Byrd


Book Description

Addie Lockwood believes in books. Roland Rhodes believes in blues guitar. Coming of age in the small-town South of the 1970s, they form a friendship as extraordinary as it is unlikely. They meet again in their disillusioned thirties, this time in California, where Roland's music career has landed him. Venice Beach is exotic, a world away from North Carolina and Addie's cloistered life as a bookstore clerk. But when her whirlwind reunion with Roland leaves Addie pregnant, reality sets in. Conflicted, unready to be a mother, she gives birth to a son--Byrd--and surrenders him for adoption without telling Roland, little imagining how the secret will shape their lives. Told through letters and sharply drawn vignettes, Byrd is an unforgettable story about making and living with the most difficult, intimate, and far-reaching of choices.




The Commonplace Book of William Byrd II of Westover


Book Description

William Byrd II (1674-1744) was an important figure in the history of colonial Virginia: a founder of Richmond, an active participant in Virginia politics, and the proprietor of one of the colony's greatest plantations. But Byrd is best known today for his diaries. Considered essential documents of private life in colonial America, they offer readers an unparalleled glimpse into the world of a Virginia gentleman. This book joins Byrd's Diary, Secret Diary, and other writings in securing his reputation as one of the most interesting men in colonial America. Edited and presented here for the first time, Byrd's commonplace book is a collection of moral wit and wisdom gleaned from reading and conversation. The nearly six hundred entries range in tone from hope to despair, trust to dissimulation, and reflect on issues as varied as science, religion, women, Alexander the Great, and the perils of love. A ten-part introduction presents an overview of Byrd's life and addresses such topics as his education and habits of reading and his endeavors to understand himself sexually, temperamentally, and religiously, as well as the history and cultural function of commonplacing. Extensive annotations discuss the sources, background, and significance of the entries.




A Spell of Rowans


Book Description

Raised by a narcissistic mother, the Rowan children's magical talents were twisted to fit her needs. When Rachel dies, her children must confront the past to have a future.Rachel Rowan could sniff out secrets and her antique shop, Rosemary Thyme, was a front to torment the residents of Grimsby. When she dies, her children are faced with the deadly fallout of blackmail, murder, and magic. Victoria, whose empathic talent knows everyone's hidden feelings; Philippa, whose glamour can bewitch; and Liam, the brother who touches objects to reveal their secrets, all find themselves in danger.When her autistic brother is arrested, Vic needs to discover the truth to set him free. A successful art restorer in the big city, Vic's made a career of ignoring her past and hiding her strange powers. But with Rachel's death, she must gamble away her secrets to face down forces determined to destroy her and her siblings.And that hometown boy she dumped way back? He's in Grimsby, and knows the truth about her.




Beyond the Barrier


Book Description

When this book originally appeared in 1990, it was hailed as an important new work because of the author's access to Adm. Richard E. Byrd's just-released private papers. Previous books on the legendary polar explorer had to rely on sources subject to the admiral's vigilant censorship or the control of his heirs and friends. With this study Eugene Rodgers provides a scrupulously honest and objective account of Byrd's 1929 expedition to Antarctica. Without discrediting the expedition's success or Byrd's leadership, Rodgers shows that the admiral was not the saintly hero he and the press depicted. Nor was the expedition without its problems. Interviews with surviving members of the expedition together with a wealth of other new material indicate that Byrd, contrary to his claims, was not a good navigator--his pilots usually had to find their way by dead reckoning--and that he was not on the actual flight that discovered Marie Byrd Land. The book further reveals a crisis over drunkenness among the men (including Byrd), the admiral's fear of mutiny, and his rewriting of news stories from the pole to embellish his own image.




Clayton Byrd Goes Underground


Book Description

From beloved Newbery Honor winner and three-time Coretta Scott King Award winner Rita Williams-Garcia comes a powerful and heartfelt novel about loss, family, and love that will appeal to fans of Jason Reynolds and Kwame Alexander. Clayton feels most alive when he’s with his grandfather, Cool Papa Byrd, and the band of Bluesmen—he can’t wait to join them, just as soon as he has a blues song of his own. But then the unthinkable happens. Cool Papa Byrd dies, and Clayton’s mother forbids Clayton from playing the blues. And Clayton knows that’s no way to live. Armed with his grandfather’s brown porkpie hat and his harmonica, he runs away from home in search of the Bluesmen, hoping he can join them on the road. But on the journey that takes him through the New York City subways and to Washington Square Park, Clayton learns some things that surprise him. National Book Award Finalist * Kirkus Best Books of 2017 * Horn Book Best Books of 2017 * Publishers Weekly Best Books of 2017 * School Library Journal Best Books of 2017 * NAACP Image Awards Youth/Teens Winner * Chicago Public Library Best Books * Boston Globe Best Books of 2017 "This slim novel strikes a strong chord."—Publishers Weekly (starred review) "This complex tale of family and forgiveness has heart.” —School Library Journal (starred review) "Strong characterizations and vivid musical scenes add layers to this warm family story.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “An appealing, realistic story with frequent elegant turns of phrase." —The Horn Book (starred review) "Garcia-Williams skillfully finds melody in words.” —Booklist (starred review)




Verse and Voice in Byrd's Song Collections of 1588 and 1589


Book Description

The author offers close examination of the English-language songs of Byrd published in the late 1580s, looking at the music, texts, politics, and other aspects of the songs.




Tallis and Byrd's Cantiones Sacrae (1575)


Book Description

What did Tallis and Byrd mean to convey by their use of the word "argument" in their title, Cantiones, quae ab argumento sacrae vocantur? Thomas Tallis's and William Byrd's Cantiones, quae ab argumento sacrae vocantur (songs, which by their argument are called sacred) of 1575 is one of the first sets of sacred music printed in England. It is widely recognized as a landmark achievement in English music history. Dedicated to Queen Elizabeth I to mark the seventeenth year of her reign, each composer contributed seventeen motets to the collection, which proved to be greatly influential among the era's composers. But what did Tallis and Byrd mean to convey by their use of the word "argument" in their title? The current view is that they treated their project as an opportunity to pull together a grand compendium of musical accomplishment that drew on the past, but looked to the future, and that the texts functioned as mere vehicles for musical display. In contrast, this book claims that these very texts were chosen by the composers to develop a theme, or argument, on the topic of sacred judgment. In offering a new interpretation of the song collection Smith employs a carefully constructed musical, literary, theological, and political argumentation. The book will encourage new ways of approaching and interpreting Tudor and Elizabethan sacred music.







Byrd's Line


Book Description

"Byrd often mused about what would happen to the land in the future. While some of the dividing line still feels like wilderness, it is crisscrossed today by bridges and roads, its forests felled and paved over for parking lots and subdivisions, its waters diverted or drained. Ausband's story, therefore, is a natural history of a changed region."--BOOK JACKET.