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books & tunes . . .
Tunes
 Putumayo
Presents: Turkish Groove
With one foot in the European world and the
other entrenched in the Muslim world of the Middle East, Turkey is a
cultural crossroads like few places on Earth. This cultural
juxtaposition is most evident in Turkey’s contemporary pop music scene,
where classical traditions and instrumentation blend with sophisticated
global pop and dance music. Putumayo World Music’s newest release,
Turkish Groove, reflects this unique musical mosaic. Much like their
Western pop counterparts, Turkish stars push the limit of their
society’s standards of acceptability. As a result, Turkish pop music is
crossing over to audiences outside Turkey, making inroads into the
contemporary scenes of Europe and Latin America though remaining largely
unknown in other parts of the world. As Turkish pop takes its place on
the international stage, its fusions of cultural traditions and modern
techniques play to an ever-expanding audience. Putumayo’s Turkish
Groove serves as an introduction to the contemporary sounds of this
culturally diverse country.
Tunes
 Putumayo
Presents: Brazilian Lounge
From music and film to fashion and dance,
Brazil has become one of the world’s most important resources of popular
art and entertainment. In appreciation of this extraordinary culture,
Putumayo World Music is releasing Brazilian Lounge, a collection
featuring the sultry voices and urban grooves of many of Brazil’s finest
contemporary musicians. Brazilian Lounge takes the listener to
the contemporary bars and lounges of Rio and Sao Paulo, where a new
generation of musicians is reinvigorating the classic sounds of samba
and bossa nova. Tri-lingual liner notes include a recipe for a
caipirinha cocktail, provided by Sagatiba, enabling you to quench your
thirst Brazilian style.
Books
 Eat,
Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and
Indonesia
by Elizabeth Gilbert
Around the time Elizabeth Gilbert turned
thirty, she went through an early-onslaught midlife crisis. She had
everything an educated, ambitious American woman was supposed to want —
a husband, a house, a successful career. But instead of feeling happy
and fulfilled, she was consumed with panic, grief, and confusion. She
went through a divorce, a crushing depression, another failed love, and
the eradication of everything she ever thought she was supposed to be.
To recover from all this, Gilbert took a radical step. In order to give
herself the time and space to find out who she really was and what she
really wanted, she got rid of her belongings, quit her job, and
undertook a yearlong journey around the world — all alone. Eat, Pray,
Love is the absorbing chronicle of that year. Her aim was to visit three
places where she could examine one aspect of her own nature set against
the backdrop of a culture that has traditionally done that one thing
very well. In Rome, she studied the art of pleasure, learning to speak
Italian and gaining the twenty-three happiest pounds of her life. India
was for the art of devotion, and with the help of a native guru and a
surprisingly wise cowboy from Texas, she embarked on four uninterrupted
months of spiritual exploration. In Bali, she studied the art of balance
between worldly enjoyment and divine transcendence. She became the pupil
of an elderly medicine man and also fell in love the best way —
unexpectedly.
An intensely articulate and moving memoir of self-discovery, Eat, Pray,
Love is about what can happen when you claim responsibility for your
own contentment and stop trying to live in imitation of society’s
ideals.
Elizabeth Gilbert is the author of a story collection, Pilgrims
(a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award), a novel, Stern Men,
and, most recently, The Last American Man, a finalist for the
National Book Award in Nonfiction and the National Book Critics Circle
Award. As a journalist, she wrote for GQ for five years and was
nominated three times for the National Magazine Award.
Books
 A
Year in the World: Journeys of a Passionate Traveller
by Frances Mayes
The author who captured the experience of starting a new life in
Tuscany in bestselling travel memoirs expands her horizons to immerse
herself in the sights, aromas, and treasures of twelve new places.
A Year in the World is vintage Frances Mayes — a celebration of
the allure of travel, of serendipitous pleasures found in unlikely
locales, of memory woven into the present, and of a joyous sense of
quest. Mayes brings to the page the curiosity of an intrepid explorer,
remarkable insights into the wonder of the everyday, and a compelling
narrative style that entertains as it informs.
With her beloved Tuscany as a home base, Mayes travels to Spain,
Portugal, France, the British Isles, and to the Mediterranean world of
Turkey, Greece, the South of Italy, and North Africa. In Andalucía, she
relishes the intersection of cultures. She cooks in Portugal, gathers
ideas in the gardens of England and Scotland, takes a literary
pilgrimage to Burgundy, discovers an ideal place to live in Mantova, and
explores the Moroccan city of Fez. She rents houses among ordinary
residents, shops at neighborhood markets, wanders the back streets, and
everywhere contemplates the concept of home. Weaving together personal
perceptions and informed commentary on art, architecture, history,
landscape, and social and culinary traditions of each area, Mayes brings
the immediacy of life in her temporary homes to the reader.
Frances Mayes is the author of four books about
Tuscany. The now-classic Under the Tuscan Sun, which was a New
York Times bestseller for more than two and a half years, and became
a Touchstone movie starring Diane Lane, was followed by Bella Tuscany
and two illustrated books, In Tuscany and Bringing Tuscany
Home. Mayes is also the author of the novel Swan, six books
of poetry, and The Discovery of Poetry. Her books have been
translated into more than twenty languages. |
