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The creative act : a way of being / by Rubin, Rick,author.; Strauss, Neil,author.;
"From the legendary music producer, a savant at helping people connect with the wellsprings of their creativity, comes a beautifully crafted book, many years in the making, that offers that same deep wisdom to all of us. "I set out to write a book about what to do to make a great work of art. Instead, it revealed itself to be a book on how to be."--Rick Rubin Many famed music producers, however brilliant, become known for a particular sound which has its day and then ages out. Rick Rubin, on the other hand, is most famous for something else: for creating a strong safe space where artists of wildly different genres and traditions can home in on who they really are and what they really offer. To surprise themselves, and thus the world. Rubin's true art is for helping people get out of their own way and commune with the powerful creative signal that is their birthright. Over the years, Rubin has thought deeply about where creativity comes from and where it doesn't, about what it takes to strike a deep nerve within ourselves. Perhaps above all, he has learned that being an artist isn't about your specific output, it's a relationship to the world. Creativity has a space in everyone's life, and everyone has the opportunity to make that space stronger. Indeed, it may be our most important responsibility. More than five years in the making, The Creative Act is a series of meditations that illuminate the path of the artist as a road we all can follow. It is a beautifully generous offering of the wisdom gleaned from a lifetime's work spent in the service of exhilaration and transcendence, distilled into a timeless classic that puts those feelings within closer reach for all of us"--
Subjects: Creation (Literary, artistic, etc.); Creative ability.;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 1
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Amy Winehouse : in her words. by Winehouse, Amy,1983-2011.;
"Much has been said about Amy Winehouse since her tragic death aged at age 27. But who was the real Amy? Amy Winehouse: In Her Words shines a spotlight on her incredible writing talent, her wit, her charm and lust for life. Bringing together Amy's own never-before-seen journals, handwritten lyrics and family photographs together for the first time, this intimate tribute traces her creative evolution from growing up in North London to global superstardom, and provides a rare insight into the girl who became a legend."--
Subjects: Biographies.; Photobooks.; Personal narratives.; Winehouse, Amy, 1983-2011; Winehouse, Amy, 1983-2011.; Singers;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Beach read / by Henry, Emily,author.;
"A romance writer who no longer believes in love and a literary writer stuck in a rut engage in a summer-long challenge that may just upend everything they believe about happily ever afters. Augustus Everett is an acclaimed author of literary fiction. January Andrews writes bestselling romance. When she pens a happily ever after, he kills off his entire cast. They're polar opposites. In fact, the only thing they have in common is that for the next three months, they're living in neighboring beach houses, broke, and bogged down with writer's block. Until, one hazy evening, one thing leads to another and they strike a deal designed to force them out of their creative ruts: Augustus will spend the summer writing something happy, and January will pen the next Great American Novel. She'll take him on field trips worthy of any rom-com montage, and he'll take her to interview surviving members of a backwoods death cult (obviously). Everyone will finish a book and no one will fall in love. But as the summer stretches on, January discovers a gaping plot hole in the story she's been telling herself about her own life, and begins to wonder what other things she might have gotten wrong, including her ideas about the man next door"--
Subjects: Romance fiction.; Man-woman relationships; Authors; Neighbors;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 2
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Roped in : creative craft projects made with rope (and other awesome things) / by Patford, Gemma,author.;
Let Gemma rope you in to create a range of fun DIY projects for your apartment, your wardrobe, your pets, your kids or a dinner party with friends. Projects feature Gemma's famous ropework, but she also shares a range of other craft projects, tips and tricks for dressing up the everyday. Living in a small apartment with her husband, daughter and hefty cat, Gemma Patford Legge looks for creative ways to decorate, entertain and celebrate with crafts that make the everyday feel fancy. She's all about roping people in to creating life illusions: craft projects that feel fancy, but are simple and fun to make. Gemma uses her expertise with rope and her experience with decorating small spaces to come up with genius DIYs that will dress up your space and impress your friends. Looking to make your own macrame indoor plant holder or a fancy rope necklace as a gift for a friend? Wanting to impress your dinner party guests with proper placemats? Keen to make a cat scratching post that's not ugly? With beautiful photography and Gemma's witty writing, this book offers a range of projects, tips and crafty tricks to make your life more fabulous.
Subjects: Ropework.; Rope in art.; Handicraft.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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An alphabet for Joanna : a portrait of my mother in 26 fragments / by Rogers, Damian,author.;
"Throughout her life, acclaimed poet Damian Rogers was never given a satisfactory account of the circumstances around her birth. The "truth" behind the stories she was told by her mother--the free-spirited, beautiful and often troubled Joanna--constantly shifted, and Damian could collect only fragments: a trip to California, a mysterious trauma, a miscarriage followed by a psychotic break, and a dramatic return to Detroit, pregnant. Now, in the present day, as 40-year-old Damian copes with Joanna's debilitating frontal-lobe dementia, she realizes she may never truly uncover the full story. At once a riveting portrait of a time and place (Detroit and Southern California from the mid-1960s to the late-1980s), an unconventional mother-daughter saga, and an exploration of how memory constantly shapes and reshapes our intimate relationships, at its heart An Alphabet for Joanna is a meditation on the relationship between mental illness and creative life. Damian Rogers writes effortlessly across genres, including lyrical memoir, investigative reporting, and powerful philosophical reflection, as she pieces together the ways we build lives out of stories. And by tracing her mother's deterioration into the present day, she poignantly shows how, even when memory fails, we remain connected through art, empathy, and imagination."--
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Rogers, Damian.; Rogers, Damian; Children of mentally ill mothers; Mentally ill mothers; Mothers and daughters.; Poets, Canadian (English);
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Long players : writers on the albums that shaped them / by Gatti, Tom,editor.;
Includes bibliographical references.Our favorite albums are our most faithful companions: we listen to them hundreds of times over decades, we know them far better than any novel or film. These records don't just soundtrack our lives but work their way deep inside us, shaping our outlook and identity, forging our friendships and charting our love affairs. They become part of our story. In Long Players, fifty of our finest authors write about the albums that changed their lives, from Deborah Levy on Bowie to Daisy Johnson on Lizzo, Ben Okri on Miles Davis to David Mitchell on Joni Mitchell, Sarah Perry on Rachmaninov to Bernardine Evaristo on Sweet Honey in the Rock. Part meditation on the album form and part candid self-portrait, each of these miniature essays reveals music's power to transport the listener to a particular time and place. REM's Automatic for the People sends Olivia Laing back to first love and heartbreak, Bjork's Post resolves a crisis of faith and sexuality for a young Marlon James, while Fragile by Yes instils in George Saunders the confidence to take his own creative path. This collection is an intoxicating mix of memoir and music writing, spanning the golden age of vinyl and the streaming era, and showing how a single LP can shape a writer's mind.
Subjects: Essays.; Anecdotes.; Authors and music.; Sound recordings; Popular music; Authors;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Palace of the drowned / by Mangan, Christine(Christine Rose),author.;
"It's 1966 and Frankie Croy needs a break. Having achieved success with her debut bestseller, she's been trying desperately to live up to the high expectations of her editor and fans, only to fall short with each new book. When she receives a possible career-ending review and then has a very public breakdown, she retreats to her friend's vacant palazzo in Venice in the hopes the new setting will rejuvenate her creativity and inspire her writing. But she finds that she's just as stuck. And then she meets a fellow British expat, a precocious young fan named Gilly who is eager to befriend her favorite author at all costs. An aspiring writer, Gilly worms herself into Frankie's Venetian life and the two begin an uneasy companionship. Frankie is skeptical of someone so relentlessly chipper, and Gilly tells stories that seem too good to be true, and in fact some of them are. This complicated web of desperate friendship, half-truths, and white lies-all set against a once-in-a-generation storm that inundates Venice and leaves it flooded-will lead Frankie to make a choice that is impossible to undo. A gorgeously rendered and twisted tale of art and ambition, Palace of the Drowned is a literary thriller that asks just how far one is willing to go to achieve success"--
Subjects: Thrillers (Fiction); Psychological fiction.; Historical fiction.; Novelists; Fans (Persons); Female friendship; Truthfulness and falsehood; Ambition; Floods;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Mary and the birth of Frankenstein : a novel / by Eekhout, Anne,1981-author.; Watkinson, Laura,translator.; translation of:Eekhout, Anne,1981-Mary.English.;
Includes bibliographical references."A sapphic reimagining of Mary Shelley's youth, vividly exploring innocence, young love, gothic mystery and the roots of her literary masterpiece, Frankenstein. Switzerland, 1816. A volcanic eruption in Indonesia envelopes the whole of Europe in ash and cloud. Amid this "year without a summer," eighteen-year-old Mary Shelley and her lover Percy Bysshe Shelley arrive at Lake Geneva to visit Lord Byron and his companion John Polidori. Anguished by the recent loss of her child, Mary spends her days in strife. But come nightfall, the friends while away rainy wine-soaked evenings gathered around the fireplace, exchanging stories. One famous evening, Byron issues a challenge to write the best ghost story. Contemplating what to write, Mary recalls another summer, when she was fourteen ... Scotland, 1812. A guest of the Baxter family, Mary arrives in Dundee, befriending young Isabella Baxter. The girls soon spend hours together wandering through fields and forests, concocting tales about mythical Scottish creatures, ghosts and monsters roaming the lowlands. As their bond deepens, Mary and Isabella's feelings for each other intensify. But someone has been watching them -- the charismatic and vaguely sinister Mr. Booth, Isabella's older brother-in-law, who may not be as benevolent as he purports to be ... With gripping mastery and verve, Anne Eekhout brings to life a defining moment in Mary Shelley's youth: the creative wellspring for one of the most original, thrilling, and timeless pieces of literature ever written. Provocative, wonderfully atmospheric and pulsing with emotion, Mary and the Birth of Frankenstein is a hypnotic ode to the power of imagination"--
Subjects: Biographical fiction.; Historical fiction.; Queer fiction.; Novels.; Frankenstein, Victor (Fictitious character); Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft, 1797-1851; Gothic fiction (Literary genre), English;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Colorful : a treasure trove of inspiration, influences, and ideas / by Apfel, Iris Barrel,1921-2024,author.;
"In the summer of 2023, as Iris Apfel welcomed her 102nd birthday, she put pen to paper to write this very special project, which Iris called her legacy book. 'This is not a book of secrets-I have no secrets. Sorry to disappoint if that's what you're looking for. I have some good stories, though. And a few ideas. This book is about living, creating, and color. Because creativity and color matter. I don't want you to dress like me or think like me-that's not the idea of this book. I want you to find the colors, confidence, and creative inspiration that reflect you. My life has been filled with love, wonder, and a very deep, incurable curiosity. This book is my treasure trove of inspiration, influences, and ideas: My source. Be brave. Find your source. What makes you happy? -Much love, Iris x' With more than 300 personal photos and adorned with beautiful, unseen fabric patterns from Iris's Old World Weaver's collection, Iris Apfel: Colorful has her incredible energy radiating from every page. Here she shares her creative work, life stories, adventures, and unwavering belief in the essential power of color and creativity on a life well lived."--
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Personal narratives.; Apfel, Iris Barrel, 1921-2024.; Women fashion designers; Women interior decorators; Women textile designers; Color in design.; Creation (Literary, artistic, etc.); Design.; Fashion.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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After Sappho : a novel / by Schwartz, Selby Wynn,1975-author.;
Includes bibliographical references (pages 255-271)."An exhilarating debut from a radiant new voice, After Sappho reimagines the intertwined lives of feminists at the turn of the twentieth century. "The first thing we did was change our names. We were going to be Sappho," so begins this intrepid debut novel, centuries after the Greek poet penned her lyric verse. Ignited by the same muse, a myriad of women break from their small, predetermined lives for seemingly disparate paths: in 1892, Rina Faccio trades her needlepoint for a pen; in 1902, Romaine Brooks sails for Capri with nothing but her clotted paintbrushes; and in 1923, Virginia Woolf writes: "I want to make life fuller and fuller." Writing in cascading vignettes, Selby Wynn Schwartz spins an invigorating tale of women whose narratives converge and splinter as they forge queer identities and claim the right to their own lives. A luminous meditation on creativity, education, and identity, After Sappho announces a writer as ingenious as the trailblazers of our past"--
Subjects: Historical fiction.; Novels.; Feminists;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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