Songs from the Street is about a native New Yorker coming of age in the fifties, from age eleven to age twenty. The success story of a Jewish girl and her Puerto Rican friends is a combination of circumstance, luck, and learning from mistakes. Karen's story includes coping with a dysfunctional alcoholic family, days of excellent schooling contrasted with nights in the street, a drug-addicted boyfriend, a May-December romance with a high school teacher, and the culture shock encountered in educational and economic border-crossing. In addition to the story of one person and her friends, the narrative provides a universal paradigm of growth anyone can identify with. Moreover, the book includes a wealth of 1950's cultural and historical information not typically found in memoirs. This includes city tales about life on the rooftops and under the boardwalks, Forty-second Street before Disney, and Alan Freed's rock and roll shows. Whether your interest is in New York City, the fifties, or a teenager coming of age under adverse circumstances, the reader will be entertained and educated.

Wilfred Thesiger was born in Addis Ababa in 1910 and educated at Eton and Oxford. Though British, he was repulsed by the softness and rigidity of Western life, "the machines, the calling cards, the meticulously aligned streets, etc." In the spirit of T.E. Lawrence, Thesiger spent five years exploring and wandering the deserts of Arabia. With vivid descriptions and colorful anecdotes he narrates his stories, including two crossings of the Empty Quarter, among peoples who had never seen a European and considered it their duty to kill Christian infidels.

There are no short-cuts to becoming a Witch. Traditionally, students take a year and a day to prepare for their initiation into the Craft. Based on this age-old custom, Wicca: A Year and a Day is a one-of-a-kind daily guide that introduces Witchcraft over a 366-day cycle. Ideal for solitary students, this intensive study course teaches the core content of Wiccan practice: the tides of time, the wonders of the seasons, the ways of herbs and magic, the mysticism of the Old Ones, and the inner disciplines of seers and sages. Daily lessons include exercises, Wiccan theology and lore, and discussions relating to circle work, magical correspondences, holidays, deities, tools, healing, and divination.

In my pursuit of worldly success, I became lost in the darkness of the world. The road I was walking, God gave me signs and detours I choose to ignore. I let the enemy lead me into the dark abyss of life. Then one day, God shined a ray of hope into the darkness and brought me to a dead-end road. He led, I followed, and He brought His lost sheep home. He spoke, I listened, and I heard His voice. “He said, let us take our journey, and let us go, and I will go before thee” (Genesis 33:12). He would heal me, our home, marriage, and family. He would bless us through obedience; give me grace I did not deserve. He would teach me to have faith in Him as we walked the white rock path to cross the Great Divide to the other side. He would teach me as we journeyed to the top of the mountain in search of the lone tree atop the mountain.

This beautifully illustrated catalogue accompanies the first major museum retrospective of the painter Norman Lewis (1909Ð1979). Lewis was the sole African American artist of his generation who became committed to issues of abstraction at the start of his career and continued to explore them over its entire trajectory. His art derived inspiration from music (jazz and classical) and nature (seasonal change, plant forms, the sea). Also central to his work were the dramatic confrontations of the civil rights movement, in which he was an active participant among the New York art scene. Bridging the Harlem Renaissance, Abstract Expressionism, and beyond, Lewis is a crucial figure in American abstraction whose reinsertion into the discourse further opens the field for recognition of the contributions of artists of color. Bringing much-needed attention to LewisÕs output and significance in the history of American art, Procession is a milestone in Lewis scholarship and a vital resource for future study of the artist and abstraction in his period. Published in association with Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia. Exhibition dates: Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia: November 13, 2015ÐApril 3, 2016 Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth: June 4ÐAugust 21, 2016 Chicago Cultural Center: September 17, 2016ÐJanuary 8, 2017 Ê