Waltzing In The Dark

The career of Norton and Margot, a ballroom dance team whose work was thwarted by the racial tenets of the era, serves as the barometer of the times and acts as the tour guide on this excursion through the worlds of African American vaudeville, black and white America during the swing era, the European touring circuit, and pre-Civil Rights era racial etiquette.

In Uneven Encounters, Micol Seigel chronicles the exchange of popular culture between Brazil and the United States in the years between the World Wars, and demonstrates how that exchange affected ideas of race and nation in both countries. From Americans interpreting advertisements for Brazilian coffee or dancing the Brazilian maxixe, to Rio musicians embracing the “foreign” qualities of jazz, Seigel traces a lively, cultural back and forth. Along the way, she shows how race and nation for both elites and non-elites are constructed together, and driven by global cultural and intellectual currents as well as local, regional, and national ones. Seigel explores the circulation of images of Brazilian coffee and of maxixe in the United States during the period just after the imperial expansions of the early twentieth century. Exoticist interpretations structured North Americans’ paradoxical sense of themselves as productive “consumer citizens.” Some people, however, could not simply assume the privileges of citizenship. In their struggles against racism, Afro-descended citizens living in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, New York, and Chicago encountered images and notions of each other, and found them useful. Seigel introduces readers to cosmopolitan Afro-Brazilians and African Americans who rarely traveled far from home but who nonetheless absorbed ideas from abroad. She suggests that studies comparing U.S. and Brazilian racial identities as two distinct constructions are misconceived. Racial formation transcends national borders; attempts to understand it must do the same.

America's Songs tells the stories behind the most beloved popular songs of the last century. We all have songs that have a special meaning in our lives; hearing them evokes a special time or place. Little wonder that these special songs have become enduring classics. Nothing brings the roarin '20s to life like Tea for Two or I'm just Wild About Harry; the Great Depression is evoked in all of its pain and misery in songs like Brother Can You Spare a Dime?; God Bless America revives the powerful hope that American democracy promised to the world during the dark days of World War II; Young at Heart evokes the postwar optimism of the '50s. And then there are the countless songs of love, new romance, and heartbreak: As Time Goes By, Always, Am I Blue...the list is endless. Along with telling the stories behind these songs, America's Songs suggests, simply and succinctly, what makes a song great. The book illuminates the way each great song melds words and music - sentiment and melody - into a seamless whole. America's Songs also traces the fascinating but mysterious process of collaboration, the give-and-take between two craftsmen, a composer and a lyricist, as they combined their talents to create a song. For anyone interested in the history of the songs that America loves, America's Songs will make for fascinating reading.

A dark tale of the destructive power of love and obsession from 'The supreme master of suspense' NEW YORK TIMES 'The father of the modern suspense story' LA TIMES When Louis Durand first meets his bride-to-be after a months-long courtship by mail, he's shocked that she doesn't match the photographs sent with her correspondence. But Durand has not exactly been truthful, either, concealing the details of his wealth. Mostly, he feels fortunate she is so much more beautiful than he expected. Soon after they marry, however, he becomes increasingly convinced that the woman in his life is not the same woman with whom he exchanged letters - and then she suddenly disappears with his fortune. Alone and desperate, Louis becomes obsessed with finding Julia and bringing her to justice - but it is only when he finally tracks her down that the nightmare truly begins...

An action-packed thriller by global sensation, Wilbur Smith. 'A master storyteller' - Sunday Times 'Wilbur Smith is one of those benchmarks against whom others are compared' - The Times 'No one does adventure quite like Smith' - Daily Mirror The highest prize comes at the highest price... Captain Bruce Curry has a simple enough mission: to lead his mercenary soldiers to rescue a town cut off by rebel fighting in the Belgian Congo. But events quickly take a turn for the worse as it becomes clear that the town's diamond supplies are the real focus of the mission. And where there is treasure, danger always seems to follow. It isn't long before Curry finds something even more valuable than diamonds in the town. Something he'll do anything to protect. And soon he discovers that his most deadly enemies might be those closest to him . . .

The well-known questions such as What, How and, above all, Why are given some unexpected and enchanted answers in the volume III of the book A Little Frog’s Heart. These answers are delivered by the original characters we got used to celebrating along the story. The relationship between a grandfather and his grandson is being brought in a warm light destined to open up our hearts for the harmonies of this volume, The Stellar Waltz of Life. In the glittering bunch of the stories which interweave and overflow from each one to the others, as a modern version of the series On Thousand and One Nights, one could discern two mythological episodes, somehow a remnant of a popular Christianity magnificently adapted for a contemporaneous audience, of a genuine originality, which sheds their light as if they were some big rounded regal grapes, even if they are in a way ‘removed’ from the bunch and ‘spread’ all over the volume.

THE LAST WALTZ Vienna May 1945 THE LAST WALTZ - Vienna May 1945 - is the uncompromising story of a United States O.S.S. four man, secret mission into Russian occupied Vienna in the uncertain days following the unconditional surrender of the German Armed Forces, and of a small, U.S. Army patrol sent to rendezvous with the four men on their return from Vienna in territory still being held by German SS troops who have not surrendered. As the war had progressed there was mounting alarm in Washington at the extent of Russian Intelligence activities in the U.S.A. and the lack of knowledge available to the U.S. Secret Service on their Russian counterparts. The Last Waltz was part of the process to redress that situation. On April 13th, 1945, the German garrison surrenders Vienna to the Russian troops and Vienna is to endure many days of terror and anarchy. Doctor Anna Holtz, a Swiss national and the daughter in law of an eminent Austrian scientist, fears for her life, and she has valuable information that was given to her by her father in law before he died. On the same night, four Austrian Officers and a Sergeant of the German Wehrmacht make plans for one of the officers, a Captain, and the Sergeant, who have both worked for German Military Intelligence, to surrender themselves to the U.S. Army and offer to return to Vienna with a U.S. agent to retrieve certain documented, secret information that will be valuable to the U.S. which is being safeguarded in Vienna, and also to help Doctor Holtz escape from Vienna. In another part of the city, John Spencer, a British secret agent, is preparing to leave the city and make his way through the German lines and return to London. Two days later, the Wehrmacht Captain and Sergeant surrender to a forward unit of the U.S. Third Army and are interrogated by Captain Maddox, a U.S. Intelligence Officer who sends the two prisoners direct to a Major Keller, a U.S. staff officer at Army Headquarters. The U.S. High Command recognises the importance of the information offered by the Captain and the need to get Doctor Holtz out of Vienna before the Russians become aware that she holds such valuable information. The High Command is also aware of the delicacy of the situation. The Americans seek the help of British Intelligence who have had Spencer operating in Vienna from before the war. Spencer is a maverick British agent recruited from the criminal underworld and during his period in Vienna as a British spy, he has continued to operate his own interests in the criminal, network. It is known that many members of the Austrian Resistance Movement are communist sympathisers, so British Intelligence decide to cash in on Spencer's other activities and contacts. Spencer is cajoled and blackmailed into agreeing to return to Vienna and joins up with Major Keller of the O.S.S. who has been assigned to head the operation into Vienna with the Austrian Captain and Sergeant. The operation has no official recognition and has been unofficially titled THE LAST WALTZ. Spencer makes arrangements for their return to Vienna through his underworld contacts. Captain Maddox, who had first interrogated the Austrian Captain, is ordered to take some of his men behind Russian held lines to rendezvous with Major Keller's party on their return from Vienna. This does not please Captain Maddox, or his men, because the rendezvous is in an area where German SS troops are still fighting their way West. In bo