Bruce Springsteen's melancholy "Meeting Across the River," a song rarely performed but beloved by his countless fans, serves as the inspiration for this eclectic mix of short stories written by an array of acclaimed authors. "Meeting Across the River," from Bruce Springsteen's Born to Run album, is a song with an evocative melody and lyrics that unfold like a noir fable: a man down on his luck but desperate to make things right with his girl tells his buddy, Eddie, that they have to get across the river for a last-chance meeting with someone, all in the hopes of a big score: two grand. With that money, our hero can win back his girl and all will be right with the world-but if he and Eddie screw up, the consequences will be grave. Authors including Eric Garcia, C. J. Box, Barbara Seranella, David Corbett, Gregg Hurwitz, and Steve Hamilton, among others, have written imaginative, heartbreaking, funny, and bold stories based on this classic American story of hope and despair, each a surprisingly different experiment with character and plot. For as familiar as this story is, Springsteen's spare lyrics leave much unsaid. How these authors fill in the absences is what makes this collection, published a month before the thirtieth anniversary of the release of Springsteen's Born to Run, such an unusual treasure, proving that, just as with music, in literature no two performances are alike. Jessica Kaye is a publishing law attorney, occasional writer and the founder and former publisher of the Publishing Mills, an award-winning audiobook company, as well as a lifelong fan of great music and great writing. Richard J. Brewer is an author, actor, and voice-over talent for films and audiobooks.

For almost four decades, Bruce Springsteen's music has directly inspired, influenced, and uplifted millions of devoted fans, who hold a special place in their hearts and minds for his work. Springsteen's rise to the top of American music coincided with the triumph of American conservatism, and the veneration of marketplace values above democratic principles and humanistic priorities. Springsteen has consistently summoned his creative power and artistic vision to indict these political developments and demand the cultivation of a more compassionate and progressive society. And yet his often harsh critique of the status quo and radical ideas for reform have either been ignored or misunderstood, as a result of his "All American" image and his narrative storytelling style. On nearly every major issue-poverty, racism, urban decay, war, and peace- Springsteen's music has offered a unique vision for moving forward with the agenda of creating the "country we carry in our hearts"-as he called it in an op-ed for the New York Times. Filled with provocative analysis of Springsteen's best known hits and his most obscure songs, comparisons to other important works of American culture-ranging from The Sopranos to Edward Hopper-and a wealth of information about the last fifty years of American politics, culture, and society, Working On a Dream is a powerful and engaging study of this songwriter and performer's art. David Masciotra shows how Springsteen's music darkly comments on the increased isolation of Americans, and calls for a return to community living and values, based on compassion, empathy, and tolerance. He illustrates how Springsteen has forced listeners to wrestle with the facts of rising poverty rates in the world's richest nation, of wars with questionable justification, and of the continued mistreatment of racial minorities, arguing that Springsteen does this by emphasizing the suffering that everyday people - usually ignored in mainline political discussions - endure on a daily basis. By using Springsteen's life and music to shine a light on the dark recesses of America's most important political and social trials and conflicts- race, religion, and working class hardship-Working on a Dream connects readers with the power, purpose, and promise of Springsteen's extraordinary and enduring music.

Please note: this edition is text only and does not contain images. The most in-depth exploration of Springsteen's songs ever written. Spanning nearly 50 years of albums, EPs, B-sides, and more, this is the full story behind every single song that The Boss has ever released. Moving chronologically through Springsteen's long career, expert authors Margotin and Guesdon explore everything there is to know about every single song. No stone is left unturned across 670 pages, from the inspiration behind the lyrics and melody to the recording process and even the musicians and producers who worked on each track. Uncover the stories behind the music in this truly definitive book - a must-have for every Springsteen fan.

DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "Across the River and Into the Trees" by Ernest Hemingway. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.

With the release of his 2007 album, Magic, Bruce Springsteen again proved his status as one of the greatest songwriters in American history. For over three decades, Springsteens musicwith his trademark poetic lyrics and his ability to find glory in the struggles of everyday lifehas attracted fans and critics from across the globe. In this book, author Jeffrey Symynkywicz shows that a large part of Springsteens enduring popularity is the deep sense in which his music connects to something essential to human experience. Springsteens music, Symynkywicz suggests, helps make sense of the many threads of our livesincluding our experiences of sin and redemption and of faith and hope. With a clear and inviting style, Symynkywicz treats each of Springsteens albums as a chapter, exploring the history and context of Springsteens music and the ways in which his songs express these spiritual themes.

Site of the world's busiest and most lucrative harbor throughout the first half of the twentieth century, the Port of New York was also the historic preserve of Irish American gangsters, politicians, longshoremen's union leaders, and powerful Roman Catholic pastors. This is the demimonde depicted to stunning effect in Elia Kazan's On the Waterfront (1954) and into which James T. Fisher takes readers in this remarkable and engaging historical account of the classic film's backstory. Fisher introduces readers to the real "Father Pete Barry" featured in On the Waterfront, John M. "Pete" Corridan, a crusading priest committed to winning union democracy and social justice for the port's dockworkers and their families. A Jesuit labor school instructor, not a parish priest, Corridan was on but not of Manhattan's West Side Irish waterfront. His ferocious advocacy was resisted by the very men he sought to rescue from the violence and criminality that rendered the port "a jungle, an outlaw frontier," in the words of investigative reporter Malcolm Johnson. Driven off the waterfront, Corridan forged creative and spiritual alliances with men like Johnson and Budd Schulberg, the screenwriter who worked with Corridan for five years to turn Johnson's Pulitzer Prize-winning 1948 newspaper exposé into a movie. Fisher's detailed account of the waterfront priest's central role in the film's creation challenges standard views of the film as a post facto justification for Kazan and Schulberg's testimony as ex-communists before the House Committee on Un-American Activities. On the Irish Waterfront is also a detailed social history of the New York/New Jersey waterfront, from the rise of Irish American entrepreneurs and political bosses during the World War I era to the mid-1950s, when the emergence of a revolutionary new mode of cargo-shipping signaled a radical reorganization of the port. This book explores the conflicts experienced and accommodations made by an insular Irish-Catholic community forced to adapt its economic, political, and religious lives to powerful forces of change both local and global in scope.