The Tender Bar

The New York Times best seller and one of the 100 Most Notable Books of 2005. In the tradition of This Boy's Life and The Liar's Club, a raucous, poignant, luminously written memoir about a boy striving to become a man and his romance with a bar.

A Kitchen Confidential for the cocktail profession, Unvarnished is a fly-on-the-wall narrative peek at the joys, pains, and peculiarities of life "behind the stick."

The 5000 Spirits or the Layers of the Onion Review by Thom Jurek
In 1967, Joe Boyd had signed the Incredible String Band, who were then down to Robin Williamson, Mike Heron, and Licorice McKechnie, to Elektra. The 5000 Spirits or Layers of the Onion had been crafted in a cottage in Glasgow, but Boyd wanted a proper recording studio to get it on tape. He chose engineer John Wood's Chelsea studio for the sessions. Recorded on a four-track machine, Boyd and Wood proceeded to capture the very best of the dozens of songs Williamson and Heron brought in. Influenced heavily by the era – this was the summer of love, after all – and North African music due to Williamson’s recent trip to Morocco, the set is one of the most ambitious albums in the band’s catalog.

In the tradition of the modern classics The Tender Bar by J. R. Moehringer and The Liars' Club by Mary Karr, Blaine Lourd's meaningful debut, Born on the Bayou, is a powerful gothic memoir set in the bayous and oil towns of 1970s Louisiana. In honest, confessional prose, Born on the Bayou - a roller-coaster rags-to-riches story - transports us to a pocket of the South where Lourd learns how to be a man from the two people he looks up to the most: his larger-than-life father, "Puffer", a prominent figure in the oil business; and his successful older brother, Bryan.

Count Razumovsky, the Russian ambassador to Vienna, commissioned Beethoven to write the three quartets of Op.59 in 1805 for the Schuppanzigh Quartet. The Count was an amateur violinist and frequently played as second violinist with the Schuppanzigh Quartet, a group he funded and whose members were considered to be some of Vienna’s finest string players. In his commission, Count Razumovsky’s only specific request of Beethoven was that Russian folk tunes be significantly featured in the music.

Count Razumovsky, the Russian ambassador to Vienna, commissioned Beethoven to write the three quartets of Op.59 in 1805 for the Schuppanzigh Quartet. The Count was an amateur violinist and frequently played as second violinist with the Schuppanzigh Quartet, a group he funded and whose members were considered to be some of Vienna’s finest string players. In his commission, Count Razumovsky’s only specific request of Beethoven was that Russian folk tunes be significantly featured in the music.