From the author of "Racism Explained to My Daughter" comes another model for teaching difficult subjects to children, using an accessible question-and-answer format.

In 32 lectures, 45 minutes each, Prof. Greenberg discusses 31 of the world's greatest orchestral woks.

From one of the world’s most expert art critics, the incredible true story—part art history and part mystery—of a Velazquez portrait that went missing and the obsessed nineteenth-century bookseller determined to prove he had found it. When John Snare, a nineteenth-century provincial bookseller, traveled to a liquidation auction, he stumbled on a vivid portrait of King Charles I that defied any explanation. The Charles of the painting was young—too...

Harold Bloom is Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University, Berg Professor of English at New York University, and a former Charles Eliot Norton Professor at Harvard. He has written more than 20 books of literary criticism. From a lifetime of writing and teaching about literature, this great scholar exhorts readers to consider the pleasures and benefits of reading well. Beginning with a basic question, "Why read?" Bloom offers his thoughts...

The Cornish Foundation, set up with money left by the late art expert, collector, and notable eccentric Francis Cornish, must choose a worthy undertaking upon which to expend a portion of its considerable funds. It is decided that the Foundation will fund the doctoral work of one Hulda Schnakenburg, a grumpy, difficult, and extraordinarily talented music student. Her task is to complete the score of an unfinished opera by the Romantic composer E.T.A....

This comprehensive guide tells the story of more than 250 key jazz songs and includes a listening guide to more than 2,000 recordings. The author draws on his deep personal experience with jazz music to outline the history and significance of the compositions and tell how they have been performed by different generations of jazz artists.

Can you find the hidden details in these American paintings, prints, and textiles from The Metropolitan Museum of Art? Includes "Washington Crossing the Delaware," by Emmanuel Leutze; "Across the Continent: "Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way"," by Frances Flora Bond Palmer for Currier & Ives; "The Last Moments of John Brown," by Thomas Hovenden; "Thanksgiving Turkey," by Grandma Moses; "The Photographer," by Jacob Lawrence; and "Street Story...

Six Californians join to discuss Jane Austen's novels. Over the six months they meet, marriages are tested, affairs begin, unsuitable arrangements become suitable, and love happens.