4200 gigs. 250 Film and TV song placements. 30 years in music. These are some of the bullet points in the resume of author/musician Bill Cinque. THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF A MARGINALLY SUCCESSFUL MUSICIAN is an educational and entertaining look at the world of music. Honest, insightful and often humorously brutal, Cinque speaks to the beginner, the seasoned pro, and the non-musician "civilian" in a unique and refreshing voice about the rehearsals, recordings and rejections in the life of a self-described "blue collar, working class musician."
4200 gigs. 250 Film and TV song placements. 30 years in music. These are some of the bullet points in the resume of author/musician Bill Cinque. THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF A MARGINALLY SUCCESSFUL MUSICIAN is an educational and entertaining look at the world of music. Honest, insightful and often humorously brutal, Cinque speaks to the beginner, the seasoned pro and the non-musician civilian in a unique and refreshing voice about the rehearsals, recordings and rejections in the life of a self-described blue collar, working class musician.
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The epic, beloved novel of two boy geniuses dreaming up superheroes in New York’s Golden Age of comics, now with special bonus material by the author “It's absolutely gosh-wow, super-colossal—smart, funny, and a continual pleasure to read.”—The Washington Post Book World One of The New York Times’s 100 Best Books of the 21st Century • One of Entertainment Weekly’s 10 Best Books of the Decade • Finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award, National Book Critics Circle Award, and Los Angeles Times Book Prize A “towering, swash-buckling thrill of a book” (Newsweek), hailed as Chabon’s “magnum opus” (The New York Review of Books), The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay is a triumph of originality, imagination, and storytelling, an exuberant, irresistible novel that begins in New York City in 1939. A young escape artist and budding magician named Joe Kavalier arrives on the doorstep of his cousin, Sammy Clay. While the long shadow of Hitler falls across Europe, America is happily in thrall to the Golden Age of comic books, and in a distant corner of Brooklyn, Sammy is looking for a way to cash in on the craze. He finds the ideal partner in the aloof, artistically gifted Joe, and together they embark on an adventure that takes them deep into the heart of Manhattan, and the heart of old-fashioned American ambition. From the shared fears, dreams, and desires of two teenage boys, they spin comic book tales of the heroic, fascist-fighting Escapist and the beautiful, mysterious Luna Moth, otherworldly mistress of the night. Climbing from the streets of Brooklyn to the top of the Empire State Building, Joe and Sammy carve out lives, and careers, as vivid as cyan and magenta ink. Spanning continents and eras, this superb book by one of America’s finest writers remains one of the defining novels of our modern American age. Winner of the Bay Area Book Reviewers Award and the New York Society Library Book Award
“ARE YOU READY TO BE TOTALLY FREAKED OUT?” As the most unpopular kid in high school, Summer Jones isn’t ready for much of anything, except for teasing from classmates. Then Jasper, her eccentric Dad, makes a shocking disclosure: He’s a professor at Zoom’s Academy, a school that develops super-powers in select students. Before Summer can say “lost his marbles,” Jasper gives her a strange ring, which glows the instant Summer slips it on her finger. Okay, now she’s ready to be totally freaked out! So begins Summer’s amazing adventures, as she blasts off to an astonishing campus in the clouds. It is a place where rockets run on lime gelatin, shiny brass robots zip around, and caped (soon-to-be-crusading) kids fly the skies and fine tune their special gifts–from lightning speed and elastic limbs to telepathy and colossal strength. Can it be true that Summer, a geeky girl with a paralyzing fear of heights, is a budding crime-fighting super hero? Yet while the faculty of Zoom’s Academy tries to discover what sort of super-powers Summer actually possesses, the dark headmaster of Zoom’s archrival, Grave’s School for the Villainous Arts, plots a hostile take-over, in which one unsuspecting girl will play a vital role in its sinister execution. From the Trade Paperback edition.
Twelve-year-old Amelia gets the opportunity to attend a boarding school and learn how to use music to create magic, hoping to become a Maestro like her deceased mother.
By the bestselling author of Sam Phillips: The Man Who Invented Rock ‘n’ Roll and Last Train the Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley, this dazzling new book of profiles is a culmination of Peter Guralnick’s remarkable work, which from the start has encompassed the full sweep of blues, gospel, country, and rock 'n' roll. It covers old ground from new perspectives, offering deeply felt, masterful, and strikingly personal portraits of creative artists, both musicians and writers, at the height of their powers. “You put the book down feeling that its sweep is vast, that you have read of giants who walked among us,” rock critic Lester Bangs wrote of Guralnick’s earlier work in words that could just as easily be applied to this new one. And yet, for all of the encomiums that Guralnick’s books have earned for their remarkable insights and depth of feeling, Looking to Get Lost is his most personal book yet. For readers who have grown up on Guralnick’s unique vision of the vast sweep of the American musical landscape, who have imbibed his loving and lively portraits and biographies of such titanic figures as Elvis Presley, Sam Cooke, and Sam Phillips, there are multiple surprises and delights here, carrying on and extending all the themes, fascinations, and passions of his groundbreaking earlier work. One of NPR’s Best Books of 2020 One of Kirkus Review/Rolling Stone’s Top Music Books of 2020 One of No Depression’s Best Books of 2020
One woman’s journey to find herself through juicing, veganism, and love, as she went from fat to thin and from feeding her emotions to feeding her soul. From the extra pounds and unrelenting bullies that left her eating lunch alone in a bathroom stall at school to the low self-esteem that left her both physically and emotionally vulnerable to abuse, Jasmin Singer’s struggle with weight defined her life. Most people think there’s no such thing as a fat vegan. Most people don’t realize that deep-fried tofu tastes amazing and that Oreos are, in fact, vegan. So, even after Jasmin embraced a vegan lifestyle, having discovered her passion in advocating for the rights of animals, she defied any “skinny vegan” stereotypes by getting even heavier. More importantly, she realized that her compassion for animals didn’t extend to her own body, and that her low self-esteem was affecting her health. She needed a change. By committing to monthly juice fasts and a diet of whole, unprocessed foods, Jasmin lost almost a hundred pounds, gained an understanding of her destructive relationship with food, and finally realized what it means to be truly full. Told with humble humor and heartbreaking honesty, this is Jasmin’s story of how she went from finding solace in a box of cheese crackers to finding peace within herself.
Jennifer Knapp’s meteoric rise in the Christian music industry ended abruptly when she walked away and came out publicly as a lesbian. This is her story—of coming to Christ, of building a career, of admitting who she is, and of how her faith remained strong through it all. At the top of her career in the Christian music industry, Jennifer Knapp quit. A few years later, she publicly revealed she is gay. A media frenzy ensued, and many of her former fans were angry with what they saw as turning her back on God. But through it all, she held on to the truth that had guided her from the beginning. In this memoir, she finally tells her story: of her troubled childhood, the love of music that pulled her through, her dramatic conversion to Christianity, her rise to stardom, her abrupt departure from Christian Contemporary Music, her years of trying to come to terms with her sexual orientation, and her return to music and Nashville in 2010, when she came out publicly for the first time. She also talks about the importance of her faith, and despite the many who claim she can no longer call herself a believer, she maintains that she is both gay and a Christian. Now an advocate for LGBT issues in the church, Jennifer has witnessed heartbreaking struggles as churches wrestle with issues of homosexuality and faith. This engrossing, inspiring memoir will help people understand her story and to believe in their own stories, whatever they may be.
Twelve-year-old Aaron Broom is protecting his father’s car from repossession when he witnesses a jewelry store robbery gone wrong. To Aaron’s shock, his father, a struggling salesman in the wrong place at the wrong time, is fingered as the prime suspect in the murder. Aaron—precocious, plucky, not a little naïve—must seek out gangsters, diamond dealers, bootleggers, and street kids in order to prove his father’s innocence. In his search for justice, Aaron draws upon the resources of a world-weary paperboy, an aspiring teen journalist, and a kindly lawyer. As they dig into the details of the case, these unconventional detectives reveal a cover-up that goes much deeper than a jewelry-store heist gone sour. Through it all, Aaron’s optimism and resourcefulness shine through. Hotchner’s latest is a rollicking ride through St. Louis at its lowest, as seen through the eyes of his most lovable narrator to date.
In the fictional world of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, the Escapist--the epitome of Golden Age superhero--was conceived. This anthology is a collection of the hero's history and his exploits, created by an all-star cast of comic book luminaries. The Escapist and his associates are heroes to all who languish in oppression's chains. They roam the globe, performing amazing feats to foil diabolical evildoers. From preventing a prison break and attack on Empire City, to facing a demonic horde in Japan, to crushing a galactic takeover in the year 2966, and to surfacing a sunken submarine from 300 fathoms, the Escapist brings hope and liberation. As the history of his creators, Joe Kavalier and Sam Clay, was chronicled in The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, now a multitude of the Escapist's adventures are collected here, along with the patchwork publishing history of the character. This volume also contains the adventures of the Escapist's associate, Luna Moth. The stories and art within are by amazing talent like Brian K. Vaughan (Saga, Y--The Last Man), Kyle Baker (The Fifth Beatle), Eduardo Barreto (Batman), Howard Chaykin (American Flagg, Star Wars), Gene Colan (Daredevil, Howard the Duck), Matt Kindt (Pistolwhip), Kevin McCarthy (Circuit-Breaker), Bill Sienkiewicz (Elektra: Assassin), Jim Starlin (Captain Marvel) and, of course, Michael Chabon. Containing a total of twenty-six tales, along with two never-before-collected stories, this volume also contains six never-before-published stories, as well as a robust gallery of pinups celebrating the world of the Escapist from artists including Brian Bolland (Judge Dredd), Jöelle Jones (Lady Killer), Mike Mignola (Hellboy), Eric Wight (My Dead Girlfriend), Jae Lee (Before Watchmen), and more!
