When Namita is ten, her mother takes her to Dhondutai, a respected Mumbai music teacher from the great Jaipur Gharana. Dhondutai has dedicated herself to music and her antecedents are rich. She is the only remaining student of the legendary Alladiya Khan, the founder of the gharana and of its most famous singer, the tempestuous songbird, Kesarbai Kerkar. Namita begins to learn singing from Dhondutai, at first reluctantly and then, as the years pass, with growing passion. Dhondutai sees in her a second Kesar, but does Namita have the dedication to give herself up completely to music—or will there always be too many late nights and cigarettes? Beautifully written, full of anecdotes, gossip and legend, The Music Room is perhaps the most intimate book to be written about Indian classical music yet.

DIVDIVDennis McFarland’s acclaimed debut novel, hailed by the New York Times Book Review as “a rare pleasure . . . Remarkable from its beginning to its surprising, satisfying end”/divDIV Musician Marty Lambert’s life is already falling apart when he receives the phone call that changes everything. His brother, Perry, has killed himself in New York, and Marty—with his marriage on the rocks and his record company sliding into insolvency—decides to leave San Francisco to investigate exactly what went wrong. His trip sends him headlong into the life his only brother left behind—his pleasures and disappointments, his friends, his lovely girlfriend, Jane—and finally, to the home they shared growing up in Virginia. Along the way, through memories and dreams, Marty relives their complicated upbringing as the children of talented, volatile musicians and alcoholics. Through the tragedy, Marty finally faces the demons of his past, ones he pretended he had buried long ago, to emerge on the other side of grief, toward solace and a more hopeful future./divDIV/div/div

In this deeply moving and life-affirming tale, a mother must nurture her five-year-old son through an unfathomable situation with only the power of their imagination and their boundless capacity to love. Written for the stage by Academy Award® nominee Emma Donoghue, this unique theatrical adaptation featuring songs and music by Kathryn Joseph and director Cora Bissett takes audiences on a richly emotional journey told through ingenious stagecraft, powerhouse performances, and heart-stopping storytelling. Room reaffirms our belief in humanity and the astounding resilience of the human spirit. This updated and revised edition was published to coincide with the Broadway premiere in Spring 2023.

1969: Young Marcella and Rose-Renee's parents are divorcing - their mother going to Sweden to sing opera, and their father travelling across the US as a jobbing actor. An inconvenient hindrance to their careers, the two girls are left to live with their enigmatic grandmother Gloria, a renowned violinist, in her decaying New England mansion. Instructed never to disturb the formidable woman as she endlessly rehearses in the music room, the children are left to their own devices. Their cheerful neighbour, Dorothea, convinces Gloria to allow them to be home-schooled with her sickly son, Rodney; and as the girls' gifts are nurtured in ways they have never before experienced, they also receive warmth and care that are otherwise lacking in their lives. But when disaster strikes, and Dorothea is gone, where will they find help?

Describes the author's childhood in an ancient family home with an epileptic older brother whose illness influenced the rhythm of the family's life, in an account that explores such topics as consciousness and the sensory existence of indoor and outdoor life.

When Namita is ten years old, her mother takes her to Kennedy Bridge, a seamy neighborhood in Bombay, home to hookers and dance girls. There, in a cramped one-room apartment lives Dhondutai, the last living disciple of two of the finest Indian classical singers of the twentieth century: the legendary Alladiya Khan and the great songbird Kesarbai Kerkar. Namita begins to learn singing from Dhondutai, at first reluctantly and then, as the years pass, with growing passion. Dhondutai sees in her a second Kesarbai, but does Namita have the dedication to give herself up completely to the discipline like her teacher? Or will there always be too many late nights and cigarettes? And where do love and marriage fit into all of this? A bestseller in India, where it was a literary sensation, The Music Room is a deeply moving meditation on how traditions and life lessons are passed along generations, on the sacrifices made by women through the ages, and on a largely unknown, but vital aspect of Indian life and culture that will utterly fascinate American readers.

"In Charles Haynie's autobiography we get a rare look into the development of a great social movement through the quietly dramatic experiences of a rank-and-file member of that movement. This is valuable social history, but more important, Charles Haynie's life is an inspiration for a new generation." --Howard Zinn Charles Haynie's life as an activist and organizer began while he was a graduate student at Cornell University. Young, fiercely intelligent, and spirited, Haynie had a political awakening during the early antinuclear movement in the late 1950s. It was the beginning of a long career of tireless fighting for social justice--a career that Haynie himself compellingly describes in A Memoir of the New Left. From 1963 to 1965, Haynie was field director for a voter registration project in Tennessee. In 1967 he worked with Massachusetts Political Action for Peace as an organizer of antiwar delegations in all twelve congressional districts of the state. Haynie also ran for a Buffalo Common Council seat in 1979 and helped organize the Buffalo Unity Day rally to ease racial tensions. During his most intense period of political activism, Haynie helped organize, participated in, and was arrested during the Freedom Rides in which scores of civil rights protesters rode buses throughout the segregated South. Later, he participated in a variety of intentional communities designed to educate and support oppressed minorities in rural and urban areas. He died in 2001. Unlike other histories of the American left, which tend to celebrate famous personalities, Haynie's memoir focuses on how ordinary citizens become politicized. In the process, this account raises questions about the nature of democracy and how political change occurs. Written in an engaging, reflective, often humorous style, Haynie examines how his political awakening both disrupted and enriched his personal life. Aeron Haynie, the daughter of Charles Haynie, is associate professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. She is the coeditor, with Pamela Gilbert and Marlene Tromp, of Mary Elizabeth Braddon in Context and the coeditor, with Regan Gurung and Nancy Chick, of Exploring Signature Pedagogies. Timothy S. Miller lives in Dallas, Texas with his wife and daughter. He's been a ranch-hand, waiter, contract driver, professional clown and spent ten years in global wealth management. Douglas Dowd was a longtime professor at Cornell University before his retirement. An economic historian and political activist, his most recent books include Capitalism and Its Economics: A Critical History and Understanding Capitalism: Critical Analysis from Karl Marx to Amatya Sen.