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Simone Weil: Portrait of a Self-exiled Jew
by Thomas R. NevinOver fifty years after her death, Simone Weil (1909-1943) remains one of the most searching religious inquirers and political thinkers of the twentieth century. Albert Camus said she had a "madness for truth." She rejected her Jewishness and developed a strong interest in Catholicism, although she never joined the Catholic church. Both an activist and a scholar, she constantly spoke out against injustice and aligned herself with workers, with the colonial poor in France, and with the opressed everywhere. She came to believe that suffering itself could be a way to unity with God, and her death at thirty-four has been recorded as suicide by starvation.This extraordinary study is primarily a topography of Weil's mind, but Thomas Nevin is persuaded that her thought is inextricably bound to her life and dramatic times. Thus, he not only addresses her thoughts and her prejudices but examines her reasons for entertaining them and gives them a historical focus. He claims that to Weil's generation the Spanish War, the Popular Front, the ascendance of Hitlerism, and the Vichy years were not mere backdrops but definitive events.Nevin explores in detail not only matters of continuing interest, such as Weil's leftist politics and her attempt to embrace Christianity, but also hitherto unexamined aspects of her life and work which permit a deeper understanding of her: her writings on science, her work as a poet and dramatist, and her selective friendships. The thread uniting these topics is her struggle to maintain her independence as a free thinker while resisting community such as Judaism could have offered her. Her intellectual struggles eloquently reveal the desperate isolation of Jews torn between the lure of assimilation and the tormented dignity of their communal history.Nevin's massive research draws on the full range of essays, notebooks, and fragments from the Simone Weil archives in Paris, many of which have never been translated or published.Originally published in 1991. A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.
A Simple Brazilian Song: Journeys Through The Rio Sound
by James WoodallIn 1992, James Woodall was asked to write an article about a Brazilian musician he'd never heard of, called Chico Buarque. He discovered that Buarque was a national hero in his native country and that interviewing him was a bit like a Latin American interviewing Paul McCartney. Woodall fell under Buarque's spell and began an affair with Brazilian pop music which has lasted to this day. His new passion took him to Brazil and in particular to Rio de Janeiro, world capital of Carnival and samba. Over several visits, he met with Chico Buarque, discovered the city's immodest beach culture and took part in Carnival. He met Chico Buarque's great contemporary, Caetano Veloso and other stars. Picking up Portuguese on the hop, he learnt a great deal about Chico Buarque's life and about the strange and dangerous city where he lives. This book is as much a hymn to Rio de Janeiro as it is to the music that beats at its heart.
The Simple Life: How I Found Home
by Sarah BeenyJoin Sarah Beeny on her journey to live more simply and find her forever home...Throughout her life, Sarah Beeny has been obsessed with the idea of home. From her childhood growing up in a countryside cottage to renovating her very first flat in London to restoring a stately home in Yorkshire, she has never been afraid of the hard work needed to turn a house into a home. Now, in her most recent adventure, Sarah and her family have moved to a former dairy farm in Somerset to build the home of their dreams. In The Simple Life, Sarah will tell the story of her life, sharing tales and experiences in everything including parenting, property, friendships, nature and the environment, all the way through to her recent cancer diagnosis and treatment. Through it all, Sarah tackles challenges and troubles with signature wit and wisdom, discovering life is never as 'simple' as you'd like it to be.
Simple Passion
by Annie ErnauxIn her spare, stark style, Annie Ernaux documents the desires and indignities of a human heart ensnared in an all-consuming passion. Blurring the line between fact and fiction, she attempts to plot the emotional and physical course of her two-year relationship with a married man where every word, event, and person either provides a connection with her beloved or is subject to her cold indifference. With courage and exactitude, Ernaux seeks the truth behind an existence lived, for a time, entirely for someone else.
Simply the Gest
by David GestPart memoir, part his take on life, the universe and Hollywood, this is an all-round portrait of a true original. David Gest was the star of this year's I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here! His tall tales, huge sense of fun and sheer likeability proved to be ratings gold and his stories and expressions have become national catchphrases. Not only did he win over the British public with his charm, flamboyance and amazing sense of humour, but he was revealed as someone who, despite the fact that he has had extraordinary experiences and moves in circles most of us can't even imagine, we can all relate to, someone who cares. This book that will broaden our perception of the person we all fell in love with on that show and will cover a wide range of topics from the humorous, to the celebrity, to the more serious and cultural: we are all longing to know his secret
Simply Thrilled: The Preposterous Story of Postcard Records
by Simon GoddardThey had just a few hundred pounds, one band missing a drummer, a sock drawer for an office, more dreams than sense and not a clue between them how to run a record company. But when Alan Horne and Edwyn Collins decided to start their own label from a shabby Glasgow flat in 1979, nobody was going to stand in their way.Postcard Records was the mad, makeshift and quite preposterous result. Launching the careers of Orange Juice, Aztec Camera and cult heroes Josef K, the self-styled ‘Sound of Young Scotland’ stuck it to the London music biz and, quite by accident, kickstarted the 1980s indie music revolution.Simon Goddard has interviewed everyone involved in the making of the Postcard legend to tell this thrilling rock’n’roll story of punk audacity, knickerbocker glories, broken windscreens, raccoon-fur hats, comedy, violence and creating something beautiful from nothing, against all the odds.
Simpson: The Turbulent Life of a Medical Pioneer
by Maurice McCraeThis is the story of one of the great events in the history of medicine. In 1847, challenging the firmly held convictions of the medical profession of the time, James Young Simpson demonstrated for the first time that a woman could be safely relieved of the pains of difficult and traumatic labour by the administration of a general anaesthetic. He later added to his fame when he introduced a new and better anaesthetic, chloroform, which soon became the most popular general anaesthetic for use in general surgery as well as midwifery. Its use was endorsed by Queen Victoria when she asked for it to be administered during the birth of Prince Leopold in 1853. The book also gives a history of a time of rapid change in Scottish society that allowed the seventh son of a village baker in a rural apart of Scotland to go to university and then become a successful physician, a medical professor at one of the leading university medical schools in the world and Physician to the Queen, all before he had reached the age of forty.
Simpsons Confidential: The uncensored, totally unauthorised history of the world's greatest TV show by the people that made it
by John OrtvedThe Simpsons is the world's most popular entertainment phenomenon, regularly voted on both sides of the Atlantic as the best TV show ever made.Simpsons Confidential is the uncensored, unauthorised oral history of the show from the people who made it happen. It takes you into the inner sanctum of the series to reveal the mechanics and politics of how The Simpsons became of global significance - from Matt Groening drawing his first Homer on the ride over to pitch the show, to Conan O'Brien and the other Harvard comedy geniuses taking us into the daily life of the writing room. Animators, writers, actors, directors, producers, executives and celebrity guest stars - everyone from Rupert Murdoch down - all offer their opinions, insights and stories.Positively fizzing with indiscretions and intrigue, here at last is the book that legions of Simpsons fans have been waiting for.
Sinatra: The Chairman
by James KaplanFinally the definitive biography that Frank Sinatra, justly termed 'The Entertainer of the Century,' deserves and requires. Like Peter Guralnick on Elvis, Kaplan goes behind the legend to give us the man in full, in his many guises and aspects: peerless singer, (sometimes) powerful actor, business mogul, tireless lover and associate of the powerful and infamous.In 2010's Frank: The Voice, James Kaplan, in rich, distinctive, compulsively-readable prose, told the story of Frank Sinatra's meteoric rise to fame, subsequent failures, and reinvention as a star of the stage and screen. The story of 'Ol' Blue Eyes; continues with Sinatra: The Chairman, picking up the day after Frank claimed his Academy Award in 1954 and had reestablished himself as the top recording artist in music. Frank's life post-Oscar was incredibly dense: in between recording albums and singles, he often shot four or five movies a year;did TV show and nightclub appearances; started his own label, Reprise; and juggled his considerable commercial ventures (movie production, the restaurant business, even prizefighter management) alongside his famous and sometimes notorious social activities and commitments.
Sinatra: Hollywood His Way
by Timothy KnightIn the scores of posthumous tributes paid to Frank Sinatra after his death in 1998, most focused on his extraordinary reign as "The Voice” of twentieth-century pop music.But Sinatra was much more than a music icon. He was also one of the most popular movie stars of the 1940s, '50s, and '60s-an Academy-Award winning actor with some sixty film credits to his name. He starred in some of the most iconic films of the twentieth century and with some of the biggest names of the day. There were his dancing days with Gene Kelly in Anchors Aweigh and On the Town; his acclaimed dramatic turns in From Here to Eternity and The Manchurian Candidate; and his signature Rat Pack movies such as Ocean's Eleven.Sinatra: Hollywood His Way is a complete, film by film exploration of this true Hollywood legend. His screen history is vividly brought to life through illuminating reviews, behind-the-scenes stories, and hundreds of rare color and black-and-white photographs, making this the ultimate guide to the films of Frank Sinatra and an essential in the library of any fan.
Sinatra: The Life
by Anthony Summers Robbyn SwanIn 1941, at age twenty-five, Sinatra told a friend, 'I'm going to be the best singer in the world'. Two years on, the bobbysoxers were already weeping and screaming for him in their thousands. Half a century on Bono defined him as 'the Big Bang of popular music'. 'To hell with the calendar,' a music critic wrote before his death in 1998, 'The day Frank Sinatra dies, the twentieth century is over.'There have been many books about Sinatra, but the last comprehensive biography was Kitty Kelly's HIS WAY, published in 1986. it has taken renowned biographer Anthony Summers years to research this new biography, which promises to be the definitive story of a musical and film career spanning six decades. In this massively documented book, meticulous investigation is coupled with sensitivity to examine every aspect of Sinatra's life, public and private, from his obscure beginnings in an immigrant neighborhood in Jersey City to his twilight years as a living legend in Palm Springs. It tells the human story of an American icon who was irresistible to women and who was plagued throughout his life by scandal and hints of links with the Mafia. In this book, Summers finally uncovers the whole truth.
Sinatra: Behind the Legend (Hollywood Ser.)
by J. Randy TaraborrelliIn this freshly revised edition of his classic biography, bestselling author J Randy Taraborrelli takes Frank Sinatra's vast audience where it has never been before: deep inside the private life and affairs of this complex, emotional man. The reality of the Sinatra story is all here - rife with sex, danger, inspiration and show-business politics. The author provides astonishing details of Sinatra's many tempestious romances, including those with with Ava Gardner, Mia Farrow, Juliet Prowse and Marilyn Monroe. The reader will learn about his romantic, platonic, and at times even volatile relationship with Elizabeth Taylor; the sad and touching story of Sinatra's relationship with Nancy Reagan; the long-term feud between Frank and his daughter Nancy and how his loss of memory in his final years affected his performance. Drawing on hundreds of interviews with Sinatra's closest friends and associates, and on scores of legal documents, the author explains Frank Sinatra's often tortured but always rewarding life and career in a balanced, informed and honest manner.
The Sinatra Club: My Life Inside the New York Mafia
by Sal Polisi Steve DoughertyThe Mob was the biggest, richest business in America – until it was destroyed from within by drugs, greed and the decline of traditional crime-family values. And by guys like Sal Polisi.Born into one of the New York Mob’s feared Five Families, Polisi ran an illegal after-hours gambling den, The Sinatra Club, that was a hangout for up-and-coming mobsters like John Gotti and the three wiseguys immortalised in Goodfellas: Henry Hill, Jimmy Burke and Tommy DeSimone. Yet for Polisi, the glory days spent robbing banks and pulling heists were fleeting. When he was busted, and already sickened by the bloodbath that had engulfed the Mob as it teetered towards extinction, he flipped and became one of a breed he had loathed all his life: a rat.In this riveting first-person chronicle of his brazen crimes, wild sexual escapades and personal tragedies, Polisi tells his story of life inside the New York Mob. With shocking candour, he draws on a hard-won knowledge of Mob history to paint a revelatory picture of the inner workings of the Mafia and its larger-than-life characters.
Since I Was a Princess: The Fourteen-Year Fight to Find My Children
by Jacqueline PascarlIn Once I Was a Princess, Jacqueline Pascarl related the gripping story of her abusive childhood and her subsequent teen marriage to a prince. What should have been a fairy tale with a happy ending deteriorated into a nightmare of deceit and betrayal - ending in the kidnapping of her two small children by her former husband, who spirited them back to Malaysia.In Since I Was a Princess, Pascarl peels back the layers of her life after the abduction. She tells how she channelled her grief, forging an existence as an aid worker and humanitarian ambassador in war-torn countries and working with refugees and the dispossessed. She describes how she persuaded some of the world's most influential figures to support her aid work and became a human rights activist on the international stage, championing the cause of other parents whose children had been kidnapped and reuniting scores of families.Pascarl also explains how she lived frenetically as she painfully rebuilt her life and re-evaluated her relationships, grappling with the emotional complexities of a new pregnancy and beginning a second family. And she reveals for the first time the dramatic details of how, at last, she was able to be reunited with her long-lost children and make her family whole.Candid and compelling, Since I Was a Princess is an unforgettable ride through tragedy, loss and, finally, triumph.
SING: The Story of Rock Choir
by Caroline Redman LusherCaroline Redman Lusher is the visionary behind Rock Choir, the world's largest contemporary choir. In this, her long-awaited autobiography, Caroline candidly shares the highs and lows, her successes and sacrifices as she created an enterprise that has proved to be a lifeline for tens of thousands across the country. Highly emotional in places, the author touches on her personal struggle to become a late-in-life mum and her mental health challenges as Rock Choir grew from a small choir group to a nation-wide phenomenon. This is an extraordinary story about an extraordinary woman.
Sing Backwards and Weep: A Memoir
by Mark Lanegan"Mark Lanegan-primitive, brutal, and apocalyptic. What's not to love?" Nick Cave, author of The Sick Bag Song and The Death of Bunny MunroFrom the back of the van to the front of the bar, from the hotel room to the emergency room, onstage, backstage, and everywhere in between, Sing Backwards and Weep reveals the abrasive reality beneath one of the most romanticized decades in rock history-from a survivor who lived to tell the tale. When Mark Lanegan first arrived in Seattle in the mid-1980s, he was just "an arrogant, self-loathing redneck waster seeking transformation through rock 'n' roll." Within less than a decade, he would rise to fame as the front man of the Screaming Trees, then fall from grace as a low-level crack dealer and a homeless heroin addict, all the while watching some of his closest friends rocket to the pinnacle of popular music.In Sing Backwards and Weep, Lanegan takes readers back to the sinister, needle-ridden streets of Seattle, to an alternative music scene that was simultaneously bursting with creativity and saturated with drugs. He tracks the tumultuous rise and fall of the Screaming Trees, from a brawling, acid-rock bar band to world-famous festival favourites with an enduring legacy that still resonates. Lanegan's personal struggles with addiction, culminating in homelessness, petty crime, and the tragic deaths of his closest friends, is documented with a painful honesty and pathos. Gritty, gripping, and unflinchingly raw, Sing Backwards and Weep is a book about more than just an extraordinary singer who watched his dreams catch fire and incinerate the ground beneath his feet. Instead, it's about a man who learned how to drag himself from the wreckage, dust off the ashes, and keep living and creating.
Sing Your Name Out Loud: 15 Rules For Living Your Dream
by Jason DeruloIn his page-turning and inspiring first book, legendary songwriter and recording artist Jason Derulo shares his 15 rules for finding success in any pursuit, and invites everyone—especially artists and creators—to start on their path to greatness.
A Singer's Notebook
by Dr Ian BostridgeIan Bostridge is one of the outstanding singers of our time, celebrated for the quality of his voice but also for the exceptional intelligence he brings to bear on the interpretation of the repertoire of the past and present alike. Yet his early career was that of a professional historian, and A Singer's Notebook takes a look at the multifaceted world of classical music through the eyes of someone whose career as a singer has followed a unique trajectory. Consisting of short essays and reviews written since 1997, some in diary form, it ranges widely over issues serious (music and transcendence) and not so serious (the singer's battles with phlegm), while inevitably discussing many of the composers with whom Bostridge has become identified, such as Benjamin Britten, Henze, Janacek, Weill, Wolf, and Schubert, composer of the Winterreise with which Bostridge has become so associated.Ultimately it returns to the theme of his earlier work on seventeenth century witchcraft - what place can there be for the ineffable in a world defined by an iron cage of rationality?Including a foreword by the eminent sociologist, Richard Sennett, A Singer's Notebook is an intriguing glimpse into the mind and motivation of one of Britain's best loved musicians.
Singin' & Swingin' and Gettin' Merry Like Christmas (Christmas Fiction Ser.)
by Dr Maya AngelouMaya Angelou's five volumes of autobiography are a testament to the talents and resilience of this extraordinary writer. Loving the world, she also knows its cruelty. As a black woman she has known discrimination and extreme poverty, but also hope, joy, achievement and celebration. In this her third marvellous volume, music and her son are the focus of Maya Angelou's life. She is on the edge of a new world: marriage, show business and a triumphant tour of 'Porgy and Bess'.
Singing for Freedom: The Hutchinson Family Singers and the Nineteenth-Century Culture of Reform
by Prof. Scott GacIn the two decades prior to the Civil War, the Hutchinson Family Singers of New Hampshire became America’s most popular musical act. Out of a Baptist revival upbringing, John, Asa, Judson, and Abby Hutchinson transformed themselves in the 1840s into national icons, taking up the reform issues of their age and singing out especially for temperance and antislavery reform. This engaging book is the first to tell the full story of the Hutchinsons, how they contributed to the transformation of American culture, and how they originated the marketable American protest song.Through concerts, writings, sheet music publications, and books of lyrics, the Hutchinson Family Singers established a new space for civic action, a place at the intersection of culture, reform, religion, and politics. The book documents the Hutchinsons’ impact on abolition and other reform projects and offers an original conception of the rising importance of popular culture in antebellum America.
Singing in a Strange Land: C. L. Franklin, the Black Church, and the Transformation of America
by Nick SalvatoreA prizewinning historian pens this biography of C.L. Franklin, the greatest African-American preacher of his generation, father of Aretha, and civil rights pioneer.
Singing in the Streets: A Glasgow Memoir
by Maria FyfeRemembering our roots is the answer to revival.In Singing in the Streets Maria Fyfe tells her story from her upbringing in the Gorbals on the south bank of the River Clyde to her election as a Member of Parliament for Glasgow Maryhill and beyond. Fyfe takes the reader through the realities of living and growing up in the aftermath of WW2 to the pivotal days of her early life in the Labour Party. She offers a beautifully written personal, nostalgic and sometimes comic view of late-20th century Scotland. She considers class, sexism and politics and the progress that has been made – or has yet to be achieved. From council house to the House of Commons, Fyfe shows the reader that change is possible.We cannot wallow in misery. We have to fight.
Singing My Him Song
by Malachy McCourtMalachy McCourt, actor, gadfly and raconteur follows up his international best seller A Monk Swimming with this, the second instalment of his hilarious memoirs.
Singing the Life: The story of a family living in the shadow of Cancer
by Elizabeth BryanAs a result of a genetically-transmitted gene, all three Bryan sisters, Felicity, Elizabeth and Bunny have had cancer. And, unusually, each of them suffered a different cancer; ovarian, breast and pancreatic. As the gene also has a dominant inheritance, half of their family members can be expected to carry it. Now, in a personal and deeply affecting memoir, Elizabeth writes of her family's extraordinary experience of this dreadful disease. Writing not only as a daughter, sister and aunt of those afflicted and bereaved by cancer, but as a sufferer herself, she will tell of the shocks, sadnesses, dilemmas and uncertainties that come with diagnosis and then treatment. Giving a personal view from both the perspective of a patient and that of a relative, as well as comparing the impacts of remission and terminal prognoses on herself and those around her, Singing the Life gives a uniquely wide-ranging account of dealing with life-threatening illness and the threat it still poses in her family. Eloquently setting Elizabeth's personal story against the universal fears, problems and worries that face those affected by cancer, this is an inspirational and encouraging read unlike any other on the subject.
Single-Minded: My Life in Business
by Claude LittnerThe story of a high-stakes careerClaude Littner is best known as the mercilessly tough interviewer on the BBC's award-winning The Apprentice. His abrupt style and zero-tolerance policy on nonsense have become the highlights of every series. But what is he like in real business?Single-Minded reveals the story of Claude's varied career and the turbulent years that shaped him. From being told at school that he would never amount to anything to his current status as a boardroom heavyweight both on-screen and off it, success has never come easy. Claude's complex, fascinating work has taken him into many different industries and countries, encompassing retail start-ups; knife-edge company rescue missions; the bruising rough-and-tumble of Premier League football; facing down French trade unions; taking on Texan oil barons in multi-million-dollar deals; and, in the private sphere, conquering life-threatening illness.Told with characteristic candour and disarming modesty, Single-Minded is an unflinching account of a remarkable career in the spotlight.