In conversation with legendary rock critics and authors he respected, Reed’s interviews are as pithy and brilliant as the man himself.

    Inside you'll find Steyn's take on Ronald Reagan, Idi Amin, the Princess of Wales, Bob Hope, Madame Chiang Kai-shek, Artie Shaw and Pope John Paul II - plus Zimbabwe's Reverend Canaan Banana, Scotty from Star Trek, Nixon's secretary and Gershwin's girlfriend. It's the passing parade of our times, from presidents and prime ministers to the guy who invented Cool Whip.

    He owns an ice arena, a plane, and is a regular on Forbes' list of top money makers--yet his roots are firmly planted in the snows of St. Paul and the preachings of the church. This fully authorized portrait explores the Peanuts creator's extraordinary life.

    It is not a text book nor a biography, but more of a cheat sheet for reading on the bus or in the bathroom, so that you can pick out the most significant points without having to carry around a bag of weighty tomes. You can read it all in one sitting, or look up specific case studies as and when you are looking for inspiration or direction. The 50 lessons outlined here are drawn from interviews Robbins has given, from the numerous blogs and books written about him, and, most importantly, from the successes and failures on his road to Awakening the Giant within him. Additionally You Get 2 Bonus Ebooks - 69 Ways to Make Money From Home - Bitcoins Beginner’s Guide

       With honed sensitivity and unquestioned expertise, Stuart Isacoff—pianist, critic, teacher, and author of Temperament: How Music Became a Battleground for the Great Minds of Western Civilization—unfolds the ongoing history and evolution of the piano and all its myriad wonders: how its very sound provides the basis for emotional expression and individual style, and why it has so powerfully entertained generation upon generation of listeners. He illuminates the groundbreaking music of Mozart, Beethoven, Liszt, Schumann, and Debussy. He analyzes the breathtaking techniques of Glenn Gould, Oscar Peterson, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Arthur Rubinstein, and Van Cliburn, and he gives musicians including Alfred Brendel, Murray Perahia, Menahem Pressler, and Vladimir Horowitz the opportunity to discuss their approaches. Isacoff delineates how classical music and jazz influenced each other as the uniquely American art form progressed from ragtime, novelty, stride, boogie, bebop, and beyond, through Scott Joplin, Fats Waller, Duke Ellington, Bill Evans, Thelonious Monk, Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, Cecil Taylor, and Bill Charlap. A Natural History of the Piano distills a lifetime of research and passion into one brilliant narrative. We witness Mozart unveiling his monumental concertos in Vienna’s coffeehouses, using a special piano with one keyboard for the hands and another for the feet; European virtuoso Henri Herz entertaining rowdy miners during the California gold rush; Beethoven at his piano, conjuring healing angels to console a grieving mother who had lost her child; Liszt fainting in the arms of a page turner to spark an entire hall into hysterics. Here is the instrument in all its complexity and beauty. We learn of the incredible craftsmanship of a modern Steinway, the peculiarity of specialty pianos built for the Victorian household, the continuing innovation in keyboards including electronic ones. And most of all, we hear the music of the masters, from centuries ago and in our own age, brilliantly evoked and as marvelous as its most recent performance.   With this wide-ranging volume, Isacoff gives us a must-have for music lovers, pianists, and the armchair musician.

    Forming their band 'Anvil' they went on to become the 'demi-gods of Canadian metal', releasing one of the heaviest albums in metal history, 1982's Metal on Metal. The album influenced a musical generation including the world-dominating bands Metallica, Slayer and Anthrax, all of whom went on to sell millions of records. Anvil's career would take a different path, however, as they slipped straight into obscurity...Almost thirty years later Lips and Robb, our unlikely musical heroes, are still chasing their dream. Anvil! The Story of Anvil, their autobiography, follows the ups and down of their career and their volatile friendship (which has now spanned almost four decades), reveals their dedication and unadulterated passion for their music, and carries us along on their last-ditch quest for fame and fortune. Based on Sacha Gervasi's award-winning film of the same name, and published to coincide with its worldwide release, this hilarious yet poignant book reminds us that if you believe in yourself, stick by your friends and never give up, you really can make your dreams come true. You cannot fail to be moved by this story. Anvil rock!

    The anguished and volatile intensity associated with the artistic temperament was once thought to be a symptom of genius or eccentricity peculiar to artists, writers, and musicians. Her work, based on her study as a clinical psychologist and researcher in mood disorders, reveals that many artists subject to exalted highs and despairing lows were in fact engaged in a struggle with clinically identifiable manic-depressive illness. Jamison presents proof of the biological foundations of this disease and applies what is known about the illness to the lives and works of some of the world's greatest artists including Lord Byron, Vincent Van Gogh, and Virginia Woolf.

    Read the story of Bach, the respectable burgher, much of whose vast output was composed amidst petty turf disputes in LuteranLeipzig; or the ugly, argumentative Beethoven, obsessed by his laundry; or Mozart, the over-exploited infant prodigy whose untimely death was shrouded in rumor; or the ghastly death of Donizetti and Smetana. Read about Verdi, who composed against the background of the Italian Risorgimento, or aboutthe family life of the Wagners; and Brahms, who rose from the slums of Hamburg to become a devotee of beer and coffee in fin-de-siecle Vienna, a cultural capital bent on destroying Mahler.Michael Steen paints a vivid portrait of the tumultuous times in which these brilliant, yet flawed, human beings labored--a tour of 350 years of European history. From Handel's London and the speculative financial frenzy of the South Sea bubble; to the courts of petty German princelings and theornate and sleazy Dresden; to the astonishingly creative Vienna of Beethoven and Schubert; to the opera in 19th-century Paris and Bizet in the Franco-Prussian War and the Commune; to the Majorca of Chopin, to the Russia of Tchaikovsky and the Siege of Leningrad, just one of the many horrors whichShostakovich had to survive. We encounter, too, painters such as Renoir and Manet, literary figures like Zola, Proust, and Dostoyevsky, and religious leaders such as Pope Pius IX and Cardinal Newman. Great Composers paints in broad brushstrokes the culture of a continent far wider than music.

    This is the story of lifelong musician Buzzy Martin, music teacher to the hardened criminals inside the walls of San Quentin Prison-and what he learned, note by incredible note.

    This book reverses that approach. It takes a fresh and often funny look at the magnificent and sometimes idiotic career path of the Beatles through the prism of one vital album -- a record considered by many (including John Lennon) to be the one on which they reached their peak as songwriters. It focuses not just on the intimate recording details and creative process, but on the politics, music, and culture of the era, as well as the band's individual development amid increasing dissolution. In crisp and witty prose, the inside stories behind the making and release of the album are revealed: how the White Album got its look and name; why it included the most experimental track the Beatles ever recorded; how it inspired the bloody massacres of Charles Manson and his 'family'; why Ringo Starr walked out on the sessions and who replaced him; the actual identities of 'Dear Prudence', 'Sexy Sadie', 'Martha My Dear', 'Julia' and 'Bungalow Bill'; on which song Yoko sang lead; which song is about Eric Clapton's teeth;

    MCR achieved global prominence in 2006 with the release of their platinum-selling album Welcome to the Black Parade. Extensive touring has added to their worldwide fan base with incendiary sold-out live shows. In this provocative biography, Reinhardt Haydn presents a comprehensive profile of the band, from its hardscrabble start to its rocky upward climb to its present superstar status.

    In the first book to fully examine the intricate and often deadly interconnection between Russian rulers and Russian artists, cultural historian Solomon Volkov (who experienced firsthand many of the events he describes) brings to life the human stories behind some of the greatest masterpieces of our time. Here is Tolstoy, who used his godlike place among the Russian people to rail against the autocracy, even as he eschewed violence; Gorky, the first native writer to openly welcome the revolution and who would go on to become Stalin's closest cultural advisor; Solzhenitsyn, who famously brought the horrors of the Soviet regime to light. Here. too, are Nabokov, Pasternak, Mayakovsky, Akhmatova. In each case, Volkov analyzes the alternate determination and despair, hope and terror borne by writers in a country where, in Solzhenitsyn's maxim, a great writer is like a second government. This is also the story of the nation's leading lights in painting, music, dance, theater, and cinema--Kandinsky and Malevich, Rachmaninoff and Stravinsky, Diaghilev and Nijinsky, Stanislavsky and Meyerhold, and Eisenstein and Tarkovsky--and the ways in which their triumphs influenced, and were influenced by, the leadership of the time. With an insider's insight, Volkov describes what it was like to work under constant threat of arrest, exile, or execution. He reminds us of the many artists who were compelled to live as emigres, and explores not onlytheir complicated relationships with their adopted countries but Russia's love-hate relationship with Western culture as a whole--a relationship that has grown increasingly charged in the wake of the Soviet Union's collapse. Epic in scope and intimate in detail, The Magical Chorus is the definitive account of a remarkable era in Russia's complex cultural life.

    He also compiles and extracts practical insights from other notable worship leaders and musicians including Louie Giglio, Mike Pilavachi, Tim Hughes, Chris Tomlin, Brian Doerkson, Darlene Zxchech, Steve Nicholson etc.

    He examines the power of the arguments embedded in these speeches to inspire people to achieve great things, or do great harm. Abbott draws upon his political expertise to explain how our current understanding of the world is rooted in pivotal moments of history. These moments are captured in the words of a range of influential speakers including: Emmeline Pankhurst, Martin Luther King, Jr, Enoch Powell, Napoleon Beazley, Kevin Rudd, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, Osama bin Laden, Margaret Beckett, Winston Churchill, Salvador Allende, Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair, Tim Collins, Mohandas Gandhi, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Robin Cook and Barack Obama. The speeches in this book are arranged thematically, linked by concepts such as 'might is right', 'with us or against us' and 'give peace a chance'. Each transcript is accompanied by an insightful commentary that analyses how the words relate to our modern society. Fresh and relevant, this is a book that will make you stop in your tracks and think about what is really happening in the world today.

    Michael Jackson Treasures pairs a compelling exploration of his story with photographs and memorabilia that illuminate h is fascinating, complicated life. Featuring a number of rare pieces, including selected pages from the Jackson children’s high school yearbook, the patent for the antigravity lean shoes from “Smooth Criminal,” and a fancifully die-cut mask from the Dangerous Tour, Michael Jackson Treasures is a trove of powerful images and ephemera from a truly global superstar.