Non-Fiction Books

Shows the many performers who have appeared at Carnegie Hall, discusses the political, social, economic, and artistic aspects of the Hall's history, and describes the recent renovation

Time magazine music critic Michael Walsh has created for the mellowing rock 'n roll generation a complete and totally irreverent guide to listening to, collecting and enjoying classical music.

Michael Walsh examines Lloyd Webber's personal motivations and professional methods and recounts his enduring influence on the development of the popular musical. Walsh covers the famous shows as well as Lloyd Webber's lesser-known works, such as \"Requiem\" and \"Jeeves,\" his only outright flop, which, nevertheless, in 1996 was revived successfully both in England and the United States as \"By Jeeves.\" This updated and enlarged version of the book takes the reader to the opening of \"Sunset Boulevard,\" through the long-running negotiations for the movie version of \"Evita,\" and right up to Lloyd Webber's latest musical, \"Whistle Down the Wind.\" Going behind the scenes, Walsh tells of a middle-class boy who dropped out of Oxford and became an international superstar. He also relates Lloyd Webber's mercurial relationships with the press, his colleagues, and his collaborators, including lyricist Tim Rice, directors Trevor Nunn and Hal Prince, and leading ladies Elaine Paige, Sarah Brightman (his second wife), and Glenn Close. Finally, he charts Lloyd Weber's latest milestones - including a third marriage and a lordship - and his transition from composer to impresario to international business entrepreneur. The 130 illustrations include candid photos of Lloyd Webber going up and in rehearsal, performance shots of all the shows by world renowned theater photographers, and sketches for costume design and sets, providing a rich overview of Lloyd Webber's unique theatrical world.

A rabbi describes the Nazi destruction of the Jewish community of Lvov, the Ukraine, forced labor, and his survival through the protection of the Uniate Catholic Archbishop

For anyone who has been intimidated, overwhelmed, or just plain confused by what they think opera is, Who's Afraid of Opera? offers a guide to what author Michael Walsh describes as "the greatest art form yet invented by humankind." Curtain up! It's time to settle into your seat, close up your program, and watch the house lights go down. And get ready for the musical ride of your lives.

(Amadeus). Think opera's just about starving artists, vengeful goddesses, randy noblemen, and adulterous lovers? Think again. In So When Does the Fat Lady Sing? , Michael Walsh, the former music critic for Time magazine, takes audiences on a wise and witty dash through 400 years of operatic history and culture. More a freewheeling dialogue between author and reader than a traditional quiz book, So When Does the Fat Lady Sing? poses irreverent and impertinent questions designed not so much to test knowledge as to inspire and entertain both expert and novice alike. Curtain up!

Are you a frustrated conservative shocked by the bunch of far Left fanatics driving the bus—and our future—off a cliff? It’s time to fight back with the same ruthlessness that has served the radicals so well—not just now, but for the long term. And who better to reveal their strategies—and their fatal weaknesses—than one of their own? Playing on his all-too-typical hubris and good old greed, we’ve recruited well-known liberal apparatchik David Kahane to lead conservatives out of the political wilderness, whether he means to or not. Is he arrogant and obnoxious? Absolutely. Does he deliver the goods? You betcha. We’ll let Dave speak for himself: Please allow me to introduce myself. . . . My name is David and I’m going to share some secrets. I’m going to take you into the smoke-free back rooms of today’s progressive political machine to reveal how it really operates—and how you can bring it down. I’ll lay out the rules we radicals have used to run circles around you, and clue you in on how to make them work for you, too. How do I know this stuff? As the son of the sainted “Che” Kahane, I’ve been schooled in the art of seizing and holding political power as we transform America one antiquated tradition and constitutional clause at a time. Now I work in Hollywood, where I’ve perfected the game pioneered by such pros as Machiavelli, Saul Alinsky, and Al Capone, father of the immortal Chicago Way. Read on and learn from our time-tested techniques: • Know your enemy, his intentions, his weapons, and his weaknesses. You too can play relentless, on-message hardball with every scandal, hypocrisy, lie, and fundamentally flawed policy your adversaries dish up. • Become what you behold. Adopt some of our scorched-earth tactics, best described in David Mamet’s Untouchables: “They pull a knife, you pull a gun . ” • Take no prisoners. Attack our premises, expose their true nature and consequences, and pin them on us, hard. • Never cede anything to the other side, philosophically speaking. Force the Left to argue facts, not emotions. We hate that. • Treat us with the same respect we give you . None. • It is better to be feared than liked, especially by your enemies. And it helps to show up for the fight. (Note to past and future Republican candidates.) Why am I telling you all this? Because I thrive on making trouble and, frankly, because I’m proud of what my team has done. Between us, I don’t think it matters if I turn over our playbook to you at this late date. I don’t think you can get it together to stop us now. Plus, I got a lot of money. Happy reading, America! You think you can take us down? Go for it. I dare you.

In the aftermath of World War II, America stood alone as the world’s premier military power. Yet its martial confidence contrasted vividly with its sense of cultural inferiority. Still looking to a defeated and dispirited Europe for intellectual and artistic guidance, the burgeoning transnational elite in New York and Washington embraced not only the war’s refugees, but many of their ideas as well, and nothing has proven more pernicious than those of the Frankfurt School and its reactionary philosophy of “critical theory.” In The Devil's Pleasure Palace , Michael Walsh describes how Critical Theory released a horde of demons into the American psyche. When everything could be questioned, nothing could be real, and the muscular, confident empiricism that had just won the war gave way, in less than a generation, to a central-European nihilism celebrated on college campuses across the United States. Seizing the high ground of academe and the arts, the New Nihilists set about dissolving the bedrock of the country, from patriotism to marriage to the family to military service. They have sown, as Cardinal Bergoglio—now Pope Francis—once wrote of the Devil, “destruction, division, hatred, and calumny,” and all disguised as the search for truth. The Devil's Pleasure Palace exposes the overlooked movement that is Critical Theory and explains how it took root in America and, once established and gestated, how it has affected nearly every aspect of American life and society.