Music, Theatre & Entertainment from The Vespiary Book Restoration & Bindery

Do you cringe when your opera-loving friends start raving about the latest production of Tristan? Do you feel faint just thinking about the six-hour performance of Parsifal you were given tickets to? Does your mate accuse you of having a Tannhäuser complex? If you're baffled by the behavior of Wagner worshipers, if you've longed to fathom the mysteries of Wagner's… Ler mais sobre este item

Among the many introductions to opera, this is perhaps the best. J. Merrill Knapp, Professor Emeritus at Princeton University, divides his subject into two parts: In the first, he discusses the structure, production, theatrical conventions, and esthetics of opera; in the second, he features biographies of the major composers and cogent analyses of exemplary qualities in their works. "Opera should… Ler mais sobre este item

There were many reasons Moby was never going to make it as a DJ and musician in the New York club scene. This was the New York of Palladium; of Mars, Limelight, and Twilo; of unchecked, drug-fueled hedonism in pumping clubs where dance music was still largely underground, popular chiefly among working-class African Americans and Latinos. And then there was… Ler mais sobre este item

Frédéric Chopins reputation as one of the Great Romantics endures, but as Benita Eisler reveals in her elegant and elegiac biography, the man was more complicated than his iconic image. A classicist, conservative, and dandy who relished his conquest of Parisian society, the Polish émigré was for a while blessed with genius, acclaim, and the love of Europes most infamous woman… Ler mais sobre este item

This classic account of the birth of a legendary group is the truly authentic version of Queen's rise to stardom. Author Mark Hodkinson interviewed over 60 friends and colleagues of Freddie Mercury, Brian May, Roger Taylor and John Deacon to piece together a fascinating jigsaw of anecdotes from the days when the future superstars were playing with bands like The… Ler mais sobre este item

The members of Led Zeppelin are major deities in the pantheon of rock gods. The first and heaviest of the heavy metal monsters, they violently shook the foundations of rock music and took no prisoners on the road. Their tours were legendary, their lives were exalted—and in an era well known for sex and drugs, the mighty Zeppelin set an… Ler mais sobre este item

The Card Tricks book contains everything you need to perform 30 remarkable, easy-to-learn illusions.

The Li'l Green Songbook was originally created in 1981 to allow people to sing along with Johnny Sagebrush at various Earth First! roadshows, protests and other events. By 1986 it had expanded to also include songs from Cecelia Ostrow, Bill Oliver, Greg Keeler, Walkin' Jim Stoltz, John Seed, Darryl Cherney and others.

Neil Young's Harvest is one of those strange albums that has achieved lasting success without ever winning the full approval of rock critics or hardcore fans. Even Young himself has been equivocal, describing it in one breath as his "finest" album, dismissing it in the next as an MOR aberration. Here, Sam Inglis explores the circumstances of the album's creation… Ler mais sobre este item

For America's counterculture youth in 1969, Woodstock became a symbol of more than just sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll—it was about peace, love, and a new way of living. It was a seminal event that epitomized the ways that the culture, the country, and the core values of an entire generation were shifting. On one glorious weekend, this generation… Ler mais sobre este item

Beatles vs. Stones. Biggie vs. Tupac. Kanye vs. Taylor. Who do you choose? And what does that say about you? Actually -- what do these endlessly argued-about pop music rivalries say about us? Music opinions bring out passionate debate in people, and Steven Hyden knows that firsthand. Each chapter in Your Favorite Band Is Killing Me focuses on a pop music… Ler mais sobre este item

A biography of Anna Pavlova, a Russian Empire ballerina of the late 19th and the early 20th centuries. She was one of the greatest classical ballet dancers in history and was a principal artist of the Imperial Russian Ballet and the Ballets Russes of Sergei Diaghilev.