Waltz of the Asparagus People

Waltz of the Asparagus People PDF Author: Robin Meloy Goldsby
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781456477547
Category : Americans
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
The Piano Girl journey continues. Waltz of the Asparagus People follows Robin Meloy Goldsby and her family to Europe, recounting their adventures and frustrations as they learn a new language, adapt to a new culture, and find new friends. Sometimes hilarious, sometimes heartbreaking, and always insightful, Goldsby's lyrical stories reveal the trials and triumphs of an expatriate musician's life, as Goldsby connects her music to family, friends, and home, past and present. "Goldsby has a wicked sense of humor and a keen eye for the absurd. This is big-hearted, funny, truly eye-opening memoir." Publishers Weekly Starred Review of Piano Girl "Goldsby's witty sequel to her memoir Piano Girl matches its predecessor's humor and breeziness. The first book recounted her experiences playing piano in New York City hotel lounges before moving to Germany. This collection of more than 20 essays includes episodes from before and after her move, starting slowly with "Mr. President," a tale about how she crossed paths with former president Bill Clinton while recording a segment for National Public Radio. Goldsby hits her stride with the title essay, in which she recounts a bizarre display at the Grand Hyatt of over 200 asparagus stalks arranged to form a village and "hand-painted, shellacked, and dressed in little outfits." Her trials and tribulations while trying to obtain a driver's license in Germany--complete with a road test on the Autobahn at a speed of 100 miles per hour and a written test with extremely esoteric questions--is another high point. But pride of place must go to "The House on Sorority Row," which describes Goldsby's portrayal of a doomed sorority sister in a 1980s cult slasher film--a role that gained her a degree of celebrity." Publishers Weekly "Robin Meloy Goldsby's collection of short-story memoires is as palatably more-ish as a fresh fruit sorbet. Goldsby is a pianist, mother and writer, an American living in Germany. Her stories are varied and whimsical, ranging through a terrific amount of incident and emotion, all of them evoked with a keenly observant eye and well-wrought language that never takes itself too seriously. If this is all part of life's rich tapestry, then Goldsby's stitching sparkles with detail, while its background is infused with a sense of beauty that manages to wear its lyricism lightly." JESSICA DUCHEN, International Piano "Goldsby's tales are often laugh-out-loud funny, sometimes poignant, and always abundantly human." Kathy Parsons, Mainly Piano "Robin Meloy Goldsby is a great storyteller. You'll feel as if you're sitting beside her on the piano bench, observing all the people she recalls with such intimacy and personal warmth." Barbara Cloud, Pittsburgh Post Gazette "Be it a ballad or an up tune, this plucky lucky pianist arranges her memoir medley for us and plays it in the key of life." Cheryl Hardwick, Saturday Night Live musical director, 1987-2000 "Goldsby's wide-ranging stories possess a low-key, party-girl sense of humor. Exuberant, keen, and at times very funny." Adam Bregman, Seattle Weekly

Piano Girl

Piano Girl PDF Author: Robin Meloy Goldsby
Publisher: Hal Leonard Corporation
ISBN: 9780879308827
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 296

Book Description
This entertaining memoir provides a glimpse into the comedies, tragedies, and mundane miracles witnessed from the business perspective of a world-traveling lounge musician.

Piano Girl Playbook

Piano Girl Playbook PDF Author: Robin Meloy Goldsby
Publisher: Backbeat Books
ISBN: 9781493056194
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 304

Book Description
Sometimes hilarious, often poignant, Piano Girl Playbook--a sequel to Robin Meloy Goldsby's popular memoir Piano Girl--reveals the comedies, tragedies, and mundane miracles witnessed from the player's side of the Steinway.

Love in the Time of Cholera

Love in the Time of Cholera PDF Author: Gabriel García Márquez
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 1101911115
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 370

Book Description
INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER • "A love story of astonishing power" (Newsweek), the acclaimed modern literary classic by the beloved Nobel Prize-winning author. In their youth, Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza fall passionately in love. When Fermina eventually chooses to marry a wealthy, well-born doctor, Florentino is devastated, but he is a romantic. As he rises in his business career he whiles away the years in 622 affairs--yet he reserves his heart for Fermina. Her husband dies at last, and Florentino purposefully attends the funeral. Fifty years, nine months, and four days after he first declared his love for Fermina, he will do so again.

The Professor's House

The Professor's House PDF Author: Willa Cather
Publisher: Courier Dover Publications
ISBN: 0486849708
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 160

Book Description
This bittersweet tale about a professor's desire to stay in his old study and cling to what used to be on the eve of moving into a new house sparks deep introspection in a story that explores a mid-life crisis and family life in a 1920s Midwestern college town.

Between the Acts

Between the Acts PDF Author: Virginia Woolf
Publisher: Modernista
ISBN: 9180949541
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 150

Book Description
In a picturesque English village, residents prepare for an amateur production in the grounds of their manor house. Against the backdrop of World War II looming in the background, the play becomes a microcosm reflecting the anxieties, hopes, and societal changes of the time. Through Virginia Woolf's distinctive narrative style, each character's inner world is intricately woven into the fabric of the performance, blurring the lines between reality and theatricality. Between the Acts stands as Virginia Woolf's final novel, completing her exploration of experimental narrative techniques and modernist themes. Published posthumously in 1941, the novel continues Woolf's profound literary legacy of challenging conventional storytelling and delving into the complexities of human consciousness. VIRGINIA WOOLF [1882–1941] was an English author. With novels like Jacob’s Room [1922], Mrs Dalloway [1925], To the Lighthouse [1927], and Orlando [1928], she became a leading figure of modernism and is considered one of the most important English-language authors of the 20th century. As a thinker, with essays like A Room of One’s Own [1929], Woolf has influenced the women’s movement in many countries.

A Box of Darkness

A Box of Darkness PDF Author: Sally Ryder Brady
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 1429992964
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 256

Book Description
In the tradition of Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking, comes a poignant memoir about a marriage that was as deep and strong as it was mysterious and complex Upton and Sally Brady were a rare breed: cultivated and elegant, they lived a life of literary glamour and high expectations. Sally a debutante; Upton a classics major from Harvard, they met at the Boston Cotillion. He was articulate, witty, and worldly, and he danced like Fred Astaire. How could she resist? Despite raising four children on Upton's modest wage as the editor-in-chief of the Atlantic Monthly Press, theirs was a world of champagne, sailboats, private islands, famous writers, family rituals, and ice-cold martinis. They lived life on their terms. But as time wore on, Upton, the charming and brilliant husband, the inventive, beguiling partner, grew opinionated, cranky, controlling, and dangerous. When Upton died suddenly one evening in their Vermont cottage, Sally began uncovering secrets. As she went through his papers, she discovered that her husband of forty-six years had desired the love of other men. Her riveting, charismatic husband was not quite the man he appeared to be, and a year of mourning became for Sally a time to unravel the dark and unexpected web he had left behind. Hers is a moving and powerful story of coming to terms with what cannot be changed. It is also a story of great love.

Quick, Before the Music Stops

Quick, Before the Music Stops PDF Author: Janet Carlson
Publisher: Broadway
ISBN: 076792682X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 259

Book Description
A one-time competitive ballroom dancer describes how she left performing to raise a family and pursue a more "suitable" profession, until twenty years later she rediscovers the joy, confidence, emotional security, trust, and wonder that dancing evokes.

Al Capone Does My Shirts

Al Capone Does My Shirts PDF Author: Gennifer Choldenko
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1440629633
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 290

Book Description
The Newbery Honor Book and New York Times Bestseller that is historical fiction with a hint of mystery about living at Alcatraz not as a prisoner, but as a kid meeting some of the most famous criminals in our history. Al Capone Does My Shirts has become an instant classic for all kids to read! Today I moved to Alcatraz, a twelve-acre rock covered with cement, topped with bird turd and surrounded by water. I'm not the only kid who lives here. There are twenty-three other kids who live on the island because their dads work as guards or cooks or doctors or electricians for the prison, like my dad does. And then there are a ton of murderers, rapists, hit men, con men, stickup men, embezzlers, connivers, burglars, kidnappers and maybe even an innocent man or two, though I doubt it. The convicts we have are the kind other prisons don't want. I never knew prisons could be picky, but I guess they can. You get to Alcatraz by being the worst of the worst. Unless you're me. I came here because my mother said I had to. A Newbery Honor Book A New York Times Bestseller A People magazine "Best kid's Book" An ALA Book for Young Adults An ALA Notable Book A School Library Journal Best Book of the Year A Krikus Reviews Editor's Choice A San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year A Parents' Choice Silver Honor Book A New York Public Library "100 Titles for Reading and Sharing" Selection A New York Public Library Best Book for the Teen Age *"Choldenko's pacing is exquisite. . . . [A] great read."—Kirkus Reviews, starred review *"Exceptionally atmospheric, fast-paced and memorable!"—Publishers Weekly, starred review *"The story, told with humor and skill, will fascinate readers."—School Library Journal, starred review "Al is the perfect novel for a young guy or moll who digs books by Gordon Korman, or Louis Sachar."—Time Out New York for Kids "Funny situations and plot twists abound!"—People magazine "Heartstopping in some places, heartrending in others, and most of all, it is heartwarming."—San Francisco Chronicle

Permanent Present Tense

Permanent Present Tense PDF Author: Suzanne Corkin
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0465033490
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 402

Book Description
In 1953, 27-year-old Henry Gustave Molaison underwent an experimental "psychosurgical" procedure -- a targeted lobotomy -- in an effort to alleviate his debilitating epilepsy. The outcome was unexpected -- when Henry awoke, he could no longer form new memories, and for the rest of his life would be trapped in the moment. But Henry's tragedy would prove a gift to humanity. As renowned neuroscientist Suzanne Corkin explains in Permanent Present Tense, she and her colleagues brought to light the sharp contrast between Henry's crippling memory impairment and his preserved intellect. This new insight that the capacity for remembering is housed in a specific brain area revolutionized the science of memory. The case of Henry -- known only by his initials H. M. until his death in 2008 -- stands as one of the most consequential and widely referenced in the spiraling field of neuroscience. Corkin and her collaborators worked closely with Henry for nearly fifty years, and in Permanent Present Tense she tells the incredible story of the life and legacy of this intelligent, quiet, and remarkably good-humored man. Henry never remembered Corkin from one meeting to the next and had only a dim conception of the importance of the work they were doing together, yet he was consistently happy to see her and always willing to participate in her research. His case afforded untold advances in the study of memory, including the discovery that even profound amnesia spares some kinds of learning, and that different memory processes are localized to separate circuits in the human brain. Henry taught us that learning can occur without conscious awareness, that short-term and long-term memory are distinct capacities, and that the effects of aging-related disease are detectable in an already damaged brain. Undergirded by rich details about the functions of the human brain, Permanent Present Tense pulls back the curtain on the man whose misfortune propelled a half-century of exciting research. With great clarity, sensitivity, and grace, Corkin brings readers to the cutting edge of neuroscience in this deeply felt elegy for her patient and friend.