The ECM label and its founder Manfred Eicher have altered musical history.

"There is gold at the end of the rainbow." As a child, Karin Jarman loved to gaze into the distance, longing to reach the horizon. She had an urge to travel--the very word seeming to have an enchanting effect. This, along with a deep connection to fairy tales, inspired her to embark on her own magical journey to discover a mysterious castle by a far-off Golden City. Karin's opportunity came in her forty-ninth year, with her children grown and independent. Entertaining many doubts, she eventually set aside work and family and began a pilgrimage to the fourteenth-century Gothic castle of Karlstein, which had been built by Charles IV near Prague in the Czech republic. Unlike many modern-day pilgrims, however, she made the entire journey on foot while gratefully accepting the hospitality of strangers. Her purpose was not feats of endurance or athletic prowess; rather, she was trying to create a mood of true pilgrimage--to encounter the sacred through outer travels and inner transformation. Her eventful travels covered more than 1,200 miles, taking around twenty-two weeks, during which time she stayed with more than a hundred hosts. Having confronted many issues of her biography, she returned home a changed person with fresh resolve and initiative. Touching the Horizon is Karin Jarman's remarkable story, from her first inklings that such a journey might be possible, to the arrival at the beautiful fairy-tale castle of Karlstein. She also describes the aftermath of her pilgrimage and its effects on her and her family. This is a rare and gripping narrative of possibility, realization and metamorphosis.

#1 New York Times bestselling author Iris Johansen combines romance and adventure in this exotic tale of finding the love of your life—in the last place you’d ever look. She was stranded in a deadly sandstorm when he rode to her rescue like a desert prince on his black stallion. On a lark Billie Callahan had come to the Middle East to play a minor film role in a desert epic. Suddenly she found herself starring in a real-life romantic adventure. Cowboy, hero, friend of sheikhs and princes, David Bradford spoke like a poet in the drawl of his native Texas. What was this mysterious, eccentric, and irresistibly seductive man doing in Sedikhan, and what did he want with an ordinary woman like Billie? Her curiosity piqued, Billie followed David to the lavish pleasure fortress he called home, with its armed guards and adoring staff. He warned her that the pleasure he offered her would last forever. What he didn’t know was that Billie only believed in now.

Are we more than stardust? Is the appearance of the fragile Earth in the vast universe more than an accident? Are we not children of a Spirit that pervades the dust, rejuvenates life, and embraces the ever-evolving universe? Is there a cosmic Spirit that wants us to awaken to a consciousness of universal meaning, sacred purpose, and mutual friendship with all beings? This book answers these questions with a spirituality of the numinous in our relation to the elements of the Earth in the matrix of the multiverse by taking you on a journey through nine paths and nineteen meditations of awakening. Not bound by any religion, but in deep appreciation of the religious and spiritual heritage of human encounters with the divine depth of existence in our selves and in nature, they invite you to become sojourners by engaging the most profound embodiments of the intangible Spirit by which it facilitates its own materialization in the cosmos and our spiritualization of the cosmos. Use--says this Spirit--the stardust that you are to become a spirit-faring species in an eternal journey of the cosmos to realize its ultimate motive of existence--the attraction of love!

This year marks the golden anniversary of the Art Ensemble of Chicago, the flagship band of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians. Formed in 1966 and flourishing until 2010, the Art Ensemble distinguished itself by its unique performance practices—members played hundreds of instruments on stage, recited poetry, performed theatrical sketches, and wore face paint, masks, lab coats, and traditional African and Asian dress. The group, which built a global audience and toured across six continents, presented their work as experimental performance art, in opposition to the jazz industry’s traditionalist aesthetics. In Message to Our Folks, Paul Steinbeck combines musical analysis and historical inquiry to give us the definitive study of the Art Ensemble. In the book, he proposes a new theory of group improvisation that explains how the band members were able to improvise together in so many different styles while also drawing on an extensive repertoire of notated compositions. Steinbeck examines the multimedia dimensions of the Art Ensemble’s performances and the ways in which their distinctive model of social relations kept the group performing together for four decades. Message to Our Folks is a striking and valuable contribution to our understanding of one of the world’s premier musical groups.