André Gide - The Immoralist

André Gide's The Immoralist was first published in 1902. What was seen then as a story of dereliction, translates today into a tale of introspection and fierce self-discovery.
While traveling to Tunis with his new bride, the Parisian scholar Michel is overcome by tuberculosis. As he slowly convalesces, he revels in the physical pleasures of living...

Short stories about adultery, alcohol and other drugs, music, literature, domestic isolation, failed writers and other artists, set in isolated rural areas.

A thrilling tale, full of action, and amazing imaginary creatures, yet quiet and peaceful in some places. The Golden Compass can transport you to another world, and you feel you're there, right in the midst of it! Philip Pullman has a wonderful imagination, and the sequels to this book (Subtle Knife, Amber Spyglass) are equally enchanting.

Nobody knows the identity or the story of the girl in Vermeer's painting "Girl With a Pearl Earring." Novelist Tracy Chevalier invents Griet, a maid newly hired by the Vermeer household. Griet's principle responsibility is to clean the master's studio without moving anything. One day, the master informs the girl that she is to sit for a portrait commissioned by a lecherous customer of the master's art. Complications ensue...

            The Brethren by John Grisham

A really exciting book.
Trumble, a minimum security federal prison, home to the usual assortment of criminals - drug dealers, bank robbers, swindlers, embezzlers, tax evaders, two Wall Street crooks, one doctor, at least four lawyers.
And three former judges who call themselves The Brethren: one from Texas, one from California, and one from Mississippi. They meet each day in the law library, their turf at Trumble, where they write briefs, handle cases for other inmates and practice law without a license.

The story of a young couple's life in the beginning years of their marriage, from the poet laureate of Appalachia. "Morgan is among the relatively few American writers who write about work knowledgeably. . . his stripped-down and almost primitive sentences burn with the raw, lonesome pathos of Hank William's best songs." (New York Times Book Review)

Galileo Galilei dropped cannonballs off the leaning tower of Pisa, developed the first reliable telescope, and was convicted by the Inquisition for holding a heretical belief--that the earth revolved around the sun. The daughter of the title was Virginia, eldest of Galileo's three illegitimate children. She spent her adult life in the Franciscan convent of San Matteo, near Florence, as Suor Maria Celeste, a name she chose (according to Sobel) "in a gesture that acknowledged her father's fascination with the stars." 
Dava Sobel displays again the talent that made her Longitude so readable.

           Arthur S. Golden - Memoirs of a Geisha

          Sue Grafton - O is for Outlaw

Prog rock
         Genesis - Foxtrot 

It was with Foxtrot (1972) that Genesis scored their first major critical success. The grandiose musical ambitions and Gabriel's lyrical conceits and studied Englishness get their best shot here, and the songs, including the anthemic "Supper's Out" and "Watcher of the Skies" (mainstays of the live group), still engage. The album signalled the group's move from cult to chart success in Britain, reaching #12, and led to their first major headline tour, as well as some successful US club dates. Genesis had arrived! 

Genesis - The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway
When it comes to making albums of epic proportions, few rival this magnificent production that a trip the band took to New York City inspired in 1973. The underlying story is of a street kid named Rael who, thanks in part to the realities of big city life, undergoes a weird and mystical transformation. An intense hallucinogenic experience. Containing extended instrumental sections showcasing the extraordinary talents of Tony Banks, Steve Hackett, and Phil Collins, as well as the expressive vocals and often disturbing lyrics of Peter Gabriel, this is the album that located Genesis truly on the map. The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway is an amazing trip through the imagination.
 

 

Gentle Giant - Gentle Giant

Gentle Giant were formed from the ashes of Simon Dupree and The Big Sound, who had hit the UK Top 10 in 1967 with the psychedelic "Kites". Giant were a more adventurous and idiosyncratic outfit, featuring the Shulman brothers - Derek (vocals), Ray (bass) and Phil (horns) - alongside Gary Green (guitar), Kerry Minnear (keyboards) and Martin Smith (drums).

Their debut LP, Gentle Giant (1970, reissued Mercury 1997), set the tone for an eclectic and complex musical career, boasting eccentric time signatures and a wide range of instrumentation (strings, recorders, saxophones) with a subtle heaviness never far behind. Acquiring The Taste (1971, reissued Mercury 1997) and Three Friends (1972) consolidated the style, gaining them a small but fervent following. The music was a little too eccentric and uncompromising for mass acceptance, though, on the plus side, it avoided the pomp of many of their peers, approaching complicated material with a playful, personal and often humorous touch. 1974's The Power And The Glory actually broke into the US Top 50.

Filippa Giordano, this nice young lady from Sicily, mixes arias with contemporary songs, bringing great music (Bellini, Puccini, Verdi, Morricone...) to a broad and welcoming audience. Absolutely beautiful.

George Gershwin - The George Gershwin Centennial Tribute

Philip Glass, along with Steve Reich, La Monte Young, and Terry Riley, helped shape the minimalist movement. His highly recognizable style has won Glass wide critical and commercial acceptance. Glass's music is marked by its repetitions and bright keyboard figures, and he has made important inroads into scoring music for films and unconventional operas.