Suicide, songwriting, and samurai philosophy within paper covers. It is 2005, your best friend just jumped from the 20th floor ... is it ever right to intervene in other's lives? With echoes of Catcher in the Rye and Anne Enright's The Gathering, a warm rites of passage debut novel.

"Red Hot Blue Nights," is the third book written by the author. His first book is entitled "Crime Love & Black Pearls, and the second is entitled "Mad Guns Till Romance." I enjoyed writing "Red Hot Blue Nights" very much, as well as the other two existing books. This particular book is very exciting and fun to read. If you love reading, this is a book you must own.

*An Instant New York Times Bestseller* Hannah “Kitten Lady” Shaw and professional cat photographer Andrew Marttila journey to thirty countries to bring you hundreds of photos and stories of cats from every corner of the world. Wife and husband team Hannah Shaw and Andrew Marttila have made cats their lives' work: they rescue and rehabilitate neonatal kittens, educate the public on cat and kitten care, and capture our feline friends' unique personalities through writing and photography. Now, in the project of their dreams, they've taken their passion for cats global. In Cats of the World, Shaw and Marttila travel across thirty countries to explore feline welfare and cat culture around the globe, documenting their travels with stunning photos and stories from each location. Journey to England's charming pubs and candle-lit cathedrals, Chile’s vibrant produce markets and colorful hillsides, Türkiye’s spice bazaars and ancient ruins, South Africa's bustling streets and lush mountains, and so many places in between with Shaw and Marttila as they learn from cats—and the people who love them most—that compassion is truly a universal language.

One of Oprah Daily's 20 Favorite Books of 2021 • Selected as one of Pitchfork's Best Music Books of the Year “One of the best books of its kind in decades.” —The Wall Street Journal An epic achievement and a huge delight, the entire history of popular music over the past fifty years refracted through the big genres that have defined and dominated it: rock, R&B, country, punk, hip-hop, dance music, and pop Kelefa Sanneh, one of the essential voices of our time on music and culture, has made a deep study of how popular music unites and divides us, charting the way genres become communities. In Major Labels, Sanneh distills a career’s worth of knowledge about music and musicians into a brilliant and omnivorous reckoning with popular music—as an art form (actually, a bunch of art forms), as a cultural and economic force, and as a tool that we use to build our identities. He explains the history of slow jams, the genius of Shania Twain, and why rappers are always getting in trouble. Sanneh shows how these genres have been defined by the tension between mainstream and outsider, between authenticity and phoniness, between good and bad, right and wrong. Throughout, race is a powerful touchstone: just as there have always been Black audiences and white audiences, with more or less overlap depending on the moment, there has been Black music and white music, constantly mixing and separating. Sanneh debunks cherished myths, reappraises beloved heroes, and upends familiar ideas of musical greatness, arguing that sometimes, the best popular music isn’t transcendent. Songs express our grudges as well as our hopes, and they are motivated by greed as well as idealism; music is a powerful tool for human connection, but also for human antagonism. This is a book about the music everyone loves, the music everyone hates, and the decades-long argument over which is which. The opposite of a modest proposal, Major Labels pays in full.

Liverpool in the 1980s. With prospects for the city's youth bleak, a scheme for unemployed musicians commenced, inadvertently shaping the future for members of Cast, Space, the Lightning Seeds and giving fresh impetus to the idea of song as a saviour for the city. Foremost of the bands to emerge from this ill-fated scheme was The La's. Inspired by a chance meeting with Captain Beefheart, Mike Badger formed the band with the enigmatic Lee Mavers. First they conquered the city, and then on the brink of hitting the big time, and eventually inspiring what would become Britpop, Badger quit to form Americana pioneers The Onset, find international recognition as a sculptor, produce album art and videos for some of the country's biggest bands, before finally co-founding Liverpool's Viper record label (which has recently released its 100th album). Featuring everyone from Arthur Lee to Frank Sidebottom, Jonathan Richman to Half Man Half Biscuit, and above all with new insights into the early years of the great lost Liverpool band The La's, The Rhythm and the Tide is both the personal story of a restlessly creative individual, and a reflection on the ebb and flow of the music scene in the city that he loves.

A masterfully updated edition of The F-Word which renders a comprehensive portrait of English's most notorious and colorful word. No word has generated more uses, more creative euphemisms, and more strong opinions than fuck. Jesse Sheidlower's historical dictionary, now in print for over 25 years, charts the uses of fuck and its many permutations, from absofuckinglutely to zipless fuck. It illustrates every sense of every entry with quotations, from the earliest that can be found to a recent example, showing exactly how the word has been used throughout history. This new edition is not just a minor update but a comprehensive revision of Sheidlower's groundbreaking text for the internet age. Major new discoveries push back the known history of fuck by almost two hundred years. Sheidlower also considers rapidly changing attitudes towards the use of fuck in public discourse. The volume includes over 1,000 new quotations; over 100 antedatings (earlier examples of existing entries, improving our understanding of the word's development); and many dozens of new entries, including high-profile recent uses such as AF 'as fuck', fuckboi, and the group of expressions of the sort to give no fucks or zero fucks given.

THE SUNDAY TIMES NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER. The twenty third instalment of the NUMBER ONE BESTSELLING DCI Banks Series. The Alan Banks mystery-suspense novels are the best series on the market. Try one and tell me I'm wrong. - Stephen King Two young girls. Two unspeakable crimes. Fifty years separate them - their pain connects them. When the body of a 15-year-old is found in a remote countryside lane, beaten and broken, DI Annie Cabbot is brought in to investigate how the child could possibly have fallen victim to such brutality. Newly promoted Detective Superintendent Alan Banks is faced with a case that is as cold as they come. Now in her 60s, Linda Palmer was attacked aged 14 by celebrity entertainer Danny Caxton, yet the crime has never been investigated - until now. As each steps closer to uncovering the truth, they'll unearth secrets much darker than they ever could have guessed . . .

“Everybody has to start somewhere. Businessmen start on the ground floor and try to work their way up the corporate ladder. Baseball players bide their time in the minor leagues wishing for an opportunity to move up and play in the majors. Musical compositions aren’t very different – some songs just don’t climb the charts the first time they’re recorded. However, with perseverance, the ideal singer, the right chemistry, impeccable timing, vigorous promotion, and a little luck, these songs can become very famous.” So writes Bob Leszczak in the opening pages of Who Did It First?: Great Rock and Roll Cover Songs and Their Original Artists. In this third and final volume to the Who Did It First? series, readers explore the hidden history of the most famous, indeed legendary, rock songs and standards. Did you know that the Wild Ones had a “Wild Thing” before the Troggs? Were you aware that it took a second shot for “Double Shot of My Baby’s Love” to make the charts? Had you heard that Guy Villari and the Regents dated “Barbara Ann” five years before the Beach Boys? Were you privy to the fact that there was “Hanky Panky” going on with Ellie Greenwich and the Raindrops, as well as the Summits, before Tommy James and the Shondells made the song a number 1 classic? Some of the information contained within these pages will shock, rattle and roll you. You may fancy yourself a music expert, but this third and last in a series of titles devoted to the story of great songs and their revival as great covers is filled with eye openers. In many instances, one’s eyes will open even wider as a result of the list of cover artists (with Paul Anka’s remake of Nirvana’s “Smells like Teen Spirit” leading the pack). Who Did It First?Great Rock and Roll Cover Songs and Their Original Artistsis the perfect playlist builder. So whether quizzing friends at a party, answering a radio station contest, or just satisfying an insatiable curiosity to know who really did do it first, this work is a must-have.