You and your child will explore stringed instruments from around the world with a group of animals preparing for Play Music on the Porch Day. With beautiful illustrations and a fun story, you and your child will be introduced to instruments such as the Taus, Erhu, Biwa, Sasando, Theorbo and many more. Read together as the animals prepare for Play Music on the Porch Day and ask, "What if for one day, everything stopped... and we all just listened to the music?" This book is a wonderful introduction to the world of stringed instruments. Kids 12 and under will love the instruments, story and illustrations. Older kids and adults will discover rare and unique instruments from around the world, and use the book as a starting point for their own exploration. It's perfect for anyone who is curious about the world and loves music!Play Music on the Porch Day is a real event that happens on the last Saturday in August in 70 countries and nearly 700 cities around the world. Learn more at playmusicontheporchday.comPlay Music on the Porch Day's Message:"The passion for music is powerful and universal. It doesn't matter if you play an Oud, a Guitarrón, a Nyckelharpa or a Guitar. When you pick up your instrument and start to play, the world disappears and you get lost in the sounds. Music ties us together like a thread through our hearts. Our skin is many colors but music is our blood, our bones and our soul."

This book is a story about my life and several of the struggles and hardships that I have had to face. Everyone has a journey through life that takes them to different places, and everyone struggles with different issues unique to their own life. Every person could have a more blessed life if they would recognize what God is doing and could do for them in their everyday life to help smooth their pathway. It took me years to start seeing the full impact of how God was helping me along the way without me even being aware of it. My life’s journey has allowed me to become more aware and very thankful for the little everyday blessings that most people take for granted.

In sunbaked Terlingua, Texas (pop., a few hundred), residents joke that there is a musician under every rock. Located ten miles from Mexico in one of the remotest corners of the United States, the town had a recording studio before it had a school, a well-stocked grocery store, or even a water utility. Open jam sessions are a daily ritual, and some songwriters make a living from their craft despite being thousands of miles from New York or Nashville. Why does such a tiny and isolated place ring with singing and guitars? Based on more than two years of on-the-ground research, On the Porch tells the story of this small but remarkable community. Chase Peeler invites us into the music, introducing us to a cast of characters as unique as the town itself. He reveals how novices and experts perform together—a rarity in contemporary America. He recounts the devastation brought on by a border closure and describes how music is once again uniting people across the Rio Grande. He considers the impact of gentrification in an off-the-grid paradise, and how this threatens to transform a precarious musical ecosystem. On the Porch is a celebration of human musicality, of the role that music plays and can play in our lives, both in Terlingua and beyond.

The rich and colorful story of America's most popular music and the singers and songwriters who captivated, entertained, and consoled listeners throughout the twentieth century--based on the upcoming eight-part film series to air on PBS in September 2019 This gorgeously illustrated and hugely entertaining history begins where country music itself emerged: the American South, where people sang to themselves and to their families at home and in church, and where they danced to fiddle tunes on Saturday nights. With the birth of radio in the 1920s, the songs moved from small towns, mountain hollers, and the wide-open West to become the music of an entire nation--a diverse range of sounds and styles from honky tonk to gospel to bluegrass to rockabilly, leading up through the decades to the music's massive commercial success today. But above all, Country Music is the story of the musicians. Here is Hank Williams's tragic honky tonk life, Dolly Parton rising to fame from a dirt-poor childhood, and Loretta Lynn turning her experiences into songs that spoke to women everywhere. Here too are interviews with the genre's biggest stars, including the likes of Merle Haggard to Garth Brooks to Rosanne Cash. Rife with rare photographs and endlessly fascinating anecdotes, the stories in this sweeping yet intimate history will captivate longtime country fans and introduce new listeners to an extraordinary body of music that lies at the very center of the American experience.

Isolated brings together two inventive, disturbing plays by one of Canada’s most intriguing dramatic voices. In Recovery, people around the world are addicted to a mysterious substance. Large recovery centres are set up, promising refuge, treatment and healing to millions of addicts. But all is not what it seems. Following three residents of a facility in Antarctica, McArthur delivers a quirky and unsettling play that reveals the fear and isolation of the oppressed individual, and the consequences of a medicalized society. In Get Away, David finds two beautiful teenagers when he escapes to an isolated cabin where he hopes to cure his unusually persistent listlessness. Sensing that they might need protecting – and may be crucial to his survival – he invites them in, but the roles of predator and prey become unclear as the three become dangerously intertwined. Both fantastical and horrifying, Get Away provides a resonating look at the destructive nature of longing and our desperate need for love.

A sexy category romance from Entangled's Brazen imprint... Play. Or be played. The music should be enough. End of story. But Aaron Major is finding out it's not, and now his agent has hired a firm of suits to help launch his debut album, turning his life into a goddamn circus. Smile here. Play there. Be nice. Well, screw that. If Aaron wanted to spend his time shaking hands and kissing babies, he would've gone into politics. Helping launch the career of country singer Aaron Major should be a cakewalk for PR pro Melody Sharp. Aaron is charming, sexy, and oh-so-appealing when he's on stage. Off stage, though, he's her worst nightmare. A stubborn, ornery, reclusive nightmare without a lick of business-or fashion-sense. The only way he's going to make it in music is with a serious makeover-and quite possibly a personality transplant. Soon, they're engaged in a game of give and take, and though it's Melody calling the shots, it's Aaron who holds all control...