The Black Orchestra By: R. J. Linteau In 1944, Father Jonathan Strauss lives a quiet, contented life as a parish priest at New York’s famed St. Patrick’s Cathedral. He thinks he has avoided the horrors of World War II: horrors he knows all too well serving as a German soldier and then espionage agent in the Great War. But the U.S. government has other ideas. His past has given them fodder for blackmail, forcing him into a dangerous mission that places him in the center of an attempt to assassinate the Führer, Adolf Hitler. The Black Orchestra, a clandestine group of Weimar politicians, military men, and aristocrats, have vowed to kill the sick, maniacal leader of their beloved country. Little does Strauss know that his acceptance of this mission will send him on a journey into the bowels of Hell. All of the evils of the Third Reich are revealed to him as he travels from Italy to France, onto Berlin, and then finally to the Wolf’s Lair in East Prussia. As the priest-turned-spy comes face to face with true evil, he is forced to come to terms with his unsavory past. Based on real events, The Black Orchestra is a heart-stopping thriller that will entertain from start to its astonishing finish.

Most pop songs are short-lived. They appear suddenly and, if they catch on, seem to be everywhere at once before disappearing again into obscurity. Yet some songs resonate more deeply—often in ways that reflect broader historical and cultural changes. In Footsteps in the Dark, George Lipsitz illuminates these secret meanings, offering imaginative interpretations of a wide range of popular music genres from jazz to salsa to rock. Sweeping changes that only remotely register in official narratives, Lipsitz argues, can appear in vivid relief within popular music, especially when these changes occur outside mainstream white culture. Using a wealth of revealing examples, he discusses such topics as the emergence of an African American techno music subculture in Detroit as a contradictory case of digital capitalism and the prominence of banda, merengue, and salsa music in the 1990s as an expression of changing Mexican, Dominican, and Puerto Rican nationalisms. Approaching race and popular music from another direction, he analyzes the Ken Burns PBS series Jazz as a largely uncritical celebration of American nationalism that obscures the civil rights era’s challenge to racial inequality, and he takes on the infamous campaigns to censor hip-hop and the radical black voice in the early 1990s. Teeming with astute observations and brilliant insights about race and racism, deindustrialization, and urban renewal and their connections to music, Footsteps in the Dark puts forth an alternate history of post–cold war America and shows why in an era given to easy answers and clichd versions of history, pop songs matter more than ever. George Lipsitz is professor of black studies and sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Among his many books are Life in the Struggle, Dangerous Crossroads, and American Studies in a Moment of Danger (Minnesota, 2001).

Where the Dark and the Light Folks Meet tackles a controversial question: Is jazz the product of an insulated African-American environment, shut off from the rest of society by strictures of segregation and discrimination, or is it more properly understood as the juncture of a wide variety of influences under the broader umbrella of American culture? This book does not question that jazz was created and largely driven by African Americans, but rather posits that black culture has been more open to outside influences than most commentators are likely to admit. The majority of jazz writers, past and present, have embraced an exclusionary viewpoint. Where the Dark and the Light Folks Meet begins by looking at many of these writers, from the birth of jazz history up to the present day, to see how and why their views have strayed from the historical record. This book challenges many widely held beliefs regarding the history and nature of jazz in an attempt to free jazz of the socio-political baggage that has s

The symphonic orchestra is intriguingly considered in essays by 23 leading music authors and thinkers. Topics include historical beginnings, the role of the conductor, the orchestral audience, the nature of the repertoire, and how recordings have affected the modern orchestra. With a new editor's introduction for this 2006 edition and a glossary of terms.

***Now a USA Today Bestselling Series*** ARE YOU READY FOR YOUR NEXT MAGICAL ADVENTURE? Find out why readers are loving this fast-paced urban fantasy adventure with a kick-butt heroine and plenty of action, suspense, and humor. My name is Samantha Beaumont and I’m a witch. But I’m not your average dark witch. I specialize in Goetia—the ancient art of conjuring demons—and exorcisms. That’s right. I hunt and banish demons and other supernatural baddies. But not with a fancy sword or a dagger. No, I banish these suckers with good old-fashioned magic. All is well until a human girl is murdered and her soul taken by a Greater demon. It gets worse. Human bodies are dropping like flies and it’s up to me to find the Greater demon and kill it. But everyone knows it’s not that simple. I might have to reveal my secret... if it came to light, I would be dead and all my friends with me. The Dark Files box set contains all 4 books in the series: Spells & Ashes (The Dark Files Book 1) Charms & Demons (The Dark Files Book 2) Hexes & Flames (The Dark Files Book 3) Curses & Blood (The Dark Files Book 4) The Dark Files is a fast-paced urban fantasy series filled with demons, angels, vampires, werewolves, witches, fae, and shifters. If you enjoy urban fantasy books with a kick-butt heroine and plenty of action, suspense, and humor, you’ll love The Dark Files.

A BOOK BY GREG HENRY WATERS THE DEATH OF A MUSICIAN “A Composer of Art Music and the Dark Age of Music” by Greg Henry Waters Mark Twain, said, "to do something that no one else did is the real joy of life." This is what I am trying to do. We have to create a real culture not let the McDonald culture take over. I like gentleness in music. We need gentleness in the world not force. God is gentle. If music be the voice of God it should be gentle. This book is dedicated to al the people whom have participated in my life! Special Thanks to Steve Devitt and Kirsten Borg for thinking the book is important! Also to my two most important teachers, Bianca Rogge and Alfred Schmielewski! (Yogi Narayana)