Sophisticated Giant

Tenor saxophonist Dexter Gordon was one of the major innovators of modern jazz. In a context of biography, history, and memoir, Maxine Gordon has completed the book that her late husband began, weaving his "solo" turns with her voice and a chorus of voices from past and present. She shows that his image of the cool jazzman fails to come to terms with the three-dimensional man full of humor and wisdom, a figure who struggled to reconcile being both a creative outsider who broke the rules and a comforting insider who was a son, father, husband, and world citizen. --

This revelatory exploration of big data, which refers to our newfound ability to crunch vast amounts of information, analyze it instantly and draw profound and surprising conclusions from it, discusses how it will change our lives and what we can do to protect ourselves from its hazards. 75,000 first printing.

All manga, all the time, all the Chris Hart way! • Bumper book of 256 manga-packed pages • Learn to draw manga, step by step • One gigantic celebration of manga mania Kids are drawn to manga like magnets, and Christopher Hart's manga books are among the hottest sellers of all books, with more than 2.5 million copies in print. Now Watson-Guptill has gathered Hart's four best-selling Kids Draw books and combined them into one giant manga book. If they're out there in the world of manga, they're in here: cute little critters, sophisticated heroes, witches and wizards, magical boys and magical girls, and everything else manga! Each character is drawn in clear step-by-steps, so young artists can easily follow along. At just 19.95 dollars, Kids Draw Big Book of Everything Manga is one big bundle of manga-drawing fun for one, low price.

Modern weaving projects like you've never seen—within easy reach of anyone. Weaving is a satisfying hobby for making home or clothing accessories that look plucked from your favorite stores. Here are Pinterest-worthy projects for creating earrings, clutches, pillows, wall hangings, and more, all organized by skill level. From complete beginner to intermediate, Weaving Within Reach allows you to craft at your comfort level, even if you don’t yet know the difference between the warp and the weft. Lacking a loom? Most of the materials can be woven on found objects—such as an embroidery hoop or cardboard box—or achieved with a simple over-under pattern using no loom at all. As you progress, there are plenty of exciting designs for a frame loom to keep you inspired. With a detailed introduction, stunning lifestyle and step-by-step photographs, and a helpful resource section, Weaving Within Reach unravels the possibilities of the beautiful things you can make with your hands.

Jack and the Beanstalk told with hilarious western flavor

“The definitive history of an important but largely forgotten labor organization and its heroic struggles with an icon of industrial capitalism.” —Ahmed A. White, author of The Last Great Strike This rich history details the bitter, deep-rooted conflict between industrial behemoth International Harvester and the uniquely radical Farm Equipment Workers union. The Long Deep Grudge makes clear that class warfare has been, and remains, integral to the American experience, providing up-close-and-personal and long-view perspectives from both sides of the battle lines. International Harvester—and the McCormick family that largely controlled it—garnered a reputation for bare-knuckled union-busting in the 1880s, but in the twentieth century also pioneered sophisticated union-avoidance techniques that have since become standard corporate practice. On the other side the militant Farm Equipment Workers union, connected to the Communist Party, mounted a vociferous challenge to the cooperative ethos that came to define the American labor movement after World War II. This evocative account, stretching back to the nineteenth century and carried through to the present, reads like a novel. Biographical sketches of McCormick family members, union officials and rank-and-file workers are woven into the narrative, along with anarchists, jazz musicians, Wall Street financiers, civil rights crusaders, and mob lawyers. It touches on pivotal moments and movements as wide-ranging as the Haymarket “riot,” the Flint sit-down strikes, the Memorial Day Massacre, the McCarthy-era anti-communist purges, and America’s late twentieth-century industrial decline. “A capitalist family dynasty, a radical union, and a revolution in how and where work gets done—Toni Gilpin’s The Long Deep Grudge is a detailed chronicle of one of the most active battlefronts in our ever-evolving class war.” —John Sayles

Nearly 50 years after his death, Louis Armstrong remains one of the 20th century's most iconic figures. Popular fans still appreciate his later hits such as "Hello, Dolly!" and "What a Wonderful World," while in the jazz community, he remains venerated for his groundbreaking innovations in the 1920s. The achievements of Armstrong's middle years, however, possess some of the trumpeter's most scintillating and career-defining stories. But the story of this crucial time has never been told in depth until now. Between 1929 and 1947, Armstrong transformed himself from a little-known trumpeter in Chicago to an internationally renowned pop star, setting in motion the innovations of the Swing Era and Bebop. He had a similar effect on the art of American pop singing, waxing some of his most identifiable hits such as "Jeepers Creepers" and "When You're Smiling." However as author Ricky Riccardi shows, this transformative era wasn't without its problems, from racist performance reviews and being held up at gunpoint by gangsters to struggling with an overworked embouchure and getting arrested for marijuana possession. Utilizing a prodigious amount of new research, Riccardi traces Armstrong's mid-career fall from grace and dramatic resurgence. Featuring never-before-published photographs and stories culled from Armstrong's personal archives, Heart Full of Rhythm tells the story of how the man called "Pops" became the first "King of Pop."