Publisher: libreka classics
The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame libreka classics – These are classics of literary history, reissued and made available to a wide audience. Immerse yourself in well-known and popular titles!
Burne-Jones’ oeuvre can be understood as an attempt to create in paint a world of perfect beauty, as far removed from the Birmingham of his youth as possible. At that time Birmingham was a byword for the dire effects of unregulated capitalism – a booming, industrial conglomeration of unimaginable ugliness and squalor. The two great French symbolist painters, Gustave Moreau and Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, immediately recognised Burne-Jones as an artistic fellow traveller. But, it is very unlikely that Burne-Jones would have accepted or even, perhaps, have understood the label of ‘symbolist’. Yet he seems to have been one of the most representative figures of the symbolist movement and of that pervasive mood termed “fin-de-siecle”. Burne-Jones is usually labelled as a Pre-Raphaelite. In fact he was never a member of the Brotherhood formed in 1848. Burne-Jones’ brand of Pre-Raphaelitism derives not from Hunt and Millais but from Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Burne-Jones’ work in the late 1850s is, moreover, closely based on Rossetti’s style. His feminine ideal is also taken from that of Rossetti, with abundant hair, prominent chins, columnar necks and androgynous bodies hidden by copious medieval gowns. The prominent chins remain a striking feature of both artists’ depictions of women. From the 1860s their ideal types diverge. As Rossetti’s women balloon into ever more fleshy opulence, Burne-Jones’ women become more virginal and ethereal to the point where, in some of the last pictures, the women look anorexic. In the early 1870s Burne-Jones painted several mythical or legendary pictures in which he seems to have been trying to exorcise the traumas of his celebrated affair with Mary Zambaco. No living British painter between Constable and Bacon enjoyed the kind of international acclaim that Burne-Jones was accorded in the early 1890s. This great reputation began to slip in the latter half of the decade, however, and it plummeted after 1900 with the triumph of Modernism. With hindsight we can see this flatness and the turning away from narrative as characteristic of early Modernism and the first hesitant steps towards Abstraction. It is not as odd at it seems that Kandinsky cited Rossetti and Burne-Jones as forerunners of Abstraction in his book, “Concerning the Spiritual in Art”.Show book
Hamlet calls death "that undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns."But he's wrong. Some do return.Each night after the applause dies, the curtain falls, the audience vanishes, the cleaners dust, and the lights are killed, great theatres become dark and silent places. But not always quite empty.That's when the theatre ghosts make their entrance and strut and fret their hour upon the shadowed boards, illuminated only by the ghost light, the solitary lamp that is required to burn through the night on every Broadway stage.Many of Broadway's busiest theatres continue to be just as busily haunted by spirits, some with well-known names and histories.Good Morning, Olive (named for one of the most beautiful and temperamental of Broadway's ghosts) is about the ghosts that haunt theatres in New York and around the world.Broadway is the playground of stars, so it's probably not surprising to learn that even its ghosts are stars. Meet some of Broadway's best known—and most active—celebrity ghosts. Don't worry: like Casper, they tend to be friendly. For the most part.Show book
Audiobook exclusive: original and never-before-released music from the author, Margo Price. When Margo Price was nineteen years old, she dropped out of college and moved to Nashville to become a musician. She busked on the street, played open mics, and even threw out her TV so that she would do nothing but write songs. She met Jeremy Ivey, a fellow musician who would become her closest collaborator and her husband. But after working on their craft for more than a decade, Price and Ivey had no label, no band, and plenty of heartache. Maybe We’ll Make It is a memoir of loss, motherhood, and the search for artistic freedom in the midst of the agony experienced by so many aspiring musicians: bad gigs and long tours, rejection and sexual harassment, too much drinking, and barely enough money to live on. Price, though, refused to break and turned her lowest moments into the classic country songs that eventually comprised the debut album that launched her career. In the authentic voice hailed by Pitchfork for tackling "Steinbeck-sized issues with no-bullshit humility," Price shares the stories that became songs and the small acts of love and camaraderie it takes to survive in a music industry that is often unkind to women. Now a Grammy-nominated “Best New Artist,” Price tells a love story of music, collaboration, and the struggle to build a career while trying to maintain her singular voice and style.Show book
The award-winning photographer’s pictorial history of the famous San Francisco Jazz club featuring oral histories and more than 100 images—“A treasure” (SF Weekly). In the words of Wynton Marsalis, “Keystone Korner was the quintessential jazz club . . . a happy home to people of all persuasions.” During the 1970s, when jazz clubs across America were folding under the onslaught of rock and roll and disco, San Francisco’s Keystone Korner was an oasis for jazz listeners and musicians. Tucked away in the city’s North Beach area, the Keystone became one of the most important jazz spots in the United States. It was so beloved by musicians that superstars McCoy Tyner, Freddie Hubbard, Ron Carter, and Elvin Jones played a benefit concert to raise money for its liquor license. In this book, award-winning photographer Kathy Sloane shares more than 100 black and white photographs documenting the musicians and regulars, the spontaneous moments and ephemeral scene of this legendary club. Together with these images, she has compiled a fascinating collage of first-hand oral histories that chronicle the Keystone experience. “From the antics of the photo-laden backroom to the underground hype of Ora Harris’ Keystone Kitchen, Sloane and fellow editor Sascha Feinstein leave no stone unturned. They examine the backstories of some of Keystone’s most lovable characters . . . a delightful sensory overload” (Downbeat).Show book
Leo Beagle has spent two years writing a 638 manifesto on human harmony that just might change the world. The problem is only that no one wants to read it, especially not Leo’s unharmonious family.An L.A. Theatre Works full-cast performance featuring Barbara Bain, Arye Gross, Mary Gross, Valerie Mahaffey, Marc-Bradley Phillips and Robert Symonds.Directed by Steve Albrezzi. Recorded before a live audience in Santa Monica, CA in March, 1992.Show book
Stretching eighty miles from coast to coast across northern England, Hadrian's Wall is the largest Roman artifact known today. It is commonly viewed as a defiant barrier, the end of the empire, a place where civilization stopped and barbarism began. In fact, the massive structure remains shrouded in mystery. Was the wall intended to keep out the Picts, who inhabited the North? Or was it merely a symbol of Roman power and wealth? What was life like for soldiers stationed along its expanse? How was the extraordinary structure built—with what technology, skills, and materials? In Hadrian's Wall, Adrian Goldsworthy embarks on a historical and archeological investigation, sifting fact from legend while simultaneously situating the wall in the wider scene of Roman Britain. The result is a concise and enthralling history of a great architectural marvel of the ancient world.Show book
