The Fiddle is the Devil's Instrument


Book Description

"From Brett J. Talley, the master of Lovecraftian terror, comes thirteen tales of the dark forces that lurk just beyond man's understanding. A scientist who opens a door between dimensions. A creature that devours the dead in World War I's no man's land. A fiddler who can bring forth the gods of old. These are but a few of the horrors retold in the Fiddle is the Devil's Instrument and Other Forbidden Knowledge. Read them if you must but do not forget: there are some things mankind was never meant to know." -- p.4 of cover.




The Devil's Horn


Book Description

Traces the history of the saxophone from its invention by the eccentric Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax in the 1840s to its role in the jazz genre in the twenty-first century.




The Devil's Instrument


Book Description




A Devil to Play


Book Description

"High Fidelity" meets "Touching the Void" in the improbably heroic adventure of an amateur French horn player who quite literally blows himself back into life again.--Bob Geldof, songer/activist.




Instrument of the Devil


Book Description

Dashing terrorist Khalil Sharivar plans to bring down the electrical grid starting at the Hungry Horse Dam in Montana. He doesn't need explosives or weapons, only a smartphone, his charm, and the perfect scapegoat-Tawny Lindholm, a beautiful small-town widow intimidated by technology. Her rigged phone is his tool of seduction and manipulation, tangling her ever more tightly into his plot. Soon the feds are chasing her and her family is in jeopardy. If Tawny can't turn the instrument back on the devil himself, she dies. In the era of runaway surveillance, if it could happen to Tawny, could it happen to you? Follow Tawny to find out! Winner of the Kindle Scout contest and the 2016 Zebulon Award, Instrument of the Devil is a fast-moving psychological thriller about a cyber-attack on the power grid that's only a keystroke away. Five-star reviews call it "a thrilling high-stakes tale" and "tense and chilling." Read it before the lights go out!




The Devil’s Dictionary


Book Description

“Dictionary, n: A malevolent literary device for cramping the growth of a language and making it hard and inelastic. This dictionary, however, is a most useful work.” Bierce’s groundbreaking Devil’s Dictionary had a complex publication history. Started in the mid-1800s as an irregular column in Californian newspapers under various titles, he gradually refined the new-at-the-time idea of an irreverent set of glossary-like definitions. The final name, as we see it titled in this work, did not appear until an 1881 column published in the periodical The San Francisco Illustrated Wasp. There were no publications of the complete glossary in the 1800s. Not until 1906 did a portion of Bierce’s collection get published by Doubleday, under the name The Cynic’s Word Book—the publisher not wanting to use the word “Devil” in the title, to the great disappointment of the author. The 1906 word book only went from A to L, however, and the remainder was never released under the compromised title. In 1911 the Devil’s Dictionary as we know it was published in complete form as part of Bierce’s collected works (volume 7 of 12), including the remainder of the definitions from M to Z. It has been republished a number of times, including more recent efforts where older definitions from his columns that never made it into the original book were included. Due to the complex nature of copyright, some of those found definitions have unclear public domain status and were not included. This edition of the book includes, however, a set of definitions attributed to his one-and-only “Demon’s Dictionary” column, including Bierce’s classic definition of A: “the first letter in every properly constructed alphabet.” Bierce enjoyed “quoting” his pseudonyms in his work. Most of the poetry, dramatic scenes and stories in this book attributed to others were self-authored and do not exist outside of this work. This includes the prolific Father Gassalasca Jape, whom he thanks in the preface—“jape” of course having the definition: “a practical joke.” This book is a product of its time and must be approached as such. Many of the definitions hold up well today, but some might be considered less palatable by modern readers. Regardless, the book’s humorous style is a valuable snapshot of American culture from past centuries. This book is part of the Standard Ebooks project, which produces free public domain ebooks.




Chasin' that Devil Music


Book Description

Traces the development and characteristics of the Delta blues, and describes the most influential blues musicians and recordings of the 1920s and 1930s




The Devil's Box


Book Description

The key players and favorite tunes in the commercial emergence of Southern fiddling in the first half of the twentieth century are the focus of this lucid and engaging study. Drawing on such seldom-tapped resources as small regional newspapers, personal correspondence, and rare interviews with the fiddlers themselves as well as their families, Charles Wolfe conjures up vivid portraits of the individuals who fashioned this distinctly American music.




The Devil's Dream


Book Description

Now back in print from the New York Times bestselling author of The Last Girls. It was in 1833 or '34 that Moses Bailey brought young Kate Malone down to Cold Spring Holler to be his wife. But Moses, wanting to become a preacher like his daddy was, left Kate time and again to look after the kids while he went out in search of a sign from God. Though he warned them about the evils of playing the fiddle, a kind of music he likened to the devil's own laughter, it passed the time for his bride and children, and soon became not just a way of life for the Baileys, but a curse that would last for generations.




The Simple Flute


Book Description

A practical, concise, and comprehensive guide for flutists.