Altri libri che potrebbero interessarti

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  It's Not Over 'Til It's Over -...

  Al Silverman

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  Find inspiration in these “enjoyable” accounts of historic last-minute victories—both legendary and little-known—in the world of sports (Booklist).   From a former editor of Sport magazine, this book is a journey through a century of athletic endeavor, from baseball to boxing and beyond—filled with true stories that remind us of some of the qualities that can help to create a champion: perseverance, determination, and hope.   “Re-creations of 13 dramatic sports events from the 20th century . . . While Silverman has chosen to profile a handful of well-documented events, such as New York Giant Bobby Thompson’s 1951 home run at the Polo Grounds, the first Ali-Frazier prizefight in 1971 and the 1980 US hockey team’s Olympic victory over the Russians, the real value of the book lies in his depiction of such obscure or neglected events as the 1923 boxing match between Argentine Luis Firpo and American Jack Dempsey, and the 1968 Harvard-Yale football game . . . The best piece follows an unknown Native American Marine from Kansas who shocked himself and the world by winning the 10,000-meter road race at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics . . . He often tracks down and interviews event participants to provide perspective from both the victor and the vanquished.” —Publishers Weekly

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  Beethoven - The Universal Composer

  Edmund Morris

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  Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) was a genius so universal that his popularity, extraordinary even during his lifetime, has never ceased to grow. It now encircles the globe: Beethoven's most famous works are as beloved in Beijing as they are in Boston.Edmund Morris, the author of three bestselling presidential biographies and a lifelong devotee of Beethoven, brings the great composer to life as a man of astonishing complexity and overpowering intelligence. A gigantic, compulsively creative personality unable to tolerate constraints, he was not so much a social rebel as an astute manipulator of the most powerful and privileged aristocrats in Germany and Austria, at a time when their world was threatened by the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte.But Beethoven's achievement rests in his immortal music. Struggling against progressive, incurable deafness (which he desperately tried to keep secret), he nonetheless produced towering masterpieces, such as his iconic Fifth and Ninth symphonies. With sensitivity and insight, Edmund Morris illuminates Beethoven's life, including his interactions with the women he privately lusted for but held at bay, and his work, whose grandeur and beauty were conceived "on the other side of silence."

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  The Americans - Letters from...

  Alistair Cooke

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  “Reading [Cooke] is like spending an evening with him: you may have heard it all before, but never told with such grace and sparkle.” —The New York Times Book ReviewAs the voice of the BBC’s Letter from America for close to six decades, Alistair Cooke addressed several millions of listeners on five continents. They tuned in every Friday evening or Sunday morning to listen to his erudite and entertaining reports on life in the United States. According to Lord Hill of Luton, chairman of the BBC, Cooke had “a virtuosity approaching genius in talking about America in human terms.” That virtuosity is displayed to great effect in this essential collection of Cooke’s letters, covering a momentous decade in American history. Always entertaining, provocative, and enlightening, the master broadcaster reports on an extraordinarily diverse range of topics, from Vietnam, Watergate, and the constitutional definition of free speech to the jogging craze and the pleasures of a family Christmas in Vermont. He eulogizes Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren, pays an affectionate and moving tribute to Duke Ellington, and treats readers to a night at the opera with Jimmy Carter. Alistair Cooke was one of the twentieth century’s most influential reporters and, according to Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist James Reston, the “best story-teller in America.” This captivating collection includes some of Cooke’s most memorable insights into American history and culture.

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  Edgar Allan Poe - Six of the...

  Edgar Allan Poe

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  Six has always been a number we group things around – Six of the best, six of one half a dozen of another, six feet under, six pack, six degrees of separation and a sixth sense are but a few of the ways we use this number. 
   
  Such is its popularity that we thought it is also a very good way of challenging and investigating an author’s work to give width, brevity, humour and depth across six of their very best. 
   
  In this series we gather together authors whose short stories both rivet the attention and inspire the imagination to visit their gems in a series of six, to roam across an author’s legacy in a few short hours and gain a greater understanding of their writing and, of course, to be lavishly entertained by their ideas, their narrative and their way with words. 
   
  These stories can be surprising and sometimes at a tangent to what we expected, but each is fully formed and a marvellous adventure into the world and words of a literary master. 
   
   1 - Six of the Best - Edgar Allan Poe - An Introduction 
  2 - Edgar Allan Poe - An Introduction 
  3 - The Fall of the House of Usher - Part 1 by Edgar Allan Poe 
  4 - The Fall of the House of Usher - Part 2 by Edgar Allan Poe 
  5 - The Pit and the Pendulum by Edgar Allan Poe 
  6 - The Tell Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe 
  7 - The Premature Burial by Edgar Allan Poe 
  8 - The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe 
  9 - The Murders in the Rue Morgue - Part 1 by Edgar Allan Poe 
  10 - The Murders in the Rue Morgue - Part 2 by Edgar Allan Poe

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  The Passenger: Japan

  Passenger The

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  Explore Japanese society in the lively series that collects the best new writing, photography, art, and reportage from around the world. 
   
  Visitors from the West look with amazement, and sometimes concern, at Japan’s social structures and unique, complex culture industry; the gigantic scale of its tech corporations and the resilience of its traditions; the extraordinary diversity of the subcultures that flourish in its “post-human” megacities. The country nonetheless remains an intricate and complicated jigsaw puzzle, an inexhaustible source of inspiration for stories, reflections, and reportage. Caught between an aging population and extreme post-modernity, Japan is an ideal observation point from which to understand our era and the one to come. The subjects in this volume form a portrait of the country that ranges from the Japanese veneration of the dead to the Tokyo music scene, from urban alienation to cinema, from sumo to toxic masculinity. 
   
  “The Passenger readers will find none of the typical travel guide sections on where to eat or what sights to see. Consider the books, rather, more like a literary vacation.” —Publishers Weekly 
   
  In this volume:Ghosts of the Tsumani by Richard Lloyd Parry  Living in Shimokitazawa by Yoshimoto Banana  Why Japan Has Avoided Populism by Ian Buruma  Plus: a Shinto sect in the shadow of power, fleeing debts by disappearing into thin air, the decline of sexual desire, the obsession with American blues, the strongest sumo wrestler of all time (who isn’t Japanese), the revenge of the Ainu and much more . . .

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  Crash and Burn

  Anthony Bozza, Artie Lange

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  Veteran comedian Artie Lange turns an unflinching eye and his signature wit on his perilous descent into drug addiction, life-threatening depression, and ultimately, his recovery, in the follow-up to his hilariously raw debut, the #1 New York Times bestseller Too Fat to Fish.At a high point in his career, Artie Lange played a sold-out show in Carnegie Hall and totally killed—yet during his standing ovation, all he could think of were the two bags of heroin in his pocket. In the midst of a deep, self-destructive depression, addicted to heroin and prescription drugs, he lashed out at everyone around him—from his fellow cast members on The Howard Stern Show, to celebrity guests, to his longtime friends, and even his own family.By turns dark and disturbing, hilarious and heartbreaking, and always drop-dead honest, the New York Times bestseller Crash and Burn lifts the curtain on Lange’s dangerous slide. For the first time, Artie reveals all: the full truth behind his now legendary Stern Show meltdown, his suicide attempt (which he relates in terrifying detail), surprising stints in rehab, and painful relapses. With the help and support of friends and family, Artie claws his way back, turning his life and career around. And despite his slip-ups, backslides, and permanent losses, Artie forges on.

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