Through an imaginative blend of personal memoir and meticulous research, Central Park Love Song tells the remarkable story of America's first great public park and the city that needed and created it.

Illustrations and rhyming text celebrate the sights and sounds of New York's Central Park in summer. Includes the painted park map on endpapers.

This title provides a group portrait of some of the greatest musicians of the 20th century, including Bruce Springsteen, Patti Smith, Grandmaster Flash and Bob Dylan.

Strawberry Fields is one of the most visited spots in Central Park and one of the most popular tourist attractions in New York City. This keepsake volume is a celebration of the 2.5-acre teardrop-shaped living memorial to John Lennon's life and work. The year 2010 marks the 25th anniversary of its dedication, as well as what would have been Lennon's 70th birthday. Located in the park directly across the street from the Dakota, the building where John and Yoko lived for several years before his untimely death, Strawberry Fields was originally conceived as a "peace garden." Yoko invited the entire world to donate trees, shrubs, and stones to fill this parcel of land, and today, the garden flourishes with contributions from 121 countries. A rich and lively patchwork of text and imagery will tell the story of John and Yoko's love affair with the park and of the creation of this unique corner of the park through an unprecedented collaborative effort between Yoko Ono, the Central Park Conservancy, and city officials.

Julius Lester was born the son of a black Methodist minister in the south. His book Lovesong is a beautifully written account of his spiritual journey away from the conventions of his Southern heritage and Methodist upbringing, culminating in his personal self-discovery through a conversion to Judaism. Growing up in the turbulent civil rights era South, Lester was often discouraged by the disconnectedness between the promises of religion and the realities of his life. He used the outlets available to him to try to come to grips with this split and somehow reconcile the injustices he was witnessing with the purity of religion. He became a controversial writer and commentator, siding with neither blacks nor whites in his unconventional viewpoints. He became a luminal figure of the times, outside of the conventional labels of race, religion, politics, or philosophy. Lester’s spiritual quest would take him through the existential landscape of his Southern, Christian upbringing, into his ancestry, winding through some of the holiest places on the planet and into the spiritual depths of the world’s major religious cultures. His odyssey of faith would unexpectedly lead him to discovering Judaism as his true spiritual calling.

How did Central Park become a vibrant gem in the heart of New York City? Follow the visionaries behind the plan as it springs to green life. In 1858, New York City was growing so fast that new roads and tall buildings threatened to swallow up the remaining open space. The people needed a green place to be — a park with ponds to row on and paths for wandering through trees and over bridges. When a citywide contest solicited plans for creating a park out of barren swampland, Calvert Vaux and Frederick Law Olmsted put their heads together to create the winning design, and the hard work of making their plans a reality began. By winter, the lake opened for skating. By the next summer, the waterside woodland known as the Ramble opened for all to enjoy. Meanwhile, sculptors, stone masons, and master gardeners joined in to construct thirty-four unique bridges, along with fountains, pagodas, and band shells, making New York's Central Park a green gift to everyone. Included in the end matter are bios of Vaux and Olmsted, a bibliography, and engaging factual snippets.

Written with all the scathing dark humor that is a hallmark of BoJack Horseman, Raphael Bob-Waksberg delivers a fabulously off-beat collection of short stories about love—the best and worst thing in the universe. Featuring: • A young engaged couple forced to deal with interfering relatives dictating the appropriate number of ritual goat sacrifices for their wedding. • A pair of lonely commuters who ride the subway in silence, forever, eternally failing to make that longed-for contact. • A struggling employee at a theme park of U.S. presidents who discovers that love can’t be genetically modified. And fifteen more tales of humor, romance, whimsy, cultural commentary, and crushing emotional vulnerability.