I Put A Spell On You

The inimitable, gorgeously talented Nina Simone (1933-2003)--the "high priestess of soul"--sets the story of her tumultuous, passionate life straight in I Put a Spell on You. Born Eunice Kathleen Waymon in small-town North Carolina, Nina Simone changed the face of both music and race relations in America. She struck a chord with bluesy jazz ballads like "Put a Little Sugar in My Bowl" and powerful protest songs such as "Mississippi Goddam" and "To Be Young, Gifted, and Black," the anthem of the American Civil Rights movement. Here are the many lives and loves of Nina Simone, recounted in her unshakable voice.

James Baldwin used to tell Nina Simone, "This is the world you have made for yourself, now you have to live in it." Simone has created for herself a world of magnificent peaks. Often compared to Billie Holiday and Edith Piaf, Simone is known as one of the greatest singers of her generation. She has recorded forty-three albums, ranging from blues to jazz to folk, and her hits like "I Loves You, Porgy," "My Baby Just Cares for Me," "I Put a Spell on You," and "Mississippi Goddam" have confirmed her as an enduring force in popular music. Her song "Young, Gifted, and Black" became the anthem for the Civil Rights Movement and thrust her beyond international stardom into the center of activism. But such worlds as Simone's are not without their grim valleys: disastrous marriages, arrest and the threat of imprisonment, mental breakdown, poverty, and attempted suicide. She has survived these trials and continues to perform throughout Europe and the United States. With undiminished passion and in her unconquerable voice, this is Nina Simone's powerful memoir of her tempestuous life.

COME SPELLING BEE season, the tiny town of Preston erupts in excitement: the bee is televised, and the hottest ticket in town. This year, an assortment of sixth-grade miscreants is going for the top prize: Jennifer, an overscheduled free spirit whose parents are obsessed with her college applications; Mutual, a previously home-schooled outsider who's enrolled in public school for the first time in order to participate in the bee; Harlan, the class clown who has spectacular plans for making the most of his time in the spotlight; and Chrissie, the constant observer, who suspects something is off at the bee and will stop at nothing to get to the truth. Principal Floren is acting shady to everyone—but, as he insists, “I am not a crook.”

In this exquisite, haunting book, John Burnside describes his coming of age from the industrial misery of Cowdenbeath and Corby to the new world of Cambridge. The old Scots word ‘glamour’ means magical charm, and the first time he was played I Put a Spell on You, John Burnside thought he had never heard a more beautiful song – it was an enchantment, a fascination that would turn to obsession. Implicit in the song were all the ambiguities that intrigued him – love, possession, and danger – and this book is an exploration of the darker side of glamour and attraction. Beginning with memories of a brutal murder, the book follows the author through a series of uncanny encounters with ‘lost girls’, with brilliant digressions on murder ballads, voodoo, acid and insomnia, and a cast that includes Kafka and Narcissus, Diane Arbus and Mel Lyman, The Four Tops and Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, and time spent lost in the Arctic Circle, black-and-white films and a mental institution. Ending with the tender summoning of the ghost of his dying mother as she sings along to the radio in her empty kitchen, I Put a Spell on You is a book about memory, about the other side of love: a book of secrets and wonders. ‘A marvellously meandering, digressive study of the nature of love... Exact and enthralling.’ Tessa Hadley

In the annals of rock ‘n’ roll there have been a lot of strange characters, but there probably hasn’t been anyone as bizarre as Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, and this is his story. Known mostly for a single record, I Put A Spell On You, and emerging from a coffin to perform on stage, Screamin’ Jay was a whirlwind performer, lusty singer, prolific songwriter and a man who was total stranger to the truth.

This story of two girls trying to banish a witch is “full of wonderful fun, excitement, and humor” (Library Journal). Old Witch likes nothing better than to fly around on her broomstick, crying “Heh-heh!” and casting abracadabras. But now she has been sent away . . . by two young girls. Amy and Clarissa have decided that Old Witch is just too mean and wicked. So, drawing a rickety old house upon a barren glass hill, they exile Old Witch there with a warning: She better be good, or else no Halloween! But to give Old Witch some company, they draw her a Little Witch Girl and a Weeny Witch Baby . . . Old Witch tries to be good, but anyone would get up to no good in a place as lonely as the glass hill. And Amy and Clarissa are about to find that out, when Old Witch magics them into her world of make-believe-made-real, in “a very special book that is certain to give boundless pleasure—at any time of the year” (The Horn Book). “A classic for Halloween.” —Library Journal

'From her raging, handwritten letters to late-night phone calls with David Bowie, this biography gets up close and personal with the tempestuous Nina Simone' Observer Drawing on glimpses into previously unseen diaries, rare interviews and childhood journals, and with the aid of her daughter, What Happened, Miss Simone? tells the story of the classically trained pianist who became a soul legend, a committed civil rights activist and one of the most influential, provocative and least understood artists of our time. This is the story of the real Miss Simone.

The startling, witty, highly anticipated second novel from the critically acclaimed author of Atmospheric Disturbances It is 1618 in the German duchy of Württemberg. Plague is spreading, the Thirty Years’ War has begun, and fear and suspicion are in the air throughout the Holy Roman Empire. In the small town of Leonberg, Katharina Kepler, an illiterate widow, is accused of being a witch. Katharina is known for her herbal remedies and the success of her children. Her eldest, Johannes, is the Imperial Mathematician and the renowned author of the laws of planetary motion. It’s enough to make anyone envious, and Katharina has done herself no favours by going out and about and being in everyone’s business. So when the deranged and insipid Ursula Reinbold (or as Katharina calls her, the Werewolf) accuses Katharina of making her ill by offering her a bitter, witchy drink, Katharina is in trouble. Her scientist son must turn his attention from the music of the spheres to the job of defending his mother. Facing the threat of financial ruin, torture and even execution, Katharina tells her side of the story to her friend and neighbour Simon, a reclusive widower imperiled by his own secrets. Drawing on real historical documents but infused with the intensity of imagination, sly humour and intellectual fire for which Rivka Galchen is known, Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch will both provoke and entertain. The story of how a community becomes implicated in collective aggression and hysterical fear is a tale for our time. Galchen’s bold new novel touchingly illuminates a family and a society undone by superstition, the state and the mortal convulsions of history.