The Gods of Tango by Carolina De Robertis

The Gods of Tango

February 1913: seventeen-year-old Leda, clutching a suitcase and her father’s cherished violin, leaves her small Italian village for a new home (and husband) halfway across the world in Argentina. Upon her arrival in Buenos Aires, Leda is shocked to find that her bridegroom has been killed. Unable to fathom the idea of returning home, she remains in this unfamiliar city, living in a commune, without friends or family, on the brink of destitution. She finally acts on a passion she has kept secret for years: mastering the violin. Leda is seduced by the music that underscores life in the city: tango, born from lower-class immigrant voices, now the illicit, scandalous dance of brothels and cabarets. Leda knows, however, that she can never play in public as a woman, so she cuts off her hair, binds her breasts, and, as a young man, joins a troupe of musicians bent on bringing tango into the salons of high society. As time progresses, the lines between Leda and her disguise will begin to blur, and feelings that she has long kept suppressed will reveal themselves, jeopardizing not only her music career but her life itself. (Publisher Summary)

Debut Novel: the Silver Swan

A debut novel about a daughter grappling with the legacy of her famous and imposing cellist father, the secrets he has hidden from her, and the fate of his great Stradivarius cello.

Alexander Feldmann is a revered and sought-after performer whose prodigious talent, striking good looks and worldly charm prove irresistible to all who hear and encounter him. After years of searching, he acquires a glorious cello, the Silver Swan, a rare Stradivarius masterpiece long lost to the world of music.

Mariana is Alexander’s only child and the maestro has large ambitions for her. By the age of nineteen she emerges as a star cellist in her own right, and is seen as the inheritor of her father's genius. There are whispers that her career might well outpace his. Mariana believes the Silver Swan will one day be hers, until a stunning secret from her father’s past entwines her fate and that of the Silver Swan in ways she could never have imagined. (Publisher Summary)

New Horror Tale: Bellweather Rhapsody by Kate Racculia

In Bellweather Rhapsody, the 1997 Statewide Music Festival (being held at the Bellweather Hotel in New York's Catskill Mountains) goes awry when Jill, a star flutist, goes missing from a hotel room that was the site of a murder-suicide that took place 15 years earlier. Jill's disappearance causes a bridesmaid, Minnie Graves, who witnessed the first crime and happens to be at the hotel on the murder-suicide's 15th anniversary, to relive her trauma while a snowstorm traps everyone on the hotel grounds.

"Part ghost story, part mystery, part coming-of-age tale, and part love sonnet to music, Racculia's second novel (after This Must Be the Place) is dark and delightful, with memorable characters inspired by both literature and pop culture. It will grab readers and keep them with multilayered plotting and writing that ranges from humorous to poetic." (Library Journal Reviews)

Emotional Novel of Transcendence

Michael Cunningham’s luminous novel The Snow Queen begins with a vision. Heart broken Barrett Meeks walks through Central Park and sees a pale, translucent light that seems to regard him in a distinctly godlike way. Barrett doesn’t believe in visions—or in God—but he can’t deny what he’s seen.

In the not-quite-gentrified Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn, struggling musician Tyler, Barrett’s brother, is trying yet failing to write a wedding song that is an enduring expression of his love for Beth, his wife-to-be, who is seriously ill. 

Barrett, haunted by the light, turns unexpectedly to religion. Tyler grows increasingly convinced that only drugs can release his creative powers. Beth tries to face mortality with as much courage as she can summon.

Each travel down a different path in their search for transcendence. In subtle, lucid prose, Cunningham demonstrates a profound empathy for his conflicted characters and a singular understanding of what lies at the core of the human soul.

"Tender, funny, and sorrowful, Cunningham's beautiful novel is as radiant and shimmering as Barrett's mysterious light in the sky, gently illuminating the gossamer web of memories, feelings, and hopes that mysteriously connect us to each other as the planet spins its way round and round the sun." - Booklist (Starred Review)

Beatlemania - 50th Anniversary

January 2014 marks the 50th anniversary of the release of the Beatles first album in the United States and the release of Bob Dylan's album "The Times They are A'changin'." Visit our display on the main floor of the library for books about this musical experience including:

Beatles vs. Stones by John McMillian: In the 1960s the two biggest bands in the world—the lovable Beatles and the bad-boy Rolling Stones—waged an epic battle. “The Beatles want to hold your hand,” wrote Tom Wolfe, “but the Stones want to burn down your town.” Both groups liked to maintain that they weren’t really “rivals”—that was just a media myth, they politely said—but on both sides of the Atlantic, they plainly competed for commercial success and aesthetic credibility. In Beatles vs. Stones, John McMillian gets to the truth behind the ultimate rock ’n’ roll debate.

When They Were Boys: The True Story of the Beatles' Rise to the Top by Larry Kane: This is the story of the Beatles’ harrowing rise to fame: focusing on that seven-year stretch from the time the boys met as teenagers to early 1964, when the Fab Four made their momentous first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. From the boys’ humble beginnings in Liverpool, to the cellars of Hamburg, When They Were Boys includes stories never before told, including the heartbreaks and the lucky breaks.

Tune In: The Beatles: All These Years, Volume 1 by Mark Lewisohn: Mark Lewisohn uses his unprecedented archival access and hundreds of new interviews to construct the full story of the lives and work of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr. This first volume of a planned trilogy documents lesser-known aspects of their early years in Liverpool and Hamburg, the role of American music in shaping their ambitions and the establishment of their early careers.