STORIES OF ADVENTURE & ACHIEVEMENT INVENTORS, GOLD-DIGGERS, MILITARY LEADERS, SPIES, RABBLE-ROUSERS, SOLDIERS, COURTESANS, ACE PILOTS DETECTIVES, ATHLETES, HEROES Irish people have left their mark on virtually every corner of the globe. This fascinating book tells the stories of the Irish who are justly celebrated in their adopted homelands, but virtually unknown in Ireland. - William Melville from Kerry, the First Head of MI5 - Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty from Cork, who rescued 4,000 Jews and Allied Servicemen from the Nazis - James Hoban from Kilkenny who designed The White House - Jennie Hodgers from Louth who served three years in Union Army during the American Civil War - as a man - George McElroy from Dublin who became one of World war I's outstanding aerial aces And many more ...

Dan Rice had many lives. He was a pig presenter, a strongman, a lecturer, and a comic singer, all before joining the dazzling world of the circus. In 1855, he created Dan Rice's Great Show. Labeling himself the "Great American Humorist," he toured the country and spoke out on issues of the day before large crowds. Swept up in a new cult of celebrity, he rose to become one of the most famous—and infamous—men in America. He even ran for president. So why have so few people ever heard of Dan Rice? Propelled by an urge toward "refinement," American amusements began to stratify in the mid-19th century. The raucous antebellum jumble of performers, audiences, and forms split along a new performance hierarchy of high and low. Circus, though still vastly popular, became seen as lowbrow. In that changed world, Rice's aggressive humor and robust connection with a noisy, participatory audience became seen as crude—and worse—a civic threat. David Carlyon weaves a remarkably rich portrait of turbulent times that raised one ambitious, creative man to glorious heights and then, embarrassed by its enthusiasm, buried him in sentimentality and finally oblivion.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • David Byrne’s incisive and enthusiastic look at the musical art form, from its very inceptions to the influences that shape it, whether acoustical, economic, social, or technological—now updated with a new chapter on digital curation. “How Music Works is a buoyant hybrid of social history, anthropological survey, autobiography, personal philosophy, and business manual”—The Boston Globe Utilizing his incomparable career and inspired collaborations with Talking Heads, Brian Eno, and many others, David Byrne taps deeply into his lifetime of knowledge to explore the panoptic elements of music, how it shapes the human experience, and reveals the impetus behind how we create, consume, distribute, and enjoy the songs, symphonies, and rhythms that provide the backbeat of life. Byrne’s magnum opus uncovers thrilling realizations about the redemptive liberation that music brings us all.

Canada’s first Olympic gold medallist couldn’t walk until he was ten, spoke nine languages, became the greatest runner of his generation, and was mistaken for an American for seventy years because the Americans wanted to keep him.

A Pink Floyd album with no instruments. A Sex Pistols record more incendiary than 'Never Mind The Bollocks'. A sci-fi rock opera by Weezer. Rock 'n' roll history is littered with intriguing albums that never saw the light of day, let alone the charts. Self-destructive ambition, intra-band turmoil, record-company politics and even death have all played their part in creating a fascinating sub-genre of mythic masterpieces. Now, 'The Greatest Albums You'll Never Hear' untangles the twists of fate, the fights and the sheer bad luck that prevented these sonic gems from being pressed. Spanning more than half a century of music from all genres, these tales take in legends such as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and David Bowie, cult heroes like Brian Eno and Frank Zappa, and contemporary artists, including Green Day and Dr Dre.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE PENDERYN MUSIC BOOK PRIZERoots, Radicals & Rockers: How Skiffle Changed the World is the first book to explore this phenomenon in depth - a meticulously researched and joyous account that explains how skiffle sparked a revolution that shaped pop music as we have come to know it. It's a story of jazz pilgrims and blues blowers, Teddy Boys and beatnik girls, coffee-bar bohemians and refugees from the McCarthyite witch-hunts. Billy traces how the guitar came to the forefront of music in the UK and led directly to the British Invasion of the US charts in the 1960s.Emerging from the trad-jazz clubs of the early '50s, skiffle was adopted by kids who growing up during the dreary, post-war rationing years. These were Britain's first teenagers, looking for a music of their own in a pop culture dominated by crooners and mediated by a stuffy BBC. Lonnie Donegan hit the charts in 1956 with a version of 'Rock Island Line' and soon sales of guitars rocketed from 5,000 to 250,000 a year. Like punk rock that would flourish two decades later, skiffle was a do-it-yourself music. All you needed were three guitar chords and you could form a group, with mates playing tea-chest bass and washboard as a rhythm section.

Now in paperback: Carlyon's "masterful work of cultural and theater criticism" "--Publishers Weekly," (starred review)