NCW Libraries

"Nightmares Alive offers a general introduction to the popular film genre, serves as a guidebook to its film highlights, and celebrates its practitioners, trends, and stories."--

Discusses topics ranging from prehistoric instruments to modern-day pop to explain how respective musical innovations were inspired by original forces that reflected common human themes.

"In Why Poetry, award-winning poet Matthew Zapruder takes on what it is that poetry - and poetry alone - can do. Zapruder argues that the way we have been taught to read poetry is the very thing that prevents us from enjoying it. In lively, lilting prose, he shows us how that misunderstanding interferes with our direct experience of poetry and creates the sense of confusion or inadequacy that many of us feel when faced with it... Anchored in poetic...

"Some pieces of music survive; most fall into oblivion. What gives the ten masterpieces selected for this book their extraordinary vitality? In this magisterial volume, Harvey Sachs, author of the highly acclaimed biography Toscanini, takes readers into the heart of ten great works of classical music--works that have endured because they were created by composers who had a genius for drawing music out of their deepest wellsprings. These masters--Mozart...

Produced in association with the Smithsonian and including images from The National Music Museum in South Dakota, Music: The Definitive Visual History guides readers through the progression of music since its prehistoric beginnings, discussing not just Western classical music, but music from all around the world. Profiles the lives of groundbreaking musicians from Mozart to Elvis, takes an in-depth look at the history and function of various instruments,...

Presents a history of music, covering the most famous musicians, major music genres, instruments and sounds, and the artistry of distinctive musical styles.

The legendary critic and author of Mystery Train “ingeniously retells the tale of rock and roll” (Publishers Weekly, starred review).
 
Unlike previous versions of rock ’n’ roll history, this book omits almost every iconic performer and ignores the storied events and turning points everyone knows. Instead, in a daring stroke, Greil Marcus selects ten songs and dramatizes how each embodies...

One of America's best-known & most respected poets offers a collection of nine essays that, taken together, constitute an intriguing primer on reading poetry. Just as a gate enables passage from outside to inside, so poetry forges a connection between our outer and inner lives. One who enters completely into the experience of a poem is initiated into a deeper intimacy with life. In this brilliant and lucid series of nine essays, award-winning poet...