This two box set of 24 lectures on 12 cassette tapes covers the following: 1-Brothers Grimm & Fairy Tale Psychology; 2-Propp, Structure, and Cultural Identity; 3-Hoffmann and the Theory of the Fantastic; 4-Poe--Genres and Degrees of the Fantastic; 5-Lewis Carroll -- Puzzles, Language, & Audience; 6-H.G. Wells -- We Are All Talking Animals; 7-Franz Kafka -- Dashed Fantasies; 8-Woolf - Fantastic Feminism & Periods of Art; 9-Robbe-Grillet - Experimental Fiction & Myth; 10-Tolkien & Mass Production of the Fantastic; 11-Children's Literature and the Fantastic; 12-Postmodernism and the Fantastic; 13-Defining Science Fiction; 14-Mary Shelley --Grandmother of Science Fiction; 15-Hawthorne, Poe, and the Eden Complex; 16-Jules Verne and the Robinsonade; 17-Wells -- Industrialization of the Fantastic; 18-The History of Utopia; 19-Science Fiction and Religion; 20-Pulp Fiction, Bradbury & the American Myth; 21-Robert A. Heinlein -- He Mapped the Future; 22-Asimov and Clarke -- Cousins in Utopia; 23-Ursula K. LeGuin -- Transhuman Anthropologist; 24-Cyberpunk, Postmodernism, and Beyond.

    Leonardo was a charming, handsome fifty year-old at the peak of his career. Michelangelo was a temperamental sculptor in his mid-twenties, desperate to make a name for himself.Michelangelo is a virtual unknown when he returns to Florence and wins the commission to carve what will become one of the most famous sculptures of all time: David. Even though his impoverished family shuns him for being an artist, he is desperate to support them. Living at the foot of his misshapen block of marble, Michelangelo struggles until the stone finally begins to speak. Working against an impossible deadline, he begins his feverish carving.Meanwhile, Leonardo’s life is falling apart: he loses the hoped-for David commission; he can’t seem to finish any project; he is obsessed with his ungainly flying machine; he almost dies in war; his engineering designs disastrously fail; and he is haunted by a woman he has seen in the market—a merchant’s wife, whom he is finally commissioned to paint. Her name is Lisa, and she becomes his muse.Leonardo despises Michelangelo for his youth and lack of sophistication. Michelangelo both loathes and worships Leonardo’s genius.Oil and Marble is the story of their nearly forgotten rivalry. Storey brings early 16th-century Florence alive, and has entered with extraordinary empathy into the minds and souls of two Renaissance masters. The book is an art history thriller.

    While many people attribute procrastination to laziness or a lack of drive, our real motivations to push back and delay important activities and decisions are more complicated than personal weakness. The truth is that humans are well-adapted for basic survival, but they are not so great at managing the stresses and expectations of modern life without a little help.If our own minds so often work against us, how can we get things done without the stress and last-minute panic so common in our hectic 21st-century lives? You’ll learn how in Do It Now: Overcoming Procrastination, taught by Fuschia Sirois, PhD. In 10 lectures, Dr. Sirois will help you better understand the way your mind works and how to overcome the bad habits that are holding you back. Using the latest scientific research on procrastination, Dr. Sirois will give you the insight and guidance you need to set and meet goals, manage your time better, design an environment that will help you succeed, and much more.Best of all, Dr. Sirois makes it clear that procrastination is a natural impulse for most people - sometimes, it can even be beneficial. She encourages you not only to work toward better time management but also to get rid of the burden of guilt and internal pressure that so often accompanies this very common behavior. While the tendency to delay the things we need to do is a deep-rooted habit, you will be able to apply and re-apply the strategies and tools you will acquire in this course for the rest of your life.

    “They are mistaken. I have not known you long, but I observe in you a natural dignity that cannot be learnt. To me, ma’am, you are every inch a Queen.”In 1837, less than a month after her eighteenth birthday, Alexandrina Victoria – sheltered, small in stature, and female – became Queen of Great Britain and Ireland. Many thought it was preposterous: Alexandrina — Drina to her family — had always been tightly controlled by her mother and her household, and was surely too unprepossessing to hold the throne. Yet from the moment William IV died, the young Queen startled everyone: abandoning her hated first name in favor of Victoria; insisting, for the first time in her life, on sleeping in a room apart from her mother; resolute about meeting with her ministers alone.One of those ministers, Lord Melbourne, became Victoria’s private secretary. Perhaps he might have become more than that, except everyone argued she was destined to marry her cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. But Victoria had met Albert as a child and found him stiff and critical: surely the last man she would want for a husband….Drawing on Victoria’s diaries as well as her own brilliant gifts for history and drama, Daisy Goodwin, author of the bestselling novels The American Heiress and The Fortune Hunter as well as creator and writer of the new PBS/Masterpiece drama Victoria, brings the young queen even more richly to life in this magnificent novel.

    The book is written by JD (James David by author's full name) Vance and in it the author tries to describe the overall life and struggles of people in post-industrial time in the United States. This book deals with the problems of white working-class and the book is not just some book where the author tries to describe lives of ordinary white people. The book is actually a memento and a message to the readers; in it Vance describes his life and his starts, especially growing up while being poor in Ohio. We can find out about this when we find out that Vance's family is of Scottish-Irish descent and that his ancestors have longer history of poverty and hard work that they need to endure in order to survive the hard times that were at hand. We also find out that since the 18th century many Scottish-Irish people were working as plantation workers, as miners and/or as millworkers. Because these people worked only the hardest jobs that hardly anyone else would take many people belittled them. Words like 'white trash, redneck' and/or 'hillbilly' were unfortunately a common everyday word for those people. Hillbilly Elegy is a fascinating work, not because it was written based on a true story but because it was written from a man who lived 'through' his story. The fact that the entire book contains a message is, of course, welcoming plus and something we want from literature of this genre. Here Is A Preview Of What You Will Get: In Hillbilly Elegy, you will get a summarized version of the book.In Hillbilly Elegy, you will find the book analyzed to further strengthen your knowledge.In Hillbilly Elegy, you will get some fun multiple choice quizzes, along with answers to help you learn about the book.Get a copy, and learn everything about Hillbilly Elegy.

    Her compelling and demanding collection The Death of Adam—in which she reflected on her Presbyterian upbringing, investigated the roots of Midwestern abolitionism, and mounted a memorable defense of Calvinism—is respected as a classic of the genre, praised by Doris Lessing as “a useful antidote to the increasingly crude and slogan-loving culture we inhabit.” In this new collection she returns to the themes which have preoccupied her work: the role of faith in modern life, the inadequacy of fact, the contradictions inherent in human nature. Clear-eyed and forceful as ever, Robinson demonstrates once again why she is regarded as a modern rhetorical master.

    Springing into post-World War II society, and quite naughty and haughty, she lived in a whirlwind of fame and notoriety. Georgie Blalock captures the fascinating, fast-living princess and her “set” as seen through the eyes of one of her ladies-in-waiting. In dreary, post-war Britain, Princess Margaret captivates everyone with her cutting edge fashion sense and biting quips. The royal socialite, cigarette holder in one hand, cocktail in the other, sparkles in the company of her glittering entourage of wealthy young aristocrats known as the Margaret Set, but her outrageous lifestyle conflicts with her place as Queen Elizabeth’s younger sister. Can she be a dutiful princess while still dazzling the world on her own terms?Post-war Britain isn’t glamorous for The Honorable Vera Strathmore. While writing scandalous novels, she dreams of living and working in New York, and regaining the happiness she enjoyed before her fiancé was killed in the war. A chance meeting with the Princess changes her life forever. Vera amuses the princess, and what—or who—Margaret wants, Margaret gets. Soon, Vera gains Margaret’s confidence and the privileged position of second lady-in-waiting to the Princess. Thrust into the center of Margaret’s social and royal life, Vera watches the princess’s love affair with dashing Captain Peter Townsend unfurl.But while Margaret, as a member of the Royal Family, is not free to act on her desires, Vera soon wants the freedom to pursue her own dreams. As time and Princess Margaret’s scandalous behavior progress, both women will be forced to choose between status, duty, and love…

     When news of the discovery arrived in Seattle and San Francisco the following year it triggered one of the largest gold rushes in the history of North America. Tappan Adney, a young writer and photographer who worked for Harper’s Weekly, set out on a journey to uncover and record what it was like in the Klondike stampede. This book is a fascinating portrayal of adventurers and prospectors who descended on the Yukon during this extraordinary event in the late nineteenth century. Adney explains in vivid detail the treacherous route that these gold-hunters were forced to make in order to make it to the Yukon. The White and Chilkoot Passes were fatal for many who attempted to get through them with poor equipment. He stayed in Dawson, where the gold rush was centered, from October 2nd through to September 16th the following year. While there he interviewed men and women who hoped to make their fortune, observed the community that had seemingly sprung up overnight and records in detail how the prospectors searched for gold. “Of hundreds of gold rush accounts, his stands out as one of the best” The British Columbian Quarterly Tappan Adney was an artist, writer and photographer. He recorded the Klondike Gold Rush in his book The Klondike Stampede which was first published in 1900. He passed away in 1950.

    From its dawn in the 1660s to its twilight in the 1960s, Cliveden was an emblem of elite misbehaviour and intrigue. Conceived by the Duke of Buckingham as a retreat for his scandalous affair with Anna-Maria, Countess of Shrewsbury, the house later served as the backdrop for the Profumo Affair, which would bring down a government and change the course of British history.In the three hundred years between the Countess and Christine Keeler, the house was occupied by a dynasty of remarkable women: Elizabeth Villiers, an intellectual who brokered the rise and fall of governments; Augusta of Saxe-Gotha, a minor German royal who almost became queen of England; Harriet Duchess of Sutherland, the glittering society hostess turned political campaigner; and Nancy Astor, the consummate controversialist who became the first woman to take a seat in parliament. Under the direction of these women, Cliveden provided a stage for political plots and artistic premieres, hosted grieving monarchs and republican radicals, was idealised as a family home, and maligned as a threat to national security.The Mistresses of Cliveden is by turns a historical epic, a political thriller, a family drama, and an intimate history of the relationships between people and place. Above all, it is a story about sex and power, and the ways in which exceptional women have evaded, exploited, and confronted the expectations of their times.

    Writing with award-winning partner Mark Olshaker for the first time since his retirement, Douglas opens up about his most notorious and baffling cases—and shows what it's like to confront evil in its most monstrous form.No one is better acquainted with the subject of humanity’s most notorious crimes and the wrenching challenges of bringing those criminals to justice than John Douglas, the model for Agent Jack Crawford in The Silence of the Lambs. In this provocative and deeply personal book, the most prominent criminal investigator of our time recounts his twenty-five year FBI career tracking down master criminals, write true crime bestsellers, developing forensic science and the art of criminal profiling, but previously he could never be as forthright as he is in this, his first book since retirement. In his previous works, he wrote only about the guilty; in Law & Disorder, he writes about the guilty, innocents accused, and even innocents convicted as he addresses every law enforcement professional’s worst nightmare: those cases where, for one reason or another, justice was delayed…or even denied.A deep glimpse into the mind of a man who has explored the heart of human darkness, he looks to unlock for his readers the ultimate mystery of depravity and the techniques and approaches that have countered evil in the name of justice throughout his career. “An essential title for those interested in true crime stories, forensic science, or law enforcement.”- Library Journal (starred review)"At his best describing terrible crimes." – Houston Chronicle "A real genius." – Entertainment Weekly "Douglas can claim a rare authenticity regarding the evil that men do." - Kirkus Reviews “An essential title for those interested in true crime stories, forensic science, or law enforcement.” - Library Journal (starred review)

    Professor Lynne Murphy is on the linguistic front line. In The Prodigal Tongue she explores the fiction and reality of the special relationship between British and American English. By examining the causes and symptoms of American Verbal Inferiority Complex and its flipside, British Verbal Superiority Complex, Murphy unravels the prejudices, stereotypes and insecurities that shape our attitudes to our own language.With great humo(u)r and new insights, Lynne Murphy looks at the social, political and linguistic forces that have driven American and British English in different directions: how Americans got from centre to center, why British accents are growing away from American ones, and what different things we mean when we say estate, frown, or middle class. Is anyone winning this war of the words? Will Yanks and Brits ever really understand each other?

    It looks at the music through the lives of the great composers and their environment, from the churches and cathedrals that produced the familiar sound of Gregorian chant, to Johann Sebastian Bach, the family man composing for the glory of God, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the child prodigy, genius and prankster who wrote some of the finest music ever yet was buried in a pauper's grave. The story will be taken to the composers of the 21st century. This unusual and special production by the two most important brand names in classical music includes more than 100 musical examples taken from the extensive Naxos catalog.

    Part of Audible’s rapidly expanding Words + Music series, blending storytelling, music, and performance to create exceptional listening experiences, Crow’s session is marked by gorgeously stripped-down versions of the songs that made her a household name (exclusively recorded for these sessions). The tunes punctuate rich storytelling, as she dives deep into the history of her career, reexamining the personal experiences and relationships that impacted her artistic journey.“My journey is my own”, Crow says. “I mean, it's definitely not without some detours and definitely not without some hard lessons”. True to form, Crow leads us through her winding road to success - maybe more accurately defined as a series of jolting roller-coaster rides, as she recounts all the fits and starts, the feverish highs and lows, that have come to define a career now in its fourth decade. Featuring stunningly crisp, yet lo-fi renditions of eight songs including, “If It Makes You Happy”, “All I Wanna Do”, “Leaving Las Vegas”, “Strong Enough”, “My Favorite Mistake”, and George Harrison’s soulful “Beware of Darkness”, Sheryl Crow lays herself bare. From her early days in small-town Missouri where she sought salvation from her melancholy by turning to mystical rockers (Stevie Nicks and Zeppelin, most notably); to pursuing her dreams, and in quick fashion landing the spectacular gig as one of Michael Jackson’s featured solo vocalists on tour. (A career catapult that quickly became a cautionary tale.)From the crushing weight of perfectionism and loneliness, to the joys of finally finding kindred musical spirits - only to have it all crumble, just as the music was skyrocketing, the toll of her volatile ascent to stardom comes into focus. In a particularly fascinating section, she revisits the total sense of peer disconnect during the height of her records’ success as her style was painfully incongruent with the greater musical landscape at the time. This, subsequently leading to an “adoption” of sorts by an older, more simpatico class of musicians - luckily for her, they doubled as her heroes: Nicks, Keith Richards, and Dylan among them. In another poignant moment, Sheryl lets listeners in on the dysfunction and emotional reckoning that came after her well-publicized romances with Eric Clapton and a few years later Lance Armstrong.In just an hour and a half, Sheryl Crow manages to transform before our ears: from a well-known artist to human being we now know pretty damn well. That’s not easy to accomplish. And perhaps most extraordinarily, we are left with a lasting gift: beautiful songs we entered knowing become beautiful songs we now understand.

    The secret, though, that surrounded my parents’ unhappy life together, was divulged to me by accident . . .’ Hidden under some papers in his father’s bureau, the sixteen-year-old Derek Malcolm finds a book by the famous criminologist Edgar Lustgarten called The Judges and the Damned. Browsing through the Contents pages Derek reads, ‘Mr Justice McCardie tries Lieutenant Malcolm – page 33.’ But there is no page 33. The whole chapter has been ripped out of the book. Slowly but surely, the shocking truth emerges: that Derek’s father, shot his wife’s lover and was acquitted at a famous trial at the Old Bailey. The trial was unique in British legal history as the first case of a crime passionel, where a guilty man is set free, on the grounds of self-defence. Husband and wife lived together unhappily ever after, raising Derek in their wake. Then, in a dramatic twist, following his father’s death, Derek receives an open postcard from his Aunt Phyllis, informing him that his real father is the Italian Ambassador to London . . . By turns laconic and affectionate, Derek Malcolm has written a richly evocative memoir of a family sinking into hopeless disrepair. Derek Malcolm was chief film critic of the Guardian for thirty years and still writes for the paper. Educated at Eton and Merton College, Oxford, he became first a steeplechase rider and then an actor after leaving university. He worked as a journalist in the sixties, first in Cheltenham and then with the Guardian where he was a features sub-editor and writer, racing correspondent and finally film critic. He directed the London Film Festival for a spell in the 80s and is now President of both the International Film Critics Association and the British Federation of Film Societies. He lives with his wife Sarah Gristwood in London and Kent and has published two books – one on Robert Mitchum and another on his favourite 100 films. He is a frequent broadcaster on radio and television and a veteran of film festival juries all over the world.

    Biss doesn’t just love Beethoven more than other music, he loves it more than most things. It’s the lens through which he understands the world, and has been since he can remember. But in Unquiet Biss reveals the full extent to which Beethoven is also a ruthless lens through which he views himself.Biss provides listeners front and center access to his long overdue confrontation with a painful truth: Living with Beethoven has essentially amounted to severing all meaningful ties with himself. As we learn in rich detail, amidst the treasures Beethoven’s music has gifted Biss also lies searing self-doubt and heaps of crippling anxiety. Biss’s raw self-reflection is delivered through pitch-perfect prose, delving deep into the fascinating paradox that the greatest pleasure in his life is also responsible for imprisoning him. Beethoven’s defining personal characteristic, for example—his unwavering self-conviction and weapons-grade callousness—only served to mock Biss’s own perceived shortcomings and vulnerabilities. This captivating combination of wit and wisdom Biss readily shares is only interrupted by something even more extraordinary—his new interpretations of movements from seven of Beethoven's sonatas, including the Pathetique and Tempest, and his groundbreaking, awe-inducing final sonatas.Unquiet both begins and ends with Jonathan Biss staring down the daunting complexity and infinite majesty of Beethoven's last piano sonatas. But between these two points, the singular pianist has traversed a world of healing. An immeasurable weight has been lifted from him—by him. And we have witnessed its dramatic rise. While his journey is a fantastically unique one, if we listen close, we can hear ours too. An endless battle to confront and quiet our greatest pain so that we can embrace something even greater. Take a moment, and heed the sound.