In May 1939 Britten and Pears disembarked at Montreal at the start of their American visit, which was to be a period of intense musical activity and new personal relationships. At the same time, the relationship between Britten and Pears deepened into a partnership that was to endure for almost forty years.Their absence from England during the first years of the war led to sharp public comment and controversy, much of it documented here. On their return from America in 1942, hostil...

The third volume of the annotated selected letters of composer Benjamin Britten covers the years 1946-51, during which he wrote many of his best-known works, founded and developed the English Opera Group and the Aldeburgh Festival, and toured widely in Europe and the United States as a pianist and conductor.Correspondents include librettists Ronald Duncan ( The Rape of Lucretia), Eric Crozier ( Albert Herring, Saint Nicolas, The Little Sweep) and...

Volume One of these remarkable letters and diaries opens with a letter from Britten aged nine to his formidable mother, Edith. Music is already at the centre of his life, and it accompanies him through prep and public school and then to London to the Royal College of Music, where the phenomenally gifted but inexperienced young composer is plunged into metropolitan life and makes influential new friends, among them W. H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood. This was a time of prodigious musical...

For a century Bram Stoker’s Dracula has reigned supreme as the undisputed masterpiece of horror writing. We have all grown up under the shadow of the elegant Count, at once an attractive, brutal and erotic creature of the night. In 1897 Bram Stoker wrote a story expressing the most persistent nightmare of the human condition. Take this opportunity to dream again…

Against the backdrop of political and legal corruption in Second Empire France, La Bête Humaine (1890) contrasts the technological advancements of the Machine Age with the primitive and timeless human impulse to possess through killing and to kill through possession. The lives of two railwaymen on the Paris to Le Havre line are fatally entwined by their love for the same woman in this shocking account of brutal violence, greed, revenge and repression. In the wider cast of Zola’s characters...

**“If Carpentier is ever to get a new reading in English, it should be now. . . . West’s translations . . . reintroduce English-language readers to this giant of Latin American fiction.” —Natasha Wimmer, The New York Review of BooksThe best-known book by Cuba’s most important twentieth-century novelist, in its first new English translation in more than sixty years and featuring a new introduction by Leonardo PaduraA Penguin Classic**Dissatisfied with his em...

This audiobook is narrated by a digital voice.Dark secrets, forbidden love, and the shadow of the Inquisition fill the pages of Ann Radcliffe’s Gothic masterpiece, The Italian. First published in 1797, this novel cemented Radcliffe’s reputation as one of the foremost pioneers of Gothic fiction, weaving mystery, suspense, and romance into an unforgettable tale of terror and passion.The story follows Ellena Rosalba, a young woman of beauty a...

Dylan's songs sound as if they have been part of the folk music tradition for centuries The Ballad of Bob Dylan examines the influences behind his songs. Through a combination of first hand accounts, reportage and a wealth of interviews with those who have known Dylan for decades The Ballad of Bob Dylan is the fullest picture yet of Dylan's work in the studio. The Ballad of Bob Dylan is a vivid portrait, nuanced and insightful, of the greatest songwriter of the twentieth-century.

A SUNDAY TIMES, ROUGH TRADE, MOJO AND UNCUT BOOK OF THE YEARNew York, 2001. 9/11 plunges the US into a state of war and political volatility-and heralds the rebirth of the city's rock scene. As the old-guard music industry crumbles, a group of iconoclastic bands suddenly become the voice of a generation desperately in need of an anthem.In this fascinating and vibrant oral history, acclaimed journalist Lizzy Goodman charts...

Metallica have sold in excess of 100 million albums and won seven Grammys. Their journey from scuzzy Los Angeles garages to the stages of the world's biggest stadia has been an epic and often traumatic one, and one of the few truly great rock 'n' roll sagas.No music writers have been afforded greater access to Metallica over the years than Paul Brannigan and Ian Winwood, two former editors of Kerrang. Having conducted hundreds of hours of interviews with the band, ...

Chet Atkins called Lenny Breau (19411984) the greatest guitarist who ever walked the face of the earth. Breaus astonishing virtuosity influenced countless performers but unfortunately it came at the expense of his personal relationships. Forbes-Roberts analyzes Breau and his recordings to reveal an enormously gifted man as well as the inner workings of his music. The publication of this fascinating story confirms Breaus musical importance.

This is the book fans have been waiting for since Mother’s Milk and Blood Sugar Sex Magik first hit the charts: The first (and only!) official Red Hot Chili Peppers story—an oral and visual autobiography from one of the world’s greatest rock groups. Together, Anthony Kiedis, John Frusciante, Flea, and Chad Smith tell the 61-million-album selling band’s rollercoaster story, with anecdotes of their concert tours and creative collaborations, memories of surprise successes an...