Art Genre

What the hell is shoegaze? A scene? A movement? A sound? Back in the Nineties, many would have said the so-called genre was entirely fabricated. The term itself, an offensive piss-take given by the notoriously catty and scene-obsessed British music press, was plainly rejected by the absurdly small collection of bands to which it supposedly applied. In this ambitious oral history of a genre that has eluded definition for three decades, Ryan Pinkard unearths the first wave of shoegaze, following the core bands, their sounds, their influence, and their journeys in and out of obscurity.

National Book Award finalist Ivan Doig had only a vague memory of his mother until he discovered a cache of her letters. They revealed a passionate, can-do woman who loved the lilting rhythm of words. A moving prequel to his acclaimed memoir This House of Sky, Doig’s Heart Earth highlights his childhood before his mother’s death and eloquently captures the texture of the American West, the fortunes of a family, and one woman’s indomitable spirit.

Art in America tells the story of unknown writer Steven Kearney, an aging man whose lifelong commitment to his art finally brings him to homelessness in NYC. Then miraculously he receives an invitation to become playwright in residence of a troubled Rocky Mountain town.

Falling in love wasn't the plan. But how could I resist his promises of hope? Of forgiveness? Of a future I had stopped dreaming of? We were shattered. We were scarred. We were something strange and beautiful. We were two lost souls holding on to the only thing that could keep us together. Each other.

Lee Krasner was determined to be an artist. With single-minded passion she pursued her dream. By her twenties she was Hans Hofmann's best student, and a vanguard of America's first art movement, along with de Kooning, Kline and Pollock. But for most of the twentieth century, art was a man's world, and even her peers failed her. Another obstacle for Lee was her marriage to Jackson Pollock, whose star shone so brightly, it cast a shadow over everything around it, eventually self-destructing.

In 1963, Annie Ernaux, 23 and unattached, realizes she is pregnant. Shame arises in her like a plague: Understanding that her pregnancy will mark her and her family as social failures, she knows she cannot keep the child. In a France where abortion was illegal, she attempted, in vain, to self-administer the abortion with a knitting needle. Fearful and desperate, she finally located an abortionist and ended up in a hospital emergency ward where she nearly died. In Happening, Ernaux sifts through her memories and her journal entries dating from those days.

Lacey Yeager is young, captivating, and ambitious enough to take the New York art world by storm. Groomed at Sotheby's and hungry to keep climbing the social and career ladders put before her, Lacey charms men and women, old and young, rich and even richer with her magnetic charisma and liveliness. Her ascension to the highest tiers of the city parallel the soaring heights - and, at times, the dark lows - of the art world and the country from the late 1990s through today.

Math rock sounds like blueprints look: exact, precise, architectural. This trance-like progressive metal music with indie rock and jazz influences has been captivating and challenging listeners for decades. Bands associated with the genre include King Crimson, Black Flag, Don Caballero, Slint, American Football, Toe, Elephant Gym, Covet, and thousands more. In an online age of bedroom producers and sampled beats and loops, math rock is music that is absolutely and resolutely played: men and woman in rooms with instruments creating chaos, beauty, and beautiful chaos.

An all-time best seller, this timeless classic, written at the turn of the century, has blessed millions of people who have asked the vital question, "What does it really mean to be a Christian?" As a young minister, and before becoming editor of the Christian Herald, Sheldon disguised himself as an unemployed printer and tramped the city streets with others in that same plight. He was shocked by the indifference of the Christian community. From that experience he wrote this novel.

After her mother is sent to prison for art forgery, Edie Brown returns to Northern Vermont to rebuild her family’s fine art and antiques business. She’s certain she can do it now that her mother is gone. After all, butting heads with her mom over bad business practices was what drove Edie away three years ago, including a screw-up that landed Edie on probation for selling stolen property. When Edie scores a job appraising a waterfowl decoy collection at a hoarder’s farmhouse, she’s determined to take advantage of the situation to rebuild the business’s tarnished reputation.

Teen pop is a sub-genre of popular music marketed to tweens and teens. Its melodic yearning and veneer of sincerity appeal to an emerging romantic eroticism and autonomy. But tweens and teens buy music that isn’t primarily marketed to them, too. Teen pop encompasses several kinds of musical styles, not limiting itself to just one—teen pop wants to play. Although it’s very difficult to attain and maintain social progress and play it forward—there are so many tragedies—'70s Teen Pop examines how liberation and a true counterculture can be possible through music.

This book explores the historical and cultural conditions of the genre as it appeared in the late 1970s and early 1980s and then again in the early 2000s, and illuminates what is at stake in delineating dance-punk as a genre. Looking at bands such as Gang of Four, ESG, Public Image Ltd., LCD Soundsystem, The Rapture, and Le Tigre, this book examines the tensions between and blurring of the rhetoric and emotion in dance music and the cynical and ironic intellectualizing associated with post-punk.

In the 1950s, ex-boxer Norman Alonso is a determined and humble Jamaican who has immigrated to Britain with his wife and children to secure a brighter future. Blighted with unexpected illness and racism, Norman and his family are resilient, but are all too aware that their family will need more than just hope to survive in their new country.

While on vacation in Italy, Jessica joins a tour that takes her to where lesser-known Italian masterworks are displayed - and where a pair of young Italian gunmen steal a painting off a church wall, killing an off-duty policeman in the process.

In time for the one-year anniversary of the Trump inauguration and the Women's March, this provocative, unprecedented anthology features original short stories from 30 best-selling and award-winning authors - including Alice Walker, Richard Russo, Walter Mosley, Joyce Carol Oates, Alice Hoffman, Neil Gaiman, Michael Cunningham, Mary Higgins Clark, and Lee Child - with an introduction by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen.

In 1958, Greenwich Village buzzes with beatniks, jazz clubs, and new ideas - the ideal spot for three ambitious young people to meet. Cliff Nelson, the son of a successful book editor, is convinced he’s the next Kerouac, if only his father would notice. Eden Katz dreams of being an editor but is shocked when she encounters roadblocks to that ambition. And Miles Tillman, a talented black writer from Harlem, seeks to learn the truth about his father’s past, finding love in the process. Though different from one another, all three share a common goal.

If you could repeat one year of your life, what would you do differently? This heartwarming and hilarious novel features three best friends who get the chance to return to the year they turned 40, the year that altered all of their lives in ways big and small - and get the opportunity to change their future. But it doesn't take long for all three women to learn that reliving a life and making different decisions leads only to new problems and consequences and that the mistakes they made may in fact have been the best choices.

Nuri is a beekeeper and Afra, his wife, is an artist. Mornings, Nuri rises early to hear the call to prayer before driving to his hives in the countryside. On weekends, Afra sells her colorful landscape paintings at the open-air market. They live a simple life, rich in family and friends, in the hills of the beautiful Syrian city of Aleppo - until the unthinkable happens. When all they love is destroyed by war, Nuri knows they have no choice except to leave their home. But escaping Syria will be no easy task: Afra has lost her sight.

Over the course of 14 novels, millions have fallen in love with the faith, encouragement, and wisdom that are at the very heart of Jan Karon's Mitford series. Now, for the first time, listeners will have the chance to walk with Father Tim through a collection of prayers, sermons, and inspirational passages that incorporates material from each of the novels. In addition, fans will get to hear directly from author Jan Karon, in a brand-new essay about her own personal journey in faith and the ways that the Mitford novels have impacted her.

Krautrock is not a music genre. Krautrock is a way of life. Its sonic diversity and global reach belie the common culture from where it emerged. This is a band-by-band history. Krautrock explores the history and methodology of the genre, charting its influences and innovations, its more mainstream acts (like Faust, Kraftwerk, and Can) as well as the less universally known (including Harmonia, Popol Vuh, Embryo, and Ash Ra Tempel), and how the genre developed in post-war Germany and what it means to today's listeners.