Beginning with Lenny’s childhood in Boston and ending with his triumphant conducting debut at Carnegie Hall with the New York Philharmonic when he was just twenty-five, Music Was IT draws readers into the energetic, passionate, challenging, music-filled life of young Leonard Bernstein. Archival ph...

"Life without music is unthinkable."—Leonard Bernstein, Findings When Lenny was two years old, his mother found that the only way to soothe her crying son was to turn on the Victrola. When his aunt passed on her piano to Lenny’s parents, the boy demanded lessons. When Lenny went to school, he h...

We want to protect our children. We want to keep them safe, away from danger. Some books for children trump up foreign problems to hold interest, gin up sample conflicts, whose terms can’t enter the child’s life, kept out categorically by boundaries of place or time or species. But there is one ...

As the first state to ratify the United States Constitution, Delaware rightfully earned its nickname of "First State." Though small in size, it is a treasure trove of history (Fort Delaware), inventions (the Victrola), and garden wonders (Winterthur). State symbols such as the Blue Hen Chicken and p...

Featuring a new introduction, this updated edition of the New York Times bestselling classic by Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award–winning author and one of the most revered figures in American letters is “profound and priceless as guidance for anyone who aspires to write” ( Los Angeles ...

Cathartic, refreshing new work by the American favorite Tiptoe on the globe. Gazing nowhere in particular, the slender Thunderer surrounded by thunder, Fire zigzag in his grasp, labeled "Spirit Of Communication"---unhistorical, Pure, the merciless messenger. --from "A Phonebook Cover ...

The Toughest Show on Earth is the ultimate behind-the-scenes chronicle of the divas and the dramas of New York’s Metropolitan Opera House, by the remarkable man who rose from apprentice carpenter to general manager. Joseph Volpe gives us an anecdote-filled tour of more than four decades at the M...

The extraordinary story of Jessie Redmon Fauset whose exhilarating world of friends, rivals, and passions all combined to create the magic that was the Harlem Renaissance, written by Victoria Christopher Murray, New York Times bestselling coauthor of The Personal Librarian . In 1919, as civil a...

Learn how envy and racism led to the tragic destruction of the thriving Black community in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in this thought-provoking addition to the New York Times bestselling What Was? series! Before May 31, 1921, the Greenwood District of Tulsa, Oklahoma, was a flourishing neighborhood of 10,...

"A rare and wondrous thing....[Fox] knows how to create a character."― Vogue Luisa de la Cueva was born on the Caribbean island of Malagita, of a plantation owner's son and a native woman, a servant in the kitchen. Her years on Malagita were sweet with the beauty of bamboo, banana, and mango tree...

The steady tick of an aged Regulator wall clock and the squeak of an overhead fan turning slowly are soft but insistent, counting down the night, while the high desert thrums like a half-remembered Victrola song. The sounds are below the consciousness of Winchell Dear, an old-time gambler, a Texas p...

Over a century ago, the powerful and fiendish Augustus Fitzhampton built the mansion Balmoral. Now rotten and forgotten, the old Victorian lies empty and forbidding. Curiosity seekers foolhardy enough to enter don’t stay long. But its next visitors will find its spell eerily irresistible . Alejan...

"Confessions of a Metropolitan Opera Singer" is the autobiography of Kathleen Howard, a Metropolitan Opera star from 1916 through 1928. Turning to film acting after her voice broke, Kathleen Howard was also an accomplished writer who served on the staff of Harper's Bazaar. She made her first movie a...

He was born Alfredo Cocozza in Philadelphia’s “Little Italy” on January 31, 1921. He died Mario Lanza in Rome on October 7, 1959. For most of his adult life his face and voice were known by millions the world over, but at his death only a few knew of his long and agonizing struggle against fea...

Not too far away from the flea markets, dusty attics, cluttered used record stores and Ebay is the world of the vinyl junkies. Brett Milano dives deep into the piles of old vinyl to uncover the subculture of record collecting. A vinyl junkie is not the person who has a few old 45s shoved in the cubo...

This compelling memoir takes readers through the eyes of a child surviving World War II in Nazi-occupied Poland. As a nine-year-old, the author witnessed his father being herded into a truck―never to be seen again. He, his mother, and sister fled to Warsaw to live in disguise as Catholics under th...

Over a century ago, the powerful and fiendish Augustus Fitzhampton built the mansion Balmoral. Now rotten and forgotten, the old Victorian lies empty and forbidding. Curiosity seekers foolhardy enough to enter don’t stay long. But its next visitors will find its spell eerily irresistible . Alejan...

The steady tick of an aged Regulator wall clock and the squeak of an overhead fan turning slowly are soft but insistent, counting down the night, while the high desert thrums like a half-remembered Victrola song. The sounds are below the consciousness of Winchell Dear, an old-time gambler, a Texas p...

Sophia loves to practice ballet in her bedroom, dreaming of becoming a ballerina. She plays her “Toy Box Ballet” record on her Victrola, as she twirls and leaps across the floor. But one day, she discovers she has a very special audience: Aggie's kittens! As Sophia dances, the little kittens try...

Come back to the Jazz Era , Prohibition speakeasys and the business boom of the Roaring 20’s. From gritty streets and bootleg gangsters to the glaring footlights, flappers and birth of the Victrola; learn what you didn’t, shouldn’t know about the most exciting decade of the century. A story of...