Here are 22 books that Beethoven's Letters fans have personally recommended if you like
Beethoven's Letters.
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I decided at the age of sixteen that I wanted to devote my life to creating works that would serve humanity for hundreds, possibly thousands, of years. It's unthinkably ambitious, but I undertake it nevertheless. The music I've composed and performed, aired on National Public Radio (NPR) and taught at Boston Conservatory, the artwork I’ve created and exhibited in New York, Miami, Las Vegas, and San Francisco, the writings I’ve drafted and had published, in journals, magazines, and books about art and artificial intelligence (AI)—all of it with the goal of making a meaningful, lasting contribution to Western Culture. The books in this list contain letters and interviews with the greats that inspire me most.
I've modeled my life after one of Van Gogh's life goals: making a meaningful contribution to Western Culture.
I've read his letters over and over again to try and understand how he did it. His passion and emotional resonance with his painting and with his brother, Theo, inspire me every time.
I don't want to make some of the mistakes he made with his life, and I want to value my own life as much as my own work, but his words offer me signposts for living.
"Written from the heart and without restraint, alive."-The New York Times
Vincent van Gogh, the great but tormented artist, bared his tortured yet ecstatic soul in his letters to his confidant and companion, his beloved brother Theo. These letters reveal the man behind such masterpieces as The Starry Night and The Bedroom-a desperate man whose quest for love became a flight into madness and for whom every day was a "fight for life."
Irving Stone, acclaimed author of Lust for Life and other remarkable biographic novels, has collected Vincent van Gogh's fascinating letters to Theo. Here we see the great…
A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.
German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…
I decided at the age of sixteen that I wanted to devote my life to creating works that would serve humanity for hundreds, possibly thousands, of years. It's unthinkably ambitious, but I undertake it nevertheless. The music I've composed and performed, aired on National Public Radio (NPR) and taught at Boston Conservatory, the artwork I’ve created and exhibited in New York, Miami, Las Vegas, and San Francisco, the writings I’ve drafted and had published, in journals, magazines, and books about art and artificial intelligence (AI)—all of it with the goal of making a meaningful, lasting contribution to Western Culture. The books in this list contain letters and interviews with the greats that inspire me most.
Stravinsky inspires me to understand the nature of my own work.
His thoughts, like "Music theory is hindsight," offer me clear-eyed strategies for approaching my own creativity as personal, original thought.
In the interviews, he's a rather plain, droll man. I am reminded that being a flamboyant, flashy artist gives no assurances of originality in one's work.
Conversations with Igor Stravinsky is the first of the celebrated series of conversation books in which Stravinsky, prompted by Robert Craft, reviewed his long and remarkable life. The composer brings the Imperial Russia of his childhood vividly into focus, at the same time scanning what were at the time the brave new horizons of Boulez and Stockhausen with extraordinary acuity.
Stravinsky answers searching questions about his musical development and recalls his association with Diaghilev and the Russian Ballet. There are sympathetic and extraordinarily illuminating reminiscences of such composers as Debussy and Ravel ('the only musicians who immediately understood Le Sacre…
I decided at the age of sixteen that I wanted to devote my life to creating works that would serve humanity for hundreds, possibly thousands, of years. It's unthinkably ambitious, but I undertake it nevertheless. The music I've composed and performed, aired on National Public Radio (NPR) and taught at Boston Conservatory, the artwork I’ve created and exhibited in New York, Miami, Las Vegas, and San Francisco, the writings I’ve drafted and had published, in journals, magazines, and books about art and artificial intelligence (AI)—all of it with the goal of making a meaningful, lasting contribution to Western Culture. The books in this list contain letters and interviews with the greats that inspire me most.
I'm not sure how much of these interviews are profound truths about the foundations of Bacon's work and how much are clever marketing tying his work to art history, but I don't care.
I ate up these interviews like a starving dog. I believe that Bacon's work ties solidly to centuries of painting tradition and don't believe that verbal defense or explanation is necessary given the incontrovertible visual arguments Bacon has made already.
The extraordinarily revealing interviews with Francis Bacon conducted over a period of 25 years by the distinguished art critic David Sylvester amount to a unique statement by Bacon on his art and on art in general. In the book, a classic of its kind, Bacon considers the problems of realism and sheds new light on aspects of his life. With a rare and brilliant use of language, Bacon talks about his aims as a painter and ways in which he works, responding always with vivacity and candour to Sylvester's searching questions. Bacon's obsessive effort to record and re-create the human…
What happens when a high-achieving woman finally chooses herself? Prioritize You: A Survivor's Guide to Loving Yourself Back to Life is a raw, honest, and deeply practical guide for women who have spent years pouring into everyone else—their families, careers, and communities—while quietly running on empty.
I decided at the age of sixteen that I wanted to devote my life to creating works that would serve humanity for hundreds, possibly thousands, of years. It's unthinkably ambitious, but I undertake it nevertheless. The music I've composed and performed, aired on National Public Radio (NPR) and taught at Boston Conservatory, the artwork I’ve created and exhibited in New York, Miami, Las Vegas, and San Francisco, the writings I’ve drafted and had published, in journals, magazines, and books about art and artificial intelligence (AI)—all of it with the goal of making a meaningful, lasting contribution to Western Culture. The books in this list contain letters and interviews with the greats that inspire me most.
My respect for O'Keefe extends as much to her as a painter as it does as a businesswoman.
Climbing to the heights of public art education in Texas before moving to New Mexico and crowning her career inspires me to stay true to my own art while I make ends meet as cleverly as I can.
O'Keeffe proves to me that there's no shame in worldly success while you pursue timeless success.
In 1912, at age 24, Georgia O'Keeffe boarded a train in Virginia and headed west, to the prairies of the Texas Panhandle, to take a position as art teacher for the newly organized Amarillo Public Schools. Subsequently she would join the faculty at what was then West Texas State Normal College (now West Texas A&M University). Already a thoroughly independent-minded woman, she maintained an active correspondence with her future husband, photographer Alfred Stieglitz, and other friends back east during the years she lived in Texas.
Amy Von Lintel brings to readers the collected O'Keeffe correspondence and added commentary and analysis,…
I’m a children’s book author with a Master of Education in Language and Literacy who loves the musicality of words. Growing up in a musical family, I started piano lessons in second grade, clarinet lessons in fourth, and dabbled a bit in saxophone in high school. Clarinet was the instrument that really stuck for me – I played in bands, pit bands, and orchestras all through school and beyond. My picture book Clarinet and Trumpet blasted forth from my own band experiences.
I included this picture book because it was one of my daughter’s favorites. Through Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5, the book introduces orchestral concepts such as “concertmaster,” “pitch,” and “dynamics” and teaches readers about the various sections that make up an orchestra. Newer books like How to Build an Orchestra by Mary Auld and illustrated by Elisa Paganelli, also do a wonderful and comprehensive job introducing all things orchestra-related, but what my daughter loved about Welcome to the Symphony was the button panel on the side of the book. With a push of a button, she could listen to the sound of different instruments playing snippets from Beethoven’s Fifth. Pair Welcome to the Symphony with classical music pieces like Benjamin Britten’s The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra or Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf for additional fun identifying musical instruments!
This charming and interactive picture book with sound panel is like a ticket to a concert hall. Narrated by three mice, Welcome to the Symphony takes readers on a journey that begins with the musicians tuning up. Readers learn the basics: What is a conductor? What is a symphony? Who was Beethoven? The elements of music: melody, harmony, tempo. The families of instruments - strings, woodwinds, brass, and percussion. But the best part is that every idea is illustrated in sound. Nineteen sound buttons allow readers to actually hear the different parts and voices of the music. The famous beginning…
My doctorate is in music, and although I am now more active as a composer, I was at one time a performer (pianist). Thus, I have both personal ties to the author (my mother) and professional insights into the subject matter. I have also interviewed a number of the world’s leading violinists (Bell, Chase, Markov, Zukerman, and others) and composed two works for the instrument (my Op. 4 and Op. 5, published by Broadbent & Dunn). Moreover, my series, The Passion of Elena Bianchi, also involves classical music and musicians, and echoes Paganini Agitato with concerts, poker, the great love of a child, and elements of the supernatural and/or demonic.
In fairness, I read this book hoping for insights into the identity of Beethoven’s “Immortal Beloved,” a mystery it certainly does not resolve. However, many other aspects make the book worthwhile reading, notwithstanding the large historical liberties the author takes.
Smith’s Beethoven has been unable to appreciate the love so many have had for him. Who better to enlighten him than Napoleon, to whom he originally dedicated his third symphony (“Eroica”), only to scratch out the dedication and write instead, “to the memory of a great man”? What better vehicles than powerful, dream-like scenes (since in a sense, the whole book is a deathbed dream)?
Above all, whether the author has used fantasies, ghosts, or spirits, he has provided an interesting technique to present the supernatural events the protagonist experiences.
Detective Kate Bowen is out of time—and out of options.
A surveillance operation on the Irish border goes cock-eyed. Detective Kate Bowen is left red-faced when her target vanishes into the mists of the Irish Sea. She must work smart to figure out where he’s headed and what he’s plotting.
I’m a Korean American author who believes life is too short to read books that bore you, classics or otherwise. I’ve always had eclectic tastes and like to pick out books the way customers choose bonbons at my chocolate shop (which I’ve co-owned since 1984). And while I do read and often write longer works, I’ve always preferred to fall into a world from the opening line and bow out soon thereafter. By nature, I’m a minimalist – and maybe don’t have the greatest attention span – so I’m in awe of short works that stand on their own. They’re just more dramatic and memorable to me.
Years ago, someone gave this book to me for Valentine’s Day; and I literally drowned in the pages, the naked emotion. The next Valentine’s Day I bought copies for several friends. I would call this collection more beautiful than romantic; with each love letter, you hear love from various perspectives and time periods.
If a picture speaks a thousand words, a love letter speaks a thousand more . . .
Even in this age of e-mail, faxes, and instant messaging, nothing has ever replaced the power of a love letter. Much the way light displays every color when passed through a prism, love letters express the spectrum of our emotions, offering a colorful glimpse into the soul of the writer, and of the writer’s beloved. For passionate readers and lovers of words, a letter is irresistible.
Internationally renowned collector David Lowenherz sifted through hundreds and hundreds of historical and contemporary epistles and selected…
I’m a man who has led two lives. The first was as a junk dealer’s son from Buffalo, New York, who worked his tail off in school, won a full scholarship to Columbia University in 1958, and began dreaming of entering politics and someday becoming governor of New York State. The second life arrived suddenly during the third semester of my junior year when blindness seemed to rob me of my dreams. It didn’t, and along with dear friends and a loving family, these biographies have played a central role in keeping my dreams alive.
Like Da Vinci, Thomas Edison was possessed of great genius, but the point Edmund Morris drives home so well is that Edison was also indefatigable. The Wizard of Menlo Park worked untold hours on end, often sleeping on a mat on the floor, hard by whatever his current project was. It’s such a simple concept—enormous work can lead to enormous accomplishments—and Morris gives us a living example of one man whose work ethic changed civilization.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From Pulitzer Prize-winning author Edmund Morris comes a revelatory new biography of Thomas Alva Edison, the most prolific genius in American history.
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Time • Publishers Weekly • Kirkus Reviews
Although Thomas Alva Edison was the most famous American of his time, and remains an international name today, he is mostly remembered only for the gift of universal electric light. His invention of the first practical incandescent lamp 140 years ago so dazzled the world—already reeling from his invention of the phonograph and dozens of other…
I’ve lived most of my life with invisible disabilities that affect my daily activities, and I hope to encourage nuanced, empowering, and inclusive conversations about disabilities with my book, So Much More to Helen! All of my nonfiction picture books—Miep and the Most Famous Diary, Winged Wonders, Cougar Crossing, Ocean Soup, Make Way for Animals!, and more—are about “solutionaries” who help people, animals, and the planet. They’ve won Golden Kite and Eureka! Nonfiction Honor Awards, starred reviews, and spots on best book and state reading lists. Mostly, I hope they inspire compassion, curiosity, and action.
I chose this illustrated collected biography because it highlights a wonderfully diverse array of real people living with visible and invisible disabilities. Featuring both famous and non-famous people of various races, genders, and sexualities, with both physical and mental health conditions, it’s incredibly inclusive. The people’s stories, at one page or less, are short enough to keep kids’ attention and the back matter includes an important glossary of terms for talking about disabilities. This book celebrates many different ways people live and work with disabilities and encourages openness and inclusion.
"Intelligent, politically bold, and beautiful to browse [...] Every bookshelf needs a copy." - Disability Arts Online
In this stylishly illustrated biography anthology, meet 34 artists, thinkers, athletes and activists with disabilities, from past and present. From Frida Kahlo to Stephen Hawking, find out how these iconic figures have overcome obstacles, owned their differences and paved the way for others by making their bodies and minds work for them.
These short biographies tell the stories of people who have faced unique challenges which have not stopped them from becoming trailblazers, innovators, advocates and makers. Each person is a leading figure…
Imperium is the most expensive structure ever created. Once an orbiting laboratory, it is now a space hotel for the fantastically wealthy. But as the station preps for its first group of space tourists, Dr. Chloe Bonilla, Imperium’s resident biophysicist, finds herself questioning whether babysitting a passel of space glampers…
When you get a PhD in music, you end up with a lot of music books. Like, hundreds of them. At the end of every semester I could never bring myself to sell my textbooks because I just love books. Over the years I’ve continued to collect books about music, and books about everything. I’m happy that now a few have my name on the spine.
This book is essentially a book of quotes from famous musicians, composers, and conductors. I find this book especially inspiring because of the trivial nature of some of the quotes. Sometimes it is just refreshing to read Beethoven complaining about his taxes, or Mozart trying to get paid after a gig. I use this book in my university classes constantly.
A snakeful of critical venom aimed at the composers and the classics of nineteenth- and twentieth-century music. Who wrote advanced cat music? What commonplace theme is very much like Yankee Doodle? Which composer is a scoundrel and a giftless bastard? What opera would His Satanic Majesty turn out? Whose name suggests fierce whiskers stained with vodka? And finally, what third movement begins with a dog howling at midnight, then imitates the regurgitations of the less-refined or lower-middle-class type of water-closet cistern, and ends with the cello reproducing the screech of an ungreased wheelbarrow? For the answers to these and other…
