In the years (and decades) that followed, Granta established itself as the one of the most prestigious literary publications in the English-speaking world. In that time Granta has published 26 Nobel Prize for Literature winners, defined new literary genres and paved the way for generations of young novelists. To celebrate forty years of brilliant publishing, Granta 147 brings together our best fiction and non-fiction from the last four decades, along with a selection of letters from behind the scenes. This will be a collector's issue and is not to be missed.Featuring...Angela CarterKazuo IshiguroTodd McEwenBruce ChatwinJames FentonPrimo LeviAmitav GhoshRaymond CarverPhilip RothJohn Gregory DunneRyszard KapuscinskiJoy WilliamsJohn BergerGabriel García MárquezBill BufordLindsey HilsumLorrie MooreHilary MantelIan JackEdward SaidDiana AthillEdmund WhiteVed MehtaAdrian LeftwichAlexandra FullerBinyavanga WainainaMary GaitskillLydia DavisJeanette WintersonHerta Müller

    A collection of the notoriously private Beckett's reminiscences about his life and remembrances of Beckett fromthose who knew him.

    Les Carter strips away the myths and misconceptions about anger to teach how to distinguish between healthy and unhealthy anger so that we may choose or help others choose a better way. By showing the why's and how to's of anger, we see how anger can stem from insecurity, the illusion of control, desire for superiority, and other common yet unrecognized problems. In doing so, we learn practical, useful ways to overcome unhealthy anger and improve relationships.

    In both subject and sound, it was like nothing else on the radio. It defied the cynicism and apathy of Generation X; it challenged the aesthetic expectations for a "pop song" (or even a "protest song"), fusing blues, opera, rock and gospel; and it demanded accountability in an era of corporate greed, globalization and environmental indifference. A massive hit globally (reaching #1 in over fifteen countries), it wasn't even offered as a single in the United States. Yet nearly two decades later, it stands as one of Jackson's greatest artistic achievements. In this groundbreaking monograph, author Joseph Vogel details the song's context and evolution from its inception in Vienna in 1988, to its release and reception in 1995, to Jackson's final live performance in Munich in 1999. Based on original research, including interviews with the song's key participants, Earth Song: Inside Michael Jackson's Magnum Opus offers a fascinating reassessment of this prophetic musical statement.

    Like generation-defining albums before it, PLAY was ubiquitous, and catapulted Moby to superstardom. Suddenly he was hanging out with David Bowie and Lou Reed, Christina Ricci and Madonna, taking esctasy for breakfast (most days), drinking litres of vodka (every day), and sleeping with super models (infrequently). It was a diet that couldn't last. And then it fell apart.The second volume of Moby's memoir is a classic about the banality of fame. It is shocking, riotously entertaining, extreme, and unforgiving. It is unedifying, but you can never tear your eyes away from the page.

    Grant, Ambrose Bierce, Mary Chesnut, William Tecumseh Sherman, and Oliver Wendell Holmes prove Wilson to be the consummate witness to the most eloquently recorded era in American history.

    Successful author and songwriter, Davis provides a complete guide to writing words for and to music, showing how to create lyrics with universal appeal.

     Roddy Doyle has earned a devoted following for his wry wit, his uncanny ear, and his ability to fully capture the hearts of his characters. Bullfighting, his second collection of stories, offers a series of bittersweet takes on men and middle-age, revealing a panorama of Ireland today. Moving from classrooms to local pubs to bullrings, these tales feature an array of men taking stock and reliving past glories, each concerned with loss in different ways--of their place in the world, of their power, their virility, health, and love. "Recuperation" follows a man as he sets off on his daily prescribed walk around his neighborhood, the sights triggering recollections of his family and his younger days. In "Animals," George recalls caring for his children's many pets and his heartfelt effort to spare them grief when they died or disappeared. The title story, "Bullfighting," captures the mixture of bravado and helplessness of four friends who go off to Spain on holiday. Sharply observed, funny, and moving, these thirteen stories present a new vision of contemporary Ireland, of its woes and triumphs, and middle- aged men trying to break out of the routines of their lives.

    Each chapter takes the title of a traditional tune, and as in a session played by brilliant improvising musicians, each tune leads into another, melodies and variations weaving in and out in a haze of talk and memory. Carson's inspired jumble of recording history, poetry, tall tales, and polemic captures the sound and vigor of a ruthlessly unsentimental music. A leading Irish poet who is also an accomplished flute player, he tells of his Belfast childhood, of learning to play music, of his travels in Ireland and America, of poteen, pub life, and the special pleasure taken in a well-made Fry "the morning after the night before." Loosely interpreted standards, as Carson points out, achieve a special kind of profundity and resonance - a tune can never be played the same way twice - so this is also a book about the poignancy of lost airs, about music as "a way of renegotiating lost time" and recognizing mortality.

    The appearance of difficulty is part of Joyce's big joke; the profundities are always expressed in good round Dublin terms; Joyce's heroes are humble men."--From the Foreword by Anthony Burgess.

    The late 1960s in West Germany was a period of profound breakthroughs, upheavals and reversals. Out of this climate, a music scene exploded that would forever change the face of western rock; at times anarchic, at others mystical, magickal, or utopian, it pushed rock beyond any known limits. Illustrated with concert photos, posters, record cover art and other rare visual material, and also including essays by Michel Faber, Erik Davis, David Stubbs, Ken Hollings and testimonials from Gavin Russom (Delia and Gavin/Black Meteoric Star), Plastic Crimewave, Stephen Thrower (Coil/Cyclobe), and Ann Shenton (Add N to (X)) this is an essential compendium to a music whose spirit and ideas still vibrate through contemporary culture today.

    Celebrating the band’s 30th anniversary, By-Tour features in-depth original interviews with Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, and Neil Peart. Together, history’s loudest Order of Canada recipients conjure the sights and sounds of their strange journey: one that began in the microscopic, sometimes hostile clubs of Ontario and culminated in hockey barns, arenas, and stadiums all over the world. Rush have been headliners for over 20 years. The announcement of an impending Rush tour is major entertainment news all over the world, and a cause for celebration for the fanatical following the band has created with their grace, humour, intellect, focus, and spellbinding musicianship. A visitor to this book will be justly rewarded with fresh, exclusive insights about this enigmatic Canadian institution.

    Music for Silenced Voices looks at Shostakovich through the back door, as it were, of his fifteen quartets, the works which his widow characterized as a "diary, the story of his soul." The silences and the voices were of many kinds, including the political silencing of adventurous writers, artists, and musicians during the Stalin era; the lost voices of Shostakovich's operas (a form he abandoned just before turning to string quartets); and the death-silenced voices of his close friends, to whom he dedicated many of these chamber works.Wendy Lesser has constructed a fascinating narrative in which the fifteen quartets, considered one at a time in chronological order, lead the reader through the personal, political, and professional events that shaped Shostakovich's singular, emblematic twentieth-century life. Weaving together interviews with the composer's friends, family, and colleagues, as well as conversations with present-day musicians who have played the quartets, Lesser sheds new light on the man and the musician. One of the very few books about Shostakovich that is aimed at a general rather than an academic audience, Music for Silenced Voices is a pleasure to read; at the same time, it is rigorously faithful to the known facts in this notoriously complicated life. It will fill readers with the desire to hear the quartets, which are among the most compelling and emotionally powerful monuments of the past century's music.

    Illustrated with fascinating photographs and drawings of the ship and its passengers, this engaging text tells the story of the supposedly unconquerable vessel that ultimately proved to be all too fallible. Readers interested in the history of sea travel or the human response to disaster will find this book to be an invaluable addition to their library.

    This new edition has been updated by his friend and former Rolling Stone comrade Mitch Glazer and includes an epilogue about the memorial concerts for Timothy that James Taylor helped organize.