HAPPY HUNTING ON eBayAunt Fannie's cameo pin collection...the cartoon-character lunch boxes you had in third grade...that cast-iron doorstop you bought for $2 but is really worth $200....Whether you're a busy buyer, an avid seller, or just a fun-loving browser, you'll find countless collectibles like these on eBay, the world's largest person-to-person online trading community.Now -- in this official primer from the popular Internet site that has revolution...

Highlights the increasing role of soils as an important and dynamic part of the global carbon cycle and their potential role in counteracting increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrationsExplores key aspects of soil carbon sequestration in different environments and soil typesProvides a comprehensive review of socioeconomic, legal and policy issues surrounding the adoption of soil carbon sequestration practices across the globe

“There is a connection, hard to explain logically but easy to feel, between achievement in public life and progress in the arts. The age of Pericles was also the age of Phidias. The age of Lorenzo de Medici was also the age of Leonardo da Vinci. The age of Elizabeth was also the age of Shakespeare, and the new frontier for which I campaign in public life can also be a new frontier for American art.” —John F. KennedyWhen the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts op...

“Call it *The Hunger Games of Thrones*. Erika Johansen’s debut novel is a genre mashup: medieval fantasy meets dystopian future. . . . The setting, combined with Johansen’s deft hand with character and plotting, really does work. . . . An addictive and enjoyable adventure. . . . The Tear is just as easy to get sucked into as Westeros or Hogwarts or Panem.” —USA Today**Magic, adventure, mystery, and romance combine in this epic debut in which a youn...

In a career that has spanned four decades, choreographer Twyla Tharp has collaborated with great musicians, designers, thousands of dancers, and almost a hundred companies. She's experienced the thrill of shared achievement and has seen what happens when group efforts fizzle. Her professional life has been -- and continues to be -- one collaboration after another.In this practical sequel to her national bestseller The Creative Habit, Tharp explains why col...

Everything about opera is larger than life, but the bigger the art form, the bigger the potential for disaster. When things go wrong at the opera house, they really go wrong. No one has a greater or more intimate knowledge of such moments than Lotfi Mansouri. Over the course of a career that has spanned five decades, Mansouri has directed nearly 500 productions at major opera houses around the globe.Mansouri has gathered a collection of discrete vignettes that recount unforgettable...

Some samples: 1) Rock goddesses have kids, too. Pat Benatar was a major 1980s rock star and continues to play today. Her songs such as "Heartbreaker" are on Guitar Hero, and lots of children—and adults—rock out to them, including her two daughters, Haley and Hana. Of course, kids can ask embarrassing questions, and Haley and Hana sometimes ask their mom this question about the Spandex pants she used to wear on stage: "How did you get into those pants?" 2) What if you were in a plane, a sto...

The first biography of the celebrated Broadway and Hollywood choreographer and director—a complex man of extraordinary genius and overwhelming demons.His work on such legendary shows as The King and I, West Side Story, Gypsy, Funny Girl, and Fiddler on the Roof made him one of the most influential and creative forces in the history of American theater. His collaborators, friends, and enemies were among the greatest celebrities of stage an...

The life, times, and travels of a remarkable instrument and the people who have made, sold, played, and cherished it.A 16-ounce package of polished wood, strings, and air, the violin is perhaps the most affordable, portable, and adaptable instrument ever created. As congenial to reels, ragas, Delta blues, and indie rock as it is to solo Bach and late Beethoven, it has been played standing or sitting, alone or in groups, in bars, churches, concert halls, lumber camps, even concentra...

The Toughest Show on Earth is the ultimate behind-the-scenes chronicle of the divas and the dramas of New York’s Metropolitan Opera House, by the remarkable man who rose from apprentice carpenter to general manager.Joseph Volpe gives us an anecdote-filled tour of more than four decades at the Met, an institution full of vast egos and complicated politics. With stunning candor, he writes about the general managers he worked under, his embattled rise to the top, the maneuver...

If the opera world is full of “intrigue, double meanings, and devious dramatics,” then no place exemplifies this more than the world-famous Metropolitan Opera, where politics, ambition, and oversized egos have traditionally taken center stage along with some of the world’s richest music. Drawing on her fifteen years as its press representative, Johanna Fiedler explodes the traditional secrecy that surrounds the Met in this wonderfully entertaining account of its tumuluous history.F...

The “fantastically interesting” (NPR’s All Things Considered) biography of the legendary, intensely ambitious choreographer and director who changed Broadway with his productions of Fiddler on the Roof, West Side Story, and Gypsy—from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Pride and Pleasure“Superlative . . . a vivid account of a theatrical wizard.”—VogueTo some, Jerome Robbins was a demanding perf...