     *These books are to be read after Stepbrother Dearest - Double Trouble Books 1 through 4 and Double Trouble Easter Eggs.* Since the first day she could remember, Kelly had been picked on by identical twins, Alex and Asher. They followed her through every school year, tormenting her as much as they could until they were re-zoned for different high schools. Kelly was ecstatic that she would no longer see them at school and looked forward to a happy last four years. During the summer, Kelly's mom tells her that she is dating a new man and they're taking a family vacation. As it turned out, the man her mother was dating was the father of the evil twins. When their parents married her mother, the twins picked on her more, constantly teasing their new stepsister. Three days after her eighteenth birthday, and on Homecoming night, an event happens that changes everything between them and Kelly learns that there's more to the twins than meets the eye.

    He enjoins educators to stop offering up literature as facile entertainment and instead teach students to read in a way that can change their lives for the better. At once controversial and inspiring, this is a groundbreaking book written with the elegance and power to change the way we teach and read. Praise for Why Read?: "Edmundson is dead on target."-Washington Post Book World "Edmundson's an engaging teacher, earnest, knowledgeable, witty."-Boston Globe "Why Read? makes passionate arguments for literature's soul-making potential."-Raleigh News and Observer "An engaging blend of social criticism, self-improvement wisdom, and appeal to fellow humanities professors...Edmundson writes with a rare combination of force and humility."-Willamette Weekly Mark Edmundson is NEH/Daniels Family Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Virginia. A prizewinning scholar, he is the author of Literature Against Philosophy, Plato to Derrida, and the widely praised memoir, Teacher: The One Who Made the Difference. He has written for the New Republic, the New York Times Magazine, the Nation, and Harper's, where he is a contributing editor. Featured on Brian Lamb's final Booknotes Also available: HC 1-58234-425-6 ISBN 13: 978-158234-425- $21.95

    She was an angel that gave angels a run for their money. A freshman in a new college in a state away from home she always believed she could stay away from all of those till marriage, but what happens when The schools Bad boy, jerk, playboy and monster in the name of Lexis comes her way. She may be able to stay away from temptation but can temptation stay away from her?

    We live in terror of disease, abuse, stranger danger, environmental devastation and terrorist onslaught. We are bombarded with reports of new concerns for our safety and that of our children, and urged to take greater precautions and seek more protection. But compared to the past, or to the developing world, people in contemporary Western societies have much less familiarity with pain, suffering, debilitating disease and death. We actually enjoy an unprecedented level of personal safety.When confronted with events like the destruction of the World Trade Centre, fear for the future is inevitable. But what happened on September 11th 2001 was in many ways an old fashioned act of terror, representing the destructive side of the human passions. Frank Furedi argues that the greater danger in our culture is the tendency to fear achievements representing a more constructive side of humanity. We panic about GM food, about genetic research, about the health dangers of mobile phones. The facts often fail to support the scare stories about new or growing risks to our health and safefy. Our obsession with theoretical risks is in danger of distracting society from dealing with the old-fashioned dangers that have always threatened our lives. In this new edition Furedi relates his own thinking on the sociology of fear to the thought of earlier thinkers such as Darwin and Fred and to the sociological tradition of Durkheim, C. Wright Mills, Anthony Giddens and others.