by Stuart Isacoff (2012)
Unfolds the ongoing history and evolution of the piano and all its myriad wonders: how its very sound provides the basis for emotional expression and individual style, and why it has so powerfully entertained generation upon generation of listeners.
Marguerite Long
The French pianist, Marguerite Long, was closely associated with the music of Gabriel Fauré and became a favourite interpreter of his music. She studied and worked for a decade alongside the composer and dedicated her long and successful career to the promotion of his music.
Jeffrey Grey
A Military History of Australia provides a detailed chronological narrative of Australia's wars across more than two hundred years, set in the contexts of defence and strategic policy, the development of society and the impact of war and military service on Australia and Australians. It discusses the development of the armed forces as institutions and examines the relationship between governments and military policy. This book is a revised and updated edition of one of the most acclaimed overviews of Australian military history available. It is the only comprehensive, single-volume treatment of the role and development of Australia's military and their involvement in war and peace across the span of Australia's modern history. It concludes with consideration of Australian involvement in its region and more widely since the terrorist attacks of September 11 and the waging of the global war on terror.
Frank P. Slaughter
Echoes of Distant Thunder shows us the war in stunning detail through the eyes of a twenty year old farm boy turned artillery soldier. On the bloody fields of Chickamauga Will Castor’s artillery battery is over-run by the enemy in fierce hand-to-hand combat, every member of his gun crew, including his best friend are killed and his final violent act of compassion will haunt him for the rest of his life. Caught behind enemy lines with a broken leg and unable to walk, he makes a pact with a war weary Confederate deserter and ends up falling in love with his former enemy’s beautiful sister. Historical events firmly anchor the story in place as Will, wounded in body and in mind moves from the battlefield to one crisis after another. Along the way he struggles with guilt, alcoholism and failed relationships.
Zoé Valdés
"I Gave You All I Had introduces Cuca Martinez - a.k.a. Cuquita, Cuchita, the Girl - the youngest child in a brood of five, born in prerevolutionary Cuba to a flighty would-be actress and a Chinese enthusiast of New World riches upon whom fortune has consistently failed to smile. At sixteen, she heads for Havana in search of work."--BOOK JACKET. "There, a pair of strumpets named La Mechanga and La Puchanga introduce her to the sweet mischief of nighttime Havana, in which she meets Juan, the love of her life - only to see him disappear for eight years. When Juan resurfaces on the eve of the Revolution, Cuca believes her dreams are finally to be realized, but the political climate and Juan's shady dealings force him into hasty exile in America."--BOOK JACKET. "And so Cuca, like Cuba itself, waits. She waits for the promised dreams - of happiness, of plenty, of joy, of love - to arrive, and watches her country slide into a barren, repressive slumber. And while she waits, Cuca and her friends struggle, in the midst of those shattered dreams, to survive: they improvise, they scavenge, they make love, they remember, and above all, they talk."--BOOK JACKET.