Great Art

With outrageous anecdotes about everyone from Leonardo Da Vinci to Caravaggio to Edward Hopper, Secret Lives of Great Artists recounts the seamy, steamy, and gritty history behind the great masters of international art. You'll learn that Michelangelo's body odor was so bad, his assistants couldn't stand working for him; that Vincent van Gogh sometimes ate paint directly from the tube; and Georgia O'Keeffe loved to paint in the nude. This is one art history lesson you'll never forget!

In 1612, William Shakespeare gave evidence in a court case at Westminster; it is the only occasion on which his actual spoken words were recorded. The case seems routine - a dispute over an unpaid marriage dowry - but it opens an unexpected window into the dramatist's famously obscure life. Using the court testimony as a springboard, acclaimed nonfiction writer Charles Nicholl examines this fascinating period in Shakespeare's life.

A perfect introduction for anyone interested in the rich history of Western art. Great Artists takes its readers on a comprehensive journey through the history of art. This book, part two, provides a dedicated chapter on each of the following artists: El Greco, Rubens, Velazquez, Rembrandt, Vermeer, and Turner. These major painters of Western art are considered, placed in their social contexts, and discussed in terms of the most recent scholarship.

Britain's most esteemed scholar of 16th and 17th century literature, Frank Kermode is also a noted author and professor. In this Modern Library Chronicle, he uses the context of the Elizabethan Era to link each of Shakespeare's plays to their probable years of creation. By portraying the bard's England in terms of its society, economy, and arts, Kermode provides an invaluable guide to understanding Shakespeare?s works.

Where do writers learn their best moves? They use a technique that Roy Peter Clark calls X-ray reading, a form of reading that lets you penetrate beyond the surface of a text to see how meaning is actually being made. In The Art of X-Ray Reading, Clark invites you to don your X-ray reading glasses and join him on a guided tour through some of the most exquisite and masterful literary works of all time, from The Great Gatsby to Lolita to The Bluest Eye and many more.

The Art of Military Strategy: Lessons from Sun Tzu, Alexander the Great and Napoleon Bonaparte introduces listeners to the leadership, strategies, and battle exploits of these three great men. With this audiobook, you’ll understand how they influenced their generations and the impact they've had on the history of the world.

In this “by ear” lesson, you will learn an early-intermediate arrangement of “Great Is Thy Faithfulness” in three different styles. This allows you to not only learn the hymn for performance but to also learn different ways of arranging the accompaniment for use in other songs. This lesson is suitable for most adult students who have been practicing regularly for a little over a year.

A lifelong struggle to unravel the great mystery of life leads the author on a mystical journey in search of the knowledge and wisdom that he hopes will bring him spiritual peace. Through this timeless rite of spiritual passage he finally comes to understand the nature of existence, and in the process, discovers his own place in the universal dance of life. It is a spellbinding chronicle of revelation and discovery that rises to the level of mythic reality. Out of this journey comes a profoundly personal view of creation, of life and death, and of all that lies beyond the stars.

Jane Austen is famous for such books as Persuasion, Pride and Prejudice, and Emma. Now learn about the author’s journey through a life spent making up stories that touched the lives of millions.

Mexican artist Frida Kahlo adored adventure. In November, 1930, she was thrilled to realize her dream of traveling to the United States to live in San Francisco, Detroit, and New York. Still, leaving her family and her country for the first time was monumental. Only 23 and newly married to the already world-famous 43-year-old Diego Rivera, she was at a crossroads in her life and this new place, one filled with magnificent beauty, horrific poverty, racial tension, anti-Semitism, ethnic diversity, bland Midwestern food, and a thriving music scene, pushed Frida in unexpected directions.

On a summer's day in 1858, in a garden behind Christ Church College in Oxford, Charles Dodgson, a lecturer in mathematics, photographed six-year-old Alice Liddell, the daughter of the college dean, with a Thomas Ottewill Registered Double Folding camera, recently purchased in London. Simon Winchester deftly uses the resulting image - as unsettling as it is famous, and the subject of bottomless speculation - as the vehicle for a brief excursion behind the lens, a focal point on the origins of a classic work of English literature.

Whether it’s the high-stakes pressure of solving a last-minute problem on set or the joy of pulling off a perfect shot by the skin of your teeth, Attias brings you right into the director’s chair, sharing his knowledge and taking you through the process one challenging episode at a time.

The Great Gatsby is a 1925 novel by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. Set in the Jazz Age on Long Island, the novel depicts narrator Nick Carraway's interactions with mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby and Gatsby's obsession to reunite with his former lover, Daisy Buchanan. A youthful romance Fitzgerald had with socialite Ginevra King, and the riotous parties he attended on Long Island's North Shore in 1922 inspired the novel.

Denis Diderot is often associated with the decades-long battle to bring the world's first comprehensive Encyclopedie into existence. But his most daring writing took place in the shadows. Thrown into prison for his atheism in 1749, Diderot decided to reserve his best books for posterity - for us, in fact. In the astonishing cache of unpublished writings left behind after his death, Diderot challenged virtually all of his century's accepted truths, from the sanctity of monarchy, to the racial justification of the slave trade, to the norms of human sexuality.

Using the brightest ideas and best practices of some of the greatest thinkers, you can become a self-thought critical thinker, who doesn’t accept things at face value. With the help of guided exercises, you will learn how to do your own research, think about information for yourself, and draw conclusions that stand true to you.

Ernest Hemingway, Zadie Smith, Joan Didion, Franz Kafka, David Foster Wallace, and more. In Process, acclaimed journalist Sarah Stodola examines the creative methods of literature's most transformative figures. Each chapter contains a mini biography of one of the world's most lauded authors, focused solely on his or her writing process.

George W. Bush arrived in the White House an untested governor with an unfortunate habit of tripping over his own tongue, presiding over an economy slipping into recession, and a nation more obsessed with reality television than with the reality of international terrorism. He was considered by many opinion-leaders a dupe, an illiterate, a cowboy, a preppie, a child of privilege. Now, it is clear to John Podhoretz that Bush has become, and will be remembered, as one of this nation's strongest leaders.

भारतीय कविता की एक महान परम्परा है जो समय, इतिहास, भूगोल और विभिन्न भाषाओं के आर-पार फैली है. सुप्रसिद्ध हिंदी कवि और हिंदी भाषा के नये आत्मविश्वास के अग्रणी नायक कुमार विश्वास अपनी पहली ऑडियो ओरिजिनल सीरीज़ में हमें इस महान परम्परा की कश्मीर से कन्याकुमारी तक की यात्रा करवा रहे हैं और आग्रह कर रहे हैं कि हम भक्ति, प्रेम और विद्रोह की इस विलक्षण विरासत को संजो कर रखें.

This imagined retelling of Jho Low’s story, based on real events, gives listeners an insider’s view of the glitzy, glamorous world of wealth and privilege, as well as a close-up look at this enigmatic protagonist’s high-stakes fall from grace. The narrator is quirky yet eloquent, at times thoughtful and other times brash, as he leads readers through the corridors of power, where the line between friend and foe blurs. As secrets unravel and fortunes teeter on the edge, readers get a front-row seat to the dark underbelly of high finance and the price of unchecked ambition and greed.

Ear training is one of the most rewarding skills you can develop, and it’s one that you can work on every day. Which makes total sense: music is an aural experience, after all. Ear training helps you turn the music you hear into music you make on your piano. This works for your own musical ideas, too: when you dream up a great riff or chord progression, you naturally want to sit down and play it right away. Ear training helps you do just that.