The Upright Piano Player

The Upright Piano Player PDF Author: David Abbott
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 1849169691
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 239

Get Book Here

Book Description
Henry Cage seemed to have it all. A successful business career, considerable wealth, and a reputation for being a just and principled man. But public virtues can conceal private failings, and as Henry faces retirement, his well-ordered life begins to unravel. On the eve of the new millennium he is the victim of a random act of violence which soon escalates into a prolonged persecution, with tragic consequences. Family secrets are revealed, and when his ex-wife Nessa summons Henry to Palm Beach, he realises that there is little time to redress the mistakes of the past. The Upright Piano Player explores with a tender, yet unflinching eye the small but devastating flaws in human nature that can shape our destinies.

The Upright Piano Player

The Upright Piano Player PDF Author: David Abbott
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 1849169691
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 239

Get Book Here

Book Description
Henry Cage seemed to have it all. A successful business career, considerable wealth, and a reputation for being a just and principled man. But public virtues can conceal private failings, and as Henry faces retirement, his well-ordered life begins to unravel. On the eve of the new millennium he is the victim of a random act of violence which soon escalates into a prolonged persecution, with tragic consequences. Family secrets are revealed, and when his ex-wife Nessa summons Henry to Palm Beach, he realises that there is little time to redress the mistakes of the past. The Upright Piano Player explores with a tender, yet unflinching eye the small but devastating flaws in human nature that can shape our destinies.

Player Piano

Player Piano PDF Author: Kurt Vonnegut
Publisher: Dial Press
ISBN: 0307568083
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 353

Get Book Here

Book Description
“A funny, savage appraisal of a totally automated American society of the future.”—San Francisco Chronicle Kurt Vonnegut’s first novel spins the chilling tale of engineer Paul Proteus, who must find a way to live in a world dominated by a supercomputer and run completely by machines. Paul’s rebellion is vintage Vonnegut—wildly funny, deadly serious, and terrifyingly close to reality. Praise for Player Piano “An exuberant, crackling style . . . Vonnegut is a black humorist, fantasist and satirist, a man disposed to deep and comic reflection on the human dilemma.”—Life “His black logic . . . gives us something to laugh about and much to fear.”—The New York Times Book Review

The Piano Student

The Piano Student PDF Author: Lea Singer
Publisher: New Vessel Press
ISBN: 1939931878
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 194

Get Book Here

Book Description
"Explosively passionate, this story of forbidden love and unmet potential is ... for anyone who’s ever felt the ineffable power of music." —Aja Gabel, author of The Ensemble The Piano Student is a novel about regret, secrecy, and music, involving an affair between one of the 20th century’s most celebrated pianists, Vladimir Horowitz, and his young male student, Nico Kaufmann, in the late 1930s. As Europe hurtles toward political catastrophe and Horowitz ascends to the pinnacle of artistic achievement, the great pianist hides his illicit passion from his wife Wanda, daughter of the renowned conductor Arturo Toscanini. Based on unpublished letters by Horowitz to Kaufmann that author Lea Singer discovered in Switzerland, this is a riveting and sensitive tale of musical perfection, love, and longing denied, with multiple historical layers and insights into artistic creativity.

Pianos and Their Makers

Pianos and Their Makers PDF Author: Alfred Dolge
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Piano
Languages : en
Pages : 544

Get Book Here

Book Description


The Lost Pianos of Siberia

The Lost Pianos of Siberia PDF Author: Sophy Roberts
Publisher: Grove Press
ISBN: 0802149308
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 443

Get Book Here

Book Description
This “melodious” mix of music, history, and travelogue “reveals a story inextricably linked to the drama of Russia itself . . . These pages sing like a symphony.” —The Wall Street Journal Siberia’s story is traditionally one of exiles, penal colonies, and unmarked graves. Yet there is another tale to tell. Dotted throughout this remote land are pianos—grand instruments created during the boom years of the nineteenth century, as well as humble Soviet-made uprights that found their way into equally modest homes. They tell the story of how, ever since entering Russian culture under the westernizing influence of Catherine the Great, piano music has run through the country like blood. How these pianos traveled into this snowbound wilderness in the first place is testament to noble acts of fortitude by governors, adventurers, and exiles. Siberian pianos have accomplished extraordinary feats, from the instrument that Maria Volkonsky, wife of an exiled Decembrist revolutionary, used to spread music east of the Urals, to those that brought reprieve to the Soviet Gulag. That these instruments might still exist in such a hostile landscape is remarkable. That they are still capable of making music in far-flung villages is nothing less than a miracle. The Lost Pianos of Siberia follows Roberts on a three-year adventure as she tracks a number of instruments to find one whose history is definitively Siberian. Her journey reveals a desolate land inhabited by wild tigers and deeply shaped by its dark history, yet one that is also profoundly beautiful—and peppered with pianos. “An elegant and nuanced journey through literature, through history, through music, murder and incarceration and revolution, through snow and ice and remoteness, to discover the human face of Siberia. I loved this book.” —Paul Theroux

The Commoner

The Commoner PDF Author: John Burnham Schwartz
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 1400096057
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 370

Get Book Here

Book Description
In this national bestseller from the author of Reservation Road, a young woman, Haruko, becomes the first nonaristocratic woman to penetrate the Japanese monarchy. When she marries the Crown Prince of Japan in 1959, Haruko is met with cruelty and suspicion by the Empress, and controlled at every turn as she tries to navigate this mysterious, hermetic world, suffering a nervous breakdown after finally giving birth to a son. Thirty years later, now Empress herself, she plays a crucial role in persuading another young woman to accept the marriage proposal of her son, with tragic consequences. Based on extensive research, The Commoner is a stunning novel about a brutally rarified and controlled existence, and the complex relationship between two isolated women who are truly understood only by each other.

Daniel O'Thunder

Daniel O'Thunder PDF Author: Ian Weir
Publisher: D & M Publishers
ISBN: 192670682X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 402

Get Book Here

Book Description
Library Journal Best Books 2011: Historical Fiction selection Finalist for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize Finalist for the Canadian Authors Association Fiction Award Finalist for the Amazon.ca First Novel Award Finalist for the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize 1851. London, England. Once a well-known prize-fighter with a terrifying right fist (known as “The Hammer of Heaven”), Daniel O’Thunder has seen the light, and now the protection of the poor and the weak is his life’s work. He runs an establishment for those in need of food, shelter and counsel—a place where virtue and vice rub shoulders uneasily. But an ancient evil is stalking the streets, preying on the vulnerable souls it finds there. It is an evil that takes different forms and hides behind many faces, threatening everything Daniel loves most. Driven to desperation, Daniel responds by issuing a breathtaking challenge…to the Devil himself. Rich in humor and memorable characters, Daniel O’Thunder is a rollicking literary thriller set in the teeming slums of Dickensian London. Fast-paced and gripping, comic and tragic by turns, it is a spectacular fiction debut.

Giraffes, Black Dragons, and Other Pianos

Giraffes, Black Dragons, and Other Pianos PDF Author: Edwin Marshall Good
Publisher: Stanford, Calif. : Stanford University Press
ISBN:
Category : Piano
Languages : en
Pages : 336

Get Book Here

Book Description
This illustrated book treats the history of the piano from its invention in 1700 to the present in terms of its technology. Looking at the technologies of design, materials, and manufacture, and focusing its description on specific existing pianos, it describes the changes in pianos from the earlist days to contemporary instruments.

Player Piano

Player Piano PDF Author: Arthur A. Reblitz
Publisher: Vestal Press
ISBN: 1461664470
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 227

Get Book Here

Book Description
A treatise on how player pianos function, and how to get them back into top playing condition if they don't work. For beginners and experienced technicians alike.

The Piano Book

The Piano Book PDF Author: Larry Fine
Publisher: Brookside Press (MA)
ISBN: 9780961751241
Category : Piano
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
Essential advice for buying and caring for a new or used piano. A '97-'98 supplement is available.