Other books that might interest you

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  The Origin of the World

  Jp. A. Calosse, Hans-Jürgen Döpp

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  Lacan, the last owner of Courbet’s The Origin of the World, loved the painting so much that he couldn’t even bring himself to look at it. Instead, he hid it behind a “safer” painting.
  The Chinese called it the “valley of the roses” (watch out for the thorns!), the Persians, the “honey-pot” (watch out for the bees!), and the Greeks, “the mound of Venus” (mind the steep climb!); to each era its fantasies and its theories about the feminine mystique. Then there are the testimonies of poets, painters, and even of some famous psychiatrists. The Origin of the World is a work of art only suitable for lovers of intrigue.

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  Sympathy for the Drummer - Why...

  Mike Edison

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  Sympathy for the Drummer: Why Charlie Watts Matters is both a gonzo rush—capturing the bristling energy of the Rolling Stones and the times in which they lived—and a wide-eyed reflection on why the Greatest Rock 'n' Roll Band in the World needed the world's greatest rock 'n' roll drummer. Across five decades, Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts has had the best seat in the house. Charlie Watts, the anti-rock star—an urbane jazz fan with a dry wit and little taste for the limelight—was witness to the most savage years in rock history, and emerged a hero, a warrior poet. With his easy swing and often loping, uneven fills, he found nuance in a music that often had little room for it, and along with his greatest ally, Keith Richards, he gave the Stones their swaggering beat. While others battled their drums, Charlie played his modest kit with finesse and humility, and yet his relentless grooves on the nastiest hard-rock numbers of the era ("Gimme Shelter," "Street Fighting Man," "Brown Sugar," "Jumpin' Jack Flash," etc.) delivered a dangerous authenticity to a band that on their best nights should have been put in jail. Author Mike Edison, himself a notorious raconteur and accomplished drummer, tells a tale of respect and satisfaction that goes far beyond drums, drumming, and the Rolling Stones, ripping apart the history of rock'n'roll, and celebrating sixty years of cultural upheaval. He tears the sheets off of the myths of music making, shredding the phonies and the frauds, and unifies the frayed edges of disco, punk, blues, country, soul, jazz, and R&B—the soundtrack of our lives.Highly opinionated, fearless, and often hilarious, Sympathy is as an unexpected treat for music fans and pop culture mavens, as edgy and ribald as the Rolling Stones at their finest, never losing sight of the sex and magic that puts the roll in the rock —the beat, that crazy beat!—and the man who drove the band, their true engine, the utterly irreplaceable Charlie Watts.

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  Fifty Places to Play Golf Before...

  Chris Santella

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  A stunning, in-depth guide to fifty of the world’s greatest golf courses, selected by people deeply connected to the sport. 
   
  There’s an incredible similarity between the mechanics of a fly cast and the swing of a golf club. Perhaps that's why Chris Santella, author of Fifty Places to Fly Fish Before You Die, can be found on the links when he’s not on the stream. With Fifty Places to Play Golf Before You Die, Santella gives voice to his other sporting passion, interviewing 50 people intimately connected to the sport about some of their favorite courses around the world. 
   
  For both passionate golfers and armchair travelers, this gorgeous full-color book presents the world’s greatest golf venues, the personal favorites of renowned players, course architects, and other experts in the sport. From Ballyliffin, Ireland’s northernmost course, whose rumpled fairways wander along the North Sea in the shadows of Glashedy Rock, to New Zealand's Cape Kidnappers, perched atop dramatic cliffs some 500 feet above the ocean, the book’s beautiful photographs capture the architecture, noteworthy holes, location, and ambiance that make these courses standouts for ardent golfers. A brief history of each course, an experiential account-filled with local color-from the person recommending the venue, and trip-planning advice provide adventurous readers with all the information they need to chip and putt their way around the globe. 
   
  A close-up look at golf’s top courses around the world, recommended by such experts as Nick Faldo and Christie Kerr (pro golfers), Pete Dye and Tom Doak (course architects), and Brian McCallen (editor and author). 
   
  With breathtaking color photographs of each site, this is a great gift for avid golfers and armchair travelers alike.

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  Vincent Van Gogh and artworks

  Vincent Van Gogh

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  Vincent van Gogh’s life and work are so intertwined that it is hardly possible to observe one without thinking of the other. Van Gogh has indeed become the incarnation of the suffering, misunderstood martyr of modern art, the emblem of the artist as an outsider. An article, published in 1890, gave details about van Gogh’s illness. The author of the article saw the painter as “a terrible and demented genius, often sublime, sometimes grotesque, always at the brink of the pathological.” Very little is known about Vincent’s childhood. At the age of eleven he had to leave “the human nest”, as he called it himself, for various boarding schools. The first portrait shows us van Gogh as an earnest nineteen year old. At that time he had already been at work for three years in The Hague and, later, in London in the gallery Goupil & Co. In 1874 his love for Ursula Loyer ended in disaster and a year later he was transferred to Paris, against his will. After a particularly heated argument during Christmas holidays in 1881, his father, a pastor, ordered Vincent to leave. With this final break, he abandoned his family name and signed his canvases simply “Vincent”. He left for Paris and never returned to Holland. In Paris he came to know Paul Gauguin, whose paintings he greatly admired. The self-portrait was the main subject of Vincent’s work from 1886c88. In February 1888 Vincent left Paris for Arles and tried to persuade Gauguin to join him. The months of waiting for Gauguin were the most productive time in van Gogh’s life. He wanted to show his friend as many pictures as possible and decorate the Yellow House. But Gauguin did not share his views on art and finally returned to Paris. On 7 January, 1889, fourteen days after his famous self-mutilation, Vincent left the hospital where he was convalescing. Although he hoped to recover from and to forget his madness, but he actually came back twice more in the same year. During his last stay in hospital, Vincent painted landscapes in which he recreated the world of his childhood. It is said that Vincent van Gogh shot himself in the side in a field but decided to return to the inn and went to bed. The landlord informed Dr Gachet and his brother Theo, who described the last moments of his life which ended on 29 July, 1890: “I wanted to die. While I was sitting next to him promising that we would try to heal him. [...], he answered, ‘La tristesse durera toujours (The sadness will last forever).’”

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  The Champ - Hollywood Stage

  Hollywood Stage Productions

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  Hollywood is indelibly printed in our minds as the ‘go-to’ place for entertainment and has been for decades.  When there really did seem to be more stars in Hollywood than in Heaven Hollywood Stage had them performing films as radio plays – on the sponsors dime of course.  Classic films now become audiobooks with many featuring the original stars from way back when. Here's The Champ starring Wallace Beery.

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  Post-Impressionism

  Nathalia Brodskaïa

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  Whilst Impressionism marked the first steps toward modern painting by revolutionising an artistic medium stifled by academic conventions, Post-Impressionism, even more revolutionary, completely liberated colour and opened it to new, unknown horizons. Anchored in his epoch, relying on the new chromatic studies of Michel Eugène Chevreul, Georges Seurat transcribed the chemist’s theory of colours into tiny points that created an entire image. With his heavy strokes, Van Gogh illustrated the midday sun, whilst Cézanne renounced perspective. Rich in its variety and in the singularity of its artists, Post-Impressionism was a passage taken by all the well-known figures of 20th century painting - it is here presented, for the great pleasure of the reader, by Nathalia Brodskaïa.

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