Entertainment Theory

Daniel J. Levitin's astounding debut best seller, This Is Your Brain on Music, enthralled and delighted audiences as it transformed our understanding of how music gets in our heads and stays there. Now in his second New York Times best seller, his genius for combining science and art reveals how music shaped humanity across cultures and throughout history.

It's one of the most revered movies of Hollywood's golden era. Starring screen legend Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly in her first significant film role, High Noon was shot on a lean budget over just 32 days but achieved instant box-office and critical success. It won four Academy Awards in 1953, including a best actor win for Cooper. And it became a cultural touchstone, often cited by politicians as a favourite film, celebrating moral fortitude.

Investigative journalist Lee Smith's The Plot Against the President tells the story of how Congressman Devin Nunes uncovered the operation to bring down the commander-in-chief. While popular opinion holds that Russia subverted democratic processes during the 2016 elections, the real damage was done not by Moscow or any other foreign actor. Rather, this was a slow-moving coup engineered by a coterie of the American elite, the "deep state," targeting not only the president, but also the rest of the country.

The choice is yours, and you'll have to live with the consequences for at least the rest of your life. Will you take the blue pill - skip this audiobook and go on thinking of The Matrix as just a movie? Or will you take the red pill - listen to this book, and find out just how far down the rabbit-hole goes?

Some funny bits from the life and work of Albert Einstein

The Inner Game of music is that which takes place in the mind, played against such elusive opponents as nervousness, self doubt, and fear of failure. Using the same principles of "natural learning" W. Timothy Gallwey developed so successfully for tennis, golf, and skiing and applying them to his own field, noted musician Barry Green shows how to acknowledge and overcome these internal obstacles in order to bring a new quality to the experience and learning of music.

Long before the United States had presidents from the world of movies and reality TV, we had scores of politicians with connections to country music. In I'd Fight the World, Peter La Chapelle traces the deep bonds between country music and politics. These performers and politicians both rode and resisted cultural waves: some advocated for the poor and dispossessed, and others voiced religious and racial anger, but they all walked the line between exploiting their celebrity and righteously taking on the world.

The Radio Right tells the story of the 1960s far right, who were frustrated by what they perceived to be liberal bias in the national media, particularly the media's sycophantic relationship with the John F. Kennedy administration. By the early 1960s, millions of Americans listened each week to conservative broadcasters, the most prominent of which were clergy or lay broadcasters from across the religious spectrum, including Carl McIntire, Billy James Hargis, and Clarence Manion.

The Vagina Monologues is a moving, poignant and often hilarious play, which celebrates female sexuality in all its complexity and mystery. Originally drawn from a collection of interviews conducted by Eve Ensler, the Obie Award-winning play gives voice to some of the most intimate, rarely shared fantasies and fears of women from all walks of life.

Forty essays on history, art, and literature to lift your mind and spirit. Guy Davenport serves as the listener's guide through history and literature, providing links between music and sculpture, modernist poets and classic philosophers, the past and present-pointing out the values and avenues of thought that have shaped our ideas and our thinking.

The complete learning experience of professional piano lessons. Have you always wanted to play the piano, but didn't know where to start? Maybe you never got the chance as a kid? Or maybe you haven't played the piano in years and are looking for a refresher? Well, then look no further because this book is perfect for you. Traditionally, piano lessons have been very boring. They often leave people frustrated and feeling like they’re not learning quickly enough. Stop burning through your time and start the real playing with this book.

You love music, right? Well, if you answered yes, you’re not alone! Most people in the world appreciate the art of expressing feelings and ideas through sounds and words. But, have you always wondered how you make those beautiful music pieces come to life? You saw those pieces of paper, those codes and symbols that made you ask what those are for, am I right again? We all appreciate music and its beauty, but we know there is a whole theory behind it, with many features like notes, tones, and more.

Traditionally, piano lessons can be very boring and require a fixed time. Then many books are either too complex or boring. This often leaves people frustrated and feeling like giving up. Instead of typical text-heavy books, this book explains the essentials in an easy-to-understand way that will establish a strong foundation on which to build your musical knowledge.

Simple, easy-to-understand, and to-the-point way of learning Music Theory...Great for composers, nerds, instrument players, or complete beginners. If you’re a reasoning mind who wants to deconstruct music and see how it all fits together...you’ve picked the right audiobook...All the important information is included yet nothing is dragged beyond what needs to be said...If you are looking for a quick crash course on music theory without getting overwhelmed by complex terminology...this is it!

With all the music production advice out there, it can be very easy to get overwhelmed. You may get a vague idea of the general topic, but you're more likely to be confused, and you definitely won't have any workable knowledge. Well, the good news is this book changes that. Designed to take the complex world of music production, and explain it in simple terms. If you are a home-based musician then this is a must have for making your music sound professional. For the pros and semi-pros out there, this is a great book for understanding what good music production entails.

In The Grouchy Historian, Ed Asner leads the charge for liberals to reclaim the Constitution from the right-wingers who use it as their justification for doing whatever terrible thing they want to do, which is usually to comfort the comfortable and afflict the afflicted. It's about time someone gave them hell and explained that Progressives can read, too.

David W. Barber has delighted fans around the world with Accidentals on Purpose, When the Fat Lady Sings, and other internationally best-selling books of musical humor. His best-selling Bach, Beethoven and the Boys chronicles the lives of the great (and not-so-great) composers, exploring their sex lives, exposing their foibles, and expanding on our understanding of these all-too-human creatures.

An essay from Things I've Learned From the Women Who've Dumped Me.

Of all the musical developments of rock in the 1960s, one in particular fundamentally changed the music's structure and listening experience: the incorporation of extended improvisation into live performances. While many bands—including Cream, Pink Floyd, and the Velvet Underground—stretched out their songs with improvisations, no band was more identified with the practice than the Grateful Dead. In Get Shown the Light Michael Kaler examines how the Dead's dedication to improvisation stemmed from their belief that playing in this manner enabled them to touch upon transcendence.

Play in Perfect Harmony! Music Theory for Beginners is a thorough yet accessible guide. It’s recorded without confusing terms or jargon, and you can use the concepts to play any instrument in any style or genre. Rather than telling you what to do, it trains your ears and hands to express yourself. You can even use what you learn to produce your own original music on a laptop! Discover how to express yourself through rhythm and notes, because music theory doesn’t have to be intimidating or tedious.