Showing results for "Perfect" in History & Criticism

The Everly Brothers—aka Don and Phil to fans with an intimate appreciation for them—seemed to exist almost as an apparition. Emerging within the formative era for young Baby Boomers during the blandly regimented '50s, they were a ubiquitous presence, clad in snug suits and skinny ties, hair neatly Brylcreemed, never raising their voices when they sang. The two prim-looking country boys with dark, curiously penetrating eyes and perfectly merged, honey-dipped harmonies, were oddly but comfortably settled as sentimental, soothing, sometimes lovelorn voices of a still-uncharted cultural turf.

Hugely talented and famously eccentric, pianist Glenn Gould fought a running battle with a long list of less than perfect pianos. A Romance on Three Legs is the story of a love that changed Gould's life: his partnership with the Steinway CD 318, a piano whose peculiar action and temperament ushered Gould closer than ever to interpretive perfection. Katie Hafner weaves the compelling tale of Gould, his favorite piano, and the men who worked on it, revealing new details and nuances in the work and mind of one of the twentieth century's greatest artists.

When Dave Hickey was 12, he rode the surfer's dream: the perfect wave. And, like so many things in life we long for, it didn't quite turn out - he shot the pier and dashed himself against the rocks of Sunset Cliffs in Ocean Beach, which just about killed him. Fortunately, for Hickey and for us, he survived, and continues to battle, decades into a career as one of America's foremost critical iconoclasts, a trusted, even cherished no-nonsense voice commenting on the all-too-often nonsensical worlds of art and culture.

Uncover the high-stakes music history and creative psychology behind the pop culture anthems that define our lives. Whether you are powering through a morning commute or deep in focused work, this energetic journey reveals how a technical accident became the emotional heartbeat of society. Step...

NATIONAL BESTSELLER Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize Winner of a Certificate of Merit from the 2025 ARSC Awards for Excellence A New Yorker, GQ, The Daily Telegraph (London), and Library Journal Best Book of 2025 A 2025 Washington Post Notable Nonfiction An NPR...

While many volumes devoted to the punk and hardcore scenes in America grace bookstore shelves, Canada’s contributions to the genre remain largely unacknowledged. For the first time, the birth of Canadian punk - a transformative cultural force that spread across the country at the end of the 1970s - is captured between the pages of this important resource. Delving deeper than standard band biographies, this book articulates how the advent of punk reshaped the culture of cities across Canada, speeding along the creation of alternative means of cultural production, consumption, and distribution.