Musicophilia
Musicophilia

Author: Oliver Sacks

Publisher: Vintage Canada

Published: 2010-02-05

Total Pages: 448

ISBN-13: 0307373495

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What goes on in human beings when they make or listen to music? What is it about music, what gives it such peculiar power over us, power delectable and beneficent for the most part, but also capable of uncontrollable and sometimes destructive force? Music has no concepts, it lacks images; it has no power of representation, it has no relation to the world. And yet it is evident in all of us–we tap our feet, we keep time, hum, sing, conduct music, mirror the melodic contours and feelings of what we hear in our movements and expressions. In this book, Oliver Sacks explores the power music wields over us–a power that sometimes we control and at other times don’t. He explores, in his inimitable fashion, how it can provide access to otherwise unreachable emotional states, how it can revivify neurological avenues that have been frozen, evoke memories of earlier, lost events or states or bring those with neurological disorders back to a time when the world was much richer. This is a book that explores, like no other, the myriad dimensions of our experience of and with music.

The Echoing Green
The Echoing Green

Author: Joshua Prager

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2008-03-11

Total Pages: 546

ISBN-13: 0307389332

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This is the untold story of the secret scandal behind baseball's most legendary moment:The Shot Heard Round the World. A Washington Post Best Book of the Year. At 3:58 p.m. on October 3, 1951, Bobby Thomson hit a home run off Ralph Branca. The ball sailed over the left field wall and into history. The Giants won the pennant. That moment—the Shot Heard Round the World—reverberated from the West Wing of the White House to the Sing Sing death house to the Polo Grounds clubhouse, where hitter and pitcher forever turned into hero and goat. It was also in that centerfield block of concrete that, after the home run, a Giant coach tucked away a Wollensak telescope. The Echoing Green places that revelation at the heart of a larger story, re-creating in extravagant detail and illuminating as never before the impact of both a moment and a long-guarded secret on the lives of Bobby Thomson and Ralph Branca.

Imperfect
Imperfect

Author: Jim Abbott

Publisher: Ballantine Books

Published: 2013-03-26

Total Pages: 330

ISBN-13: 0345523261

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“Honest, touching, and beautifully rendered . . . Far more than a book about baseball, it is a deeply felt story of triumph and failure, dreams and disappointments. Jim Abbott has hurled another gem.”—Jonathan Eig, New York Times bestselling author of Luckiest Man NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Born without a right hand, Jim Abbott dreamed of someday being a great athlete. Raised in Flint, Michigan, by parents who encouraged him to compete, Jim would become an ace pitcher for the University of Michigan. But his journey was only beginning: By twenty-one, he’d won the gold medal game at the 1988 Olympics and—without spending a day in the minor leagues—cracked the starting rotation of the California Angels. In 1991, he would finish third in the voting for the Cy Young Award. Two years later, he would don Yankee pinstripes and pitch one of the most dramatic no-hitters in major-league history. In this honest and insightful book, Jim Abbott reveals the challenges he faced in becoming an elite pitcher, the insecurities he dealt with in a life spent as the different one, and the intense emotion generated by his encounters with disabled children from around the country. With a riveting pitch-by-pitch account of his no-hitter providing the ideal frame for his story, this unique athlete offers readers an extraordinary and unforgettable memoir. “Compelling . . . [a] big-hearted memoir.”—Los Angeles Times “Inspirational.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer Includes an exclusive conversation between Jim Abbott and Tim Brown in the back of the book.

Stop Making Sense
Stop Making Sense

Author: Michael J. Fanuele

Publisher: Post Hill Press

Published: 2019-07-09

Total Pages: 260

ISBN-13: 1642932302

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In this fun and provocative page-turner, Michael Fanuele, one of the world’s most successful marketing strategists, shares The Six Skills of Inspiration. With insights from music, politics, business, neuroscience, and a recipe for radishes, Stop Making Sense shares the creative blueprint that can unleash the inspiring leader in all of us. “If Brené Brown and Simon Sinek had a book baby together, you’re looking at it right now. Stop Making Sense is a new manual for learning true leadership. Fanuele’s set of simple principles that changed my life over the last quarter century will change yours in a matter of hours.”—Andrew Zimmern, chef, author, teacher, host and producer of Travel Channel’s Bizarre Foods “Michael Fanuele shows us how our passion and emotion will take us farther than our logic ever can. I can't convince you to read this book, but I guarantee you'll be inspired by doing so.”—Beth Comstock, author of Imagine It Forward and former vice chair, GE “This is the book we need now: a blueprint for leading with heart, passion, and imagination. Fanuele is such a fun and generous storyteller you almost don't realize that he’s murdering so many small and cynical voices.” —Andrew Essex, Co-founder, Plan A, author of The End of Advertising, former CEO, Droga5 and Tribeca Enterprises “This funny, sweary, energetic, challenging book will push you into a whole new way to find that compelling inspiration we’d all secretly like 1000% more of.”—Adam Morgan, author of Eating The Big Fish and A Beautiful Constraint and founder, eatbigfish “The best magic bends your brain, and that’s exactly what Michael Fanuele does in Stop Making Sense. With wit and insight, he dismisses the myth that we have to wait for inspiration to strike. He reveals the secrets that can make any of us a muse, dazzling audiences and getting the very best out of our teams, families, and most important, ourselves.”—David Kwong, magician, “The Enigmatist,” author of Spellbound, puzzle creator, and producer

American Statecraft
American Statecraft

Author: J. Robert Moskin

Publisher: Macmillan

Published: 2013-11-19

Total Pages: 1002

ISBN-13: 1250037468

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This magisterial work on American diplomacy by a veteran journalist and historian is the first complete history of the U.S. Foreign Service American Statecraft is a fascinating and comprehensive look at the unsung men and women of the U.S. Foreign Service whose dedication and sacrifices have been a crucial part of our history for over two centuries. Fifteen years in the making, veteran journalist and historian Moskin has traveled the globe conducting hundreds of interviews both in and out of the State Department to look behind the scenes at America's "militiamen of diplomacy." As the nation's eyes and ears, our envoys pledge a substantial part of their lives in foreign lands working for the benefit of their nation. Endeavoring to use dialogue and negotiation as their instruments of change, our diplomats tirelessly work to find markets for American business, rescue its citizens in trouble abroad, and act in general as "America's first line of defense" in policy negotiations, keeping America out of war. But it took generations to polish these skills, and Moskin traces America's full diplomatic history, back to its amateur years coming up against seasoned Europeans during the days of Ben Franklin, now considered the father of the U.S. Foreign Service, and up to the recent Benghazi attack. Along the way, its members included many devoted and courageous public servants, and also some political spoilsmen and outright rogues. An important contribution to the political canon, American Statecraft recounts the history of the United States through the lens of foreign diplomacy.