In 1995 high-flying British journalist Toby Young left London for New York to become a contributing editor at Vanity Fair. Other Brits had taken Manhattan-Alistair Cooke then, Anna Wintour now-so why couldn't he? But things didn't quite go according to plan. Within the space of two years he was fired from Vanity Fair, banned from the most fashionable bar in the city, and couldn't get a date for love or money. Even the local AA group wanted nothing to do with him. How to Lose Friends and Al...

Opera Remixed critically examines operatic hybridity and considers the opportunities and challenges of disrupting traditional paradigms of classical singing. Accounts of crossover forms like 'popera' and musical theatre explore alternative approaches to operatic vocality, examining how entrenched genre ideologies are challenged by creative agents, practices, and technologies at work near opera's borders. To illustrate these dynamics, the second half of the Element presents a case study of ...

Electronic dance music is increasingly the focus of a multitude of academic research projects around the world but has been drastically under-represented in accessible core published material. This innovative scholarly collection provides an important 'first stop' for researchers and students wishing to work in this area. It examines the key features of numerous electronic dance music scenes and (sub)genres alongside discussions of the musical, social and aesthetic experiences of participa...

There are as many ways of creating music as there are composers in the world, with a vast array of possible methods and practices. This book provides essential critical and practical tools for composers as they try to navigate this complex landscape, whilst also offering provocations for practitioners discovering their own voices and solidifying their place in their musical communities. Designed to be a companion in the truest sense, the book offers practical support throughout the creativ...

The bestselling, step-by-step guide to the primary school curriculum from Toby Young and Miranda Bondy.What is your child learning each day in school? How can you tell if they are doing well or badly? And what can you do to help?This practical, detailed and user-friendly manual contains absolutely everything you need to know about primary schooling and the UK curriculum, ensuring your child will succeed and flourish every step of the way. Taking us...

When even his friends refer to him as 'a balding, bug-eyed opportunist with the looks of a beach ball, the charisma of a glove-puppet and an ego the size of a Hercules supply plane,' the odds of Toby Young scoring - in any sense - appear to be slim. But then HOW TO LOSE FRIENDS, his memoir about failing to take Manhattan, becomes an international bestseller. Now Tinseltown beckons. After receiving a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity from a Hollywood producer, Toby sets his sights anew on a hi...

Music represents one of humanity's most vivid contemplations on the nature of time itself. The ways that music can modify, intensify, and even dismantle our understanding of time's passing is at the foundation of musical experience, and is common to listeners, composers, and performers alike. The Oxford Handbook of Time in Music provides a range of compelling new scholarship that examines the making of musical time, its effects and structures. Bringing together philosophical, psyc...

Young is back with the eagerly awaited follow-up to his account of a hilariously failed attempt to conquer the Manhattan social and professional scene in How to Lose Friends and Alienate People. All the elements that turned Toby's earlier memoir into a bestseller from coast to coast and on both sides of the Atlantic are back, too. Well, some things have changed for Toby-he has married his girlfriend from How to Lose Friends and Alienate People and now has two kids, and he...

This volume of essays examines the empirical evidence on school choice in different countries across Europe, North America, sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. It demonstrates the advantages which choice offers in different institutional contexts, whether it be Free Schools in the UK, voucher systems in Sweden or private-proprietor schools for low-income families in Liberia. Everywhere experience suggests that parents are ‘active choosers’: they make rational and considered decisions, drawi...

A fresh (in more than one sense) and honest new voice in fiction is extravagantly displayed in this first novel that candidly dissects modern romance.Plagued with weird parents, an underdeveloped body, and a mind on the verge of self-deconstruction, Phoebe Fine feels ill-equipped for a journey through the hardening chambers of the late twentieth-century heart. But from fifth grade and Roger Mancuso, equal parts baby Brando and court jester, through her early adult life with New Med...

A classic tale of eccentric adventure from the New York Times bestselling author of Still Life with Woodpecker“This is one of those special novels—a piece of working magic, warm, funny, and sane.”—Thomas Pynchon“Even Cowgirls Get the Blues comes as a magical gift, a brilliant affirmation of private visions and private wishes and their power to transform life and death.”—The Nation...

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • An “addictive, thoughtful” novel (Entertainment Weekly) that brings us through the thrilling, bewildering years of early adulthood while pulling us inside the circle of three friends, perfectly capturing the wild frustrations and soaring joys of modern life.Isabella, Mary, and Lauren feel like everyone they know is getting married. On Sunday after Sunday, at bridal shower after bridal shower, they coo over toasters, collect ribbons an...