Based on his critically-acclaimed BBC Radio 3 programme The Listening Service, in which Tom Service takes an idea on an ear-opening and mind-expanding walk through the musical landscape every week, this book is a celebration of music's multi-dimensional power in our lives. With 101 short chapters based on the programmes and grouped thematically the book will open ears and imaginations to find answers to the questions we all have about why and how music - from Toots and the Maytals and J S ...

Explore how music has changed our world through 50 pieces across classical, folk and world traditions with BBC presenter Tom Service, in this official Radio 3 compendium.Music transports us and defines us. As a form of expression, it has been passed down through oral tradition, musical notation and recordings in a chain of connection that spans the globe, across the millennia. A History of the World in 50 Pieces follows that chain, collating 50 pieces of c...

How are conductors' silent gestures magicked into sound by a group of more than a hundred brilliant but belligerent musicians? The mute choreography of great conductors has fascinated and frustrated musicians and music-lovers for centuries. Orchestras can be inspired to the heights of musical and expressive possibility by their maestros, or flabbergasted that someone who doesn't even make a sound should be elevated to demigod-like status by the public.This is the first book to go in...

Thomas Adès is fêted from Los Angeles to London, from New York to Berlin, as the musician who has done more than any other living composer to connect contemporary music with wider audiences. His operas, orchestral pieces and chamber works have already stood the test of repeated performances, productions and continued critical acclaim.But this celebrated composer, conductor and pianist is notoriously secretive about his creative process, about what lies behind his compositional impu...

An unprecedented glimpse into the creative mind and influences of one of the most intriguing and successful contemporary composers and conductors."A brilliant self-analytical plunge into the mind of one of our greatest artists. . . . This book is a probing guide to the creative process, as virtuosic in its way as one of Adès's musical compositions." ―Peter Gelb, general manager, Metropolitan OperaComposer, conductor, and pianist, Thomas Adè...

**Brought to you by Penguin.Explore how music has changed our world through 50 pieces across classical, folk and world traditions with BBC presenter Tom Service, in this official Radio 3 compendium.**Music transports us and defines us. As a form of expression, it has been passed down through oral tradition, musical notation and recordings in a chain of connection that spans the globe, across the millennia. A History of the World in 50 Pieces follows that chain, col...

Discover the spellbinding history of astrology and divination across the world.A History of Astrology, Divination & Prophecy traces the journey of astrology from its roots in the 3rd century BCE, when ancient Mesopotamians studied celestial bodies with the aim of predicting the future, through its development into the distinct branches of Eastern astrology, Hindu (Vedic) astrology, and the Western astrology that we know today.Learn about the numero...

Combining poignant memoir and historical research, a son of Holocaust survivors grapples with the dream of Zionism and its consequences.Israel: A Personal History takes off where Göran Rosenberg's internationally acclaimed and award-winning childhood memoir, A Brief Stop on the Road from Auschwitz, ends. After his father's suicide in 1960 in a small industrial town in Sweden, the remainder of the family, a single mother with two children, emigrate...

**Brought to you by Penguin.This is a big history of little spaces, of nature in urban life, and of gardeners and their gardens through time**In the heart of bustling European and American cities lies an overlooked yet vibrant corner of resilience, ingenuity and magic: our gardens.From pre-industrial England to modern-day Ohio, via the Paris Commune, Barackia in pre-war Berlin, Soviet allotments in Estonia, the orchards tended by Black migrants in Washington and foo...

**Brought to you by Penguin.From the high-octane, high stakes world of F1, these are the key lessons learned at the top level of the sport – and how to take them out of the pitlane and make them work for youForeword by JAKE HUMPHREY, author of HIGH PERFORMANCE**F1 teams operate at the highest level of competitive sport. With huge sums of money, global prestige and even lives on the line, they work under constant pressure to survive and succeed.Drawing on his...

In this nationally bestselling “delightful compendium of everything you ever wanted to know about” (The Washington Post) Joni Mitchell, the eternal singer-songwriter is seen anew, portrayed through a witty and comprehensive exploration of anecdotes, quotes, lyrics by Henry Alford, “the most graceful of humorists” (Vanity Fair) and a writer for The New Yorker.Joni Mitchell’s life, psyche, and evolving legacy are explored here in “the great...

Brought to you by Penguin.We tend to think that everything important comes from the centre: from big cities, from established orthodoxies in the sciences and the arts, from the Establishment in all its forms. We think this because the centre tells us it is so, but it's a lie. It is only at the edges that we think, innovate and thrive.This book travels to the frontiers of human culture and consciousness; to the edges of continents, of evolution, of artistic ...