The history of the vocoder: how popular music hijacked the Pentagon's speech scrambling weapon The vocoder, invented by Bell Labs in 1928, once guarded phones from eavesdroppers during World War II; by the Vietnam War, it was repurposed as a voice-altering tool for musicians, and is now the ubiquitous voice of popular music. In How to Wreck a Nice Beach—from a mis-hearing of the vocoder-rendered phrase “how to recognize speech”—music journalist Dave Tompkins traces the history of electronic voices from Nazi research labs to Stalin’s gulags, from the 1939 World’s Fair to Hiroshima, from artificial larynges to Auto-Tune. We see the vocoder brush up against FDR, JFK, Stanley Kubrick, Stevie Wonder, Neil Young, Kraftwerk, the Cylons, Henry Kissinger, and Winston Churchill, who boomed, when vocoderized on V-E Day, “We must go off!” And now vocoder technology is a cell phone standard, allowing a digital replica of your voice to sound human. From T-Mobile to T-Pain, How to Wreck a Nice Beach is a riveting saga of technology and culture, illuminating the work of some of music’s most provocative innovators.

A page-turning novel that is also an exploration of the great philosophical concepts of Western thought, Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World has fired the imagination of readers all over the world, with more than twenty million copies in print. One day fourteen-year-old Sophie Amundsen comes home from school to find in her mailbox two notes, with one question on each: "Who are you?" and "Where does the world come from?" From that irresistible beginning, Sophie becomes obsessed with questions that take her far beyond what she knows of her Norwegian village. Through those letters, she enrolls in a kind of correspondence course, covering Socrates to Sartre, with a mysterious philosopher, while receiving letters addressed to another girl. Who is Hilde? And why does her mail keep turning up? To unravel this riddle, Sophie must use the philosophy she is learning—but the truth turns out to be far more complicated than she could have imagined.

"Loneliness is just a word," she whispered almost inaudibly as she let go of my hand and lowered her head, but I heard it. Theo Baldauf lives in an assisted living facility in Vienna. He is 66 years old and was born with Down syndrome. He makes his day by making key chains in an assisted workshop. But his purpose is the subway. Equipped with a cap and loudspeaker (two toilet paper rolls), he is the actual stationmaster of the Längenfeldgasse station. Always in tow is his imaginary friend James Bond. Theo couldn't complain if it weren't for his Lisi ... "Der Selbstfahrer" describes the world from Mr. Baldauf's point of view. Funny incidents and whimsicalities meet sensitive passages to think about and think along. The theme music for the book was composed by the author and made available for you on youtube.

Entries covers Japanese life and culture with specific references to the subject in anime and manga.

The all-time classic picture book, from generation to generation, sold somewhere in the world every 30 seconds! Have you shared it with a child or grandchild in your life? For the first time, Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar is now available in e-book format, perfect for storytime anywhere. As an added bonus, it includes read-aloud audio of Eric Carle reading his classic story. This fine audio production pairs perfectly with the classic story, and it makes for a fantastic new way to encounter this famous, famished caterpillar.

The untold story of how the billion-dollar world of music really works. The Brabecs reveal for the first time the secrets of the music business that have made fortunes for the superstars, and they describes how the business works on a day-to-day basis, who makes the decisions, and more. 40 illustrations.

(Ukulele). 30 favorites to sing as you roast marshmallows and strum your uke around the campfire. Includes: Blowin' in the Wind * Drift Away * Edelweiss * God Bless the U.S.A. * Hallelujah * The House of the Rising Sun * I Walk the Line * Lean on Me * Let It Be * The Lion Sleeps Tonight * On Top of Spaghetti * Puff the Magic Dragon * Take Me Home, Country Roads * Wagon Wheel * You Are My Sunshine * and many more.