A close-up look at the world of music discusses the history of music and the development of the diverse types of wind, percussion, brass, string, and electronic instruments--from early panpipes to high-tech synthesizers.

Alex Fletcher is a washed-up 80s pop star who has been reduced to working the nostalgia circuit of county fairs and amusement parks. The charismatic and talented musician gets a chance at a comeback when reigning pop diva Cora Corman invites him to write and record a duet with her. The only problem is that Alex has not written a song in years, he has never written lyrics, and what's worse, he has to come up with a hit in a matter of days. Sophie Fisher...

A young lawyer on an assignment finds himself imprisoned in a Transylvanian castle by his mysterious host. Back at home his fiancee and friends are menaced by a malevolent force which seems intent on imposing suffering and destruction. Can the devil really have arrived on England's shores? And what is it that he hungers for so desperately?

Music can move us to the heights or depths of emotion. It can persuade us to buy something, or remind us of our first date. It can lift us out of depression when nothing else can. It can get us dancing to its beat. But the power of music goes much, much further. Indeed, music occupies more areas of our brain than language does--humans are a musical species. Oliver Sacks's compassionate, compelling tales of people struggling to adapt to different neurological...

Detective Sergeant Romulus Poe of Las Vegas investigates the murder of a show girl whose mutilated body was found in the desert. The probe pits Poe against the owner of a casino.

Deafened by a bomb blast in Vietnam, Richard returns home and discovers his life's calling: helping others with disabilities, including his fellow veterans. Along with his best friend Art, a wheelchair-bound rebel with a wicked wit, Richard fights for the rights of those whose voices can't always be heard. Based on the incredible true-life story of Richard Pimentel.

Published to great acclaim and fierce controversy in 1866, Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment has left an indelible mark on global literature and our modern world, and is still known worldwide as the quintessential Russian novel. Readers of all backgrounds have debated its historical, cultural, and spiritual dimensions, probing the moral and ethical dilemmas that Dostoevsky so brilliantly stages throughout his narrative. Yet, at its heart, this...

A boy who turns into a TV set and a girl who eats a whale are only two of the characters in a collection of humorous poetry illustrated with the author's own drawings. Come in - for where the sidewalk ends, Shel Silverstein's world begins. You'll meet a boy who turns into a TV set, and a girl who eats a whale. The Unicorn and the Bloath live there, and so does Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout who will not take the garbage out. It is a place where you wash...

This beloved historical satire, played out in two very different socio-economic worlds of 16th-century England, centers around the lives of two boys born in London on the same day: Edward, Prince of Wales, and Tom Canty, a street beggar. During a chance encounter, they realize they are identical and, as a lark, decide to exchange garments and roles -- a situation that briefly, but drastically, alters the lives of both youngsters. Brimming with gentle...