Warren Zevon songs are like chapters in a great American novel. Its story lies in the heart of his – and our – psyche. The lines are blurred. We never seem to know if we are looking in a mirror or peering through a window; we only know that when we listen we see something. The music sets the scene – his voice a striking baritone, its narrator our guide through a labyrinth of harrowing narratives. The plot unfolds without subtlety; each musical and lyrical arc awakens imagination. In Accidentally Like a Martyr: The Tortured Art of Warren Zevon, music journalist James Campion presents 13 essays on seminal Zevon songs and albums that provide context to the themes, inspirations, and influence of one of America's most literate songwriters. In-depth interviews with Zevon's friends and colleagues provide first-person accounts of how the music was lived, composed, recorded, and performed. Longtime fans of this most uniquely tortured artist, as well as those who want to discover his work for the first time, will get inside the mind, talent, and legacy of the wildly passionate Excitable Boy.

Praise for Life on the Brink: “… an achingly raw memoir that balances existential quandaries with a healthy sense of humor.” - Eric, Editor Have you ever wondered why we’re here or what it’s all for? Do you sometimes get so caught up in your thoughts that you forget that they aren’t real and only exist in your head? What if you could change your perspective and view the events in your life as happening for you, rather than to you? Do you think this could change your reaction? Could it then also have a positive impact on your overall outlook and how you view each day? Life on the Brink is a book of memories and reflections, told with the author’s charismatic and hilarious take on growing up, raising a family and facing life’s many challenges. This book will help you laugh a lot, cry a bit, and slow down long enough to think. You might even end up a little more hopeful and believe the journey to discovery is worth the struggle.

In October 2016, the Swedish Academy finally conceded to a quarter-century's worth of clamorous petitions and sustained lobbying enacted by a chorus of poets, novelists, songwriters, and academics. At long last, Bob Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, his vast corpus spread out like Highway 61 behind him. How is a Dylan debutante to make sense of the song and dance man's six decade career? How might a diehard Dylan fanatic stumble upon something they didn't know they didn't know? Why, with award-winning journalist Bruce Pollock's Bob Dylan FAQ, of course! Bob Dylan FAQ, the latest installment in Backbeat's FAQ series, condenses the life and times of America's premier songster into an addictively vivacious 400-page brick jam-packed with critical analysis, minutiae, photographs, ephemera, and period history. Every aspect of Dylan's life and career, from his ever-expanding discography, touring history, fallow periods, literary and visual artistic efforts, peers, influences, and legacy to his devoted fanbase and their, is explored. Best of all, the book's structure invites perusing at any random point, as each chapter serves as a freestanding article on its subject. Dive into Dylanana with Bob Dylan FAQ!

Wildly fantastic superhero stories by a cross section of today's cutting-edge urban fantasy and crime writers. Expanding on the concept behind Byron Preiss's Weird Heroes from the 1970s, George R. R. Martin's Wild Card series, and Michael Chabon's McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales, The Darker Mask is a collection of original prose stories recalling the derring-do of the beings we call Superheroes and the worlds they fight to save. But unique to The Darker Mask stories is that these plots and characters color a literary universe outside of what has been predominantly white, idiosyncratic, and male in previous homages to pulp. This is the stuff of urban legends, new mythos, and extraordinary folks who might live in a soon-to-be-gentrified ghetto, the dreary rust-belt of the city, or in another dimension. The Darker Mask offers an eclectic mix of popular fiction writers exploring worlds gritty, visceral, and fantastic. Includes contributions from L. A. Banks, Steven Barnes and Tananarive Due, Lorenzo Carcaterra, Christopher Chambers, Reed Farrel Coleman, Michael A. Gonzales, Gar Anthony Haywood, Naomi Hirahara, Mat Johnson, Victor LaValle, Walter Mosley, Ann Nocenti, Gary Phillips, Jerry A. Rodrigues, Alexandra Sokoloff, Peter Spiegelman, Wayne L. Wilson, and Doselle Young. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Bruce Springsteen called him ‘one of the great, great American songwriters’, Jackson Browne hailed him as ‘the first and foremost proponent of song noir’ and Stephen King once said that if he could write like Zevon, he ‘would be a happy guy’. The list of artists that lined up to appear on his records include Springsteen, Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Dave Gilmour and Emmylou Harris. So how is it that most people, if they have heard of Warren Zevon at all, know him only as ‘that werewolves guy’? This book goes beyond that solitary hit single to examine all aspects of Zevon’s multifaceted, five-decade career, from his beginnings in the slightly psychedelic folk duo lyme and cybelle, through to his commercial breakthrough in the late Seventies with Excitable Boy, his critically acclaimed late Eighties comeback Sentimental Hygiene, his decline into cult obscurity, and his triumphant if heart-breaking final testament The Wind released just prior to his death in 2003. Along the way, the reader will discover one of rock’s consummate balladeers, as well as his cast of characters, which include doomed drug dealers, psychopathic adolescents, outlaws of the Old West, BDSM fetishists, ghostly gunslingers and, yes, lycanthropes unleashed on the streets of London. Peter Gallagher is the author of Marc Bolan, Tyrannosaurus Rex, and T. Rex on track for Sonicbond. He is a regular contributor to Shindig! magazine and his fiction has appeared in Writing Magazine and The London Reader. His is also working on Kiss in the 1970s, also for SonicBond, and he is working on a novel set in the Weimar Republic, which he hopes will see publication sometime before the cows come home. He lives in Glasgow, Scotland.

More seriously funny writing from American's most trusted humor anthology Witty, wise, and just plain wonderful, the inaugural volume of this biennial, Mirth of a Nation, ensured a place for the best contemporary humor writing in the country. And with this second treasury, Michael J. Rosen has once again assembled a triumphant salute to one of America's greatest assets: its sense of humor. More than five dozen acclaimed authors showcase their hilariously inventive works, including Paul Rudnick, Henry Alford, Susan McCarthy, Media Person Lewis Grossberger, Ian Frazier, Richard Bausch, Amy Krouse Rosenthal, Nell Scovell, Andy Borowitz, and Ben Greenman -- just to mention a handful so that the other contributors can justify their feelings that the world slights them. But there's more! More Mirth of a Nation includes scads of Unnatural Histories from Randy Cohen, Will Durst's "Top Top-100 Lists" (including the top 100 colors, foods, and body parts), and three unabridged (albeit rather short) chapbooks: David Bader's "How to Meditate Faster" (Enlightenment for those who keep asking, "Are we done yet?") Matt Neuman's "49 Simple Things You Can Do to Save the Earth" (for instance, "Make your own honey" and "Share your shower.") Francis Heaney's "Holy Tango of Poetry" (which answers the question, "What if poets wrote poems whose titles were anagrams of their names, i.e., 'Toilets,' by T. S. Eliot?") And there's still more: "The Periodic Table of Rejected Elements," meaningless fables, Van Gogh's Etch A Sketch drawings, a Zagat's survey of existence, an international baby-naming encyclopedia, Aristotle's long-lost treatise "On Baseball," and an unhealthy selection of letters from Dr. Science's mailbag. And that's just for starters! Just remember, as one reviewer wrote of the first volume, "Don't drink milk while reading."

The only encyclopaedic sourcebook on one of the 20th century's most importantrtists, Keys to the Rain: The Definitive Bob Dylan Encyclopedia completelyhronicles this music icon's recorded work. Descriptions of Dylan's 43fficially released albums and collaborative efforts, including year ofelease, record company, serial number information for all formats (LP, CD,nd cassette), track list, musicians, and descriptive analysis of its placen Dylan's career are provided.;In addition, this book offers critical andistorically detailed entries on each of the more than 700 songs Dylan hasecorded or performed in more than four decades of touring, includingomposer information, and the album on which the song appeared. Completinghis reference are detailed biographical sketches of more than 100 musicians,ongwriters, and other individuals associated with Dylan, and a selected listf films in which he has been involved.

A study of Dylan's lyric writing by someone who is,both a fan of the performer and schooled in the,appreciation of poetic expression, this volume,covers everything from the early protest songs,to his more mature look at relationships on the,album Blood on the Tracks. the latter part of the,book examines how the older Dylan created a new,song-writing style - a process that began with the,nursery-rhyme-drenched Under the Red Sky and,evolved via his two nineties cover albums to,emerge triumphant in 2001 on Love and Theft.

This is a guide to the rock albums of the 1980s with quotes from over 3,000 reviews.