"While drowning in the sea of sound, " writes Al Young, "my whole life passes before me." These memoirs, essays, and informed vignettes tap into the evocative powers of music and song. On this thoroughly original, lyricized voyage through time and timelessness, jazz, blues, pop, country and western, classical, and Latin traditions get deliciously replayed and reborn in Al Young's heart and musical psyche. Drowning in the Sea of Love contains Young's previously uncollected take on blues legend Robert Johnson, as well as selections from his three popular underground collections, Bodies & Soul, Kinds of Blue, and Things Ain't What They Used to Be. This exciting, music-triggered autobiography vibrates with intimacy and soul.

New love. Exotic destinations. A once-in-a-lifetime adventure. What could go wrong? City girl Torre DeRoche isn't looking for love, but a chance encounter in a San Francisco bar sparks an instant connection with a soulful Argentinean man who unexpectedly sweeps her off her feet. The problem? He's just about to cast the dock lines and voyage around the world on his small sailboat, and Torre is terrified of deep water. However, lovesick Torre determines that to keep the man of her dreams, she must embark on the voyage of her nightmares, so she waves good-bye to dry land and braces for a life-changing journey that's as exhilarating as it is terrifying. Somewhere mid-Pacific, she finds herself battling to keep the old boat, the new relationship, and her floundering sanity afloat. . . . This sometimes hilarious, often harrowing, and always poignant memoir is set against a backdrop of the world's most beautiful and remote destinations. Equal parts love story and travel memoir, Love with a Chance of Drowning is witty, charming, and proof positive that there are some risks worth taking.

Recipient of the 2014 American Academy of Arts and Letters Rosenthal Foundation Award A major debut from an award-winning writer—an epic family saga set against the magic and the rhythms of the Virgin Islands. In the early 1900s, the Virgin Islands are transferred from Danish to American rule, and an important ship sinks into the Caribbean Sea. Orphaned by the shipwreck are two sisters and their half brother, now faced with an uncertain identity and future. Each of them is unusually beautiful, and each is in possession of a particular magic that will either sink or save them. Chronicling three generations of an island family from 1916 to the 1970s, Land of Love and Drowning is a novel of love and magic, set against the emergence of Saint Thomas into the modern world. Uniquely imagined, with echoes of Toni Morrison, Gabriel García Márquez, and the author’s own Caribbean family history, the story is told in a language and rhythm that evoke an entire world and way of life and love. Following the Bradshaw family through sixty years of fathers and daughters, mothers and sons, love affairs, curses, magical gifts, loyalties, births, deaths, and triumphs, Land of Love and Drowning is a gorgeous, vibrant debut by an exciting, prizewinning young writer.

New philosophical essays on love by a diverse group of international scholars. Topics include contributions to the ongoing debate on whether love is arational or if there are reasons for love, and if so what kind; the kinds of love there may be (between humans and artificial intelligences, between non-human animals and humans); whether love can explain the difference between nationalism and patriotism; whether love is an necessary component of truly seeing others and the world; whether love, like free will, is “fragile,” and may not survive in a deterministic world; and whether or not love is actually a good thing or may instead be a force opposed to morality. Key philosophers discussed include Immanuel Kant, Iris Murdoch, Bernard Williams, Harry Frankfurt, J. David Velleman, Niko Kolodny, Thomas Hurka, Bennett Helm, Alfred Mele and Derk Pereboom. Essays also touch on the treatment of love in literature and popular culture, from Graham Greene’s The End of the Affair to Spike Jonze’s movie her.

I wasn't always in love with Colton Calloway; I was in love with his younger brother, Kyle, first. Kyle was my first one true love, my first in every way. Then, one stormy August night, he died, and the person I was died with him. Colton didn't teach me how to live. He didn't heal the pain. He didn't make it okay. He taught me how to hurt, how to not be okay, and, eventually, how to let go. Nell Hawthorne is in love with her life-long best friend, Kyle Calloway. Things are great, and they're in love, young, full of promise. Then Kyle dies in a tragic accident and Nell is forever changed. She meets Kyle's older brother Colton at the funeral, and there's a spark, but it's wrong and they both know it. The moment passes, and they both move on with life. A couple years later, they meet again in New York City, and Colton realizes that Nell has never really gotten over Kyle's death, and seems to be harboring a deeply rooted pain, something like guilt, perhaps. He knows he shouldn't get involved, but he can't help himself. Trust doesn't come easily for either of them, and they both have demons, Colton especially. Together, they learn the purpose of pain and the meaning of healing, and the importance of forgiveness.

The First Eighty Love Letters are short romances written by Reza Taheri Bashar, portrays Reza's real, amazing, and glorious love for the beautiful Faren with poetry, short plays, literary writing, humor, and comedy. Story: Eighty short real love letters to the beautiful Faren who ignored Reza stubbornly and left. Eighty short real love letters to the beautiful Faren who didn't join Reza in this great love story. Eighty letters of a Bone-burning and tormenting love that turns the mountain into dust and ashes and breaks all hearts. Eighty kinds of efforts, eighty kinds of struggling and failing. Sweet storyteller of not being able and trying. Narrator of wanting and not being able. The story of a pure love And that's it. Who do we recommend to read this book? Those for whom literature and poetry are important. Those who have tasted the pain of love. Those who are heartbroken, those who have understood that really love is not possible. Those who are in love with love. Those who are tired of old love stories and want fresh air. These romances are a breath of fresh air.

All at Sea is a remarkable story of love and loss, of how one couple changed each other’s life, and of what a sudden death can do to the people who survive. On a hot, still morning on a beautiful beach in Jamaica, Decca Aitkenhead’s life changed forever. Her four-year-old son was paddling peacefully at the water’s edge when a wave pulled him out to sea. Her partner, Tony, swam out and saved their son’s life—then drowned before her eyes. When Decca and Tony first met, a decade earlier, she was a renowned Guardian journalist profiling leading politicians of the day; he was a dreadlocked criminal with a history of drug dealing and violence. No one thought the romance would last, but it did—until the tide swept Tony away, plunging Decca into the dark chasm of random tragedy. Exploring race and redemption, privilege and prejudice, All at Sea is a breathtakingly honest, profound, and utterly unforgettable memoir.