Young Man with a Horn

Baker, Dorothy

Dorothy Baker

Amereon Ltd

Young Man With a Horn

Queens House

Overcoming all your problems can be very simple; all it requires is a willingness to take an honest look at yourself. The secret to happiness, confidence, and real inner peace is a light-hearted attitude toward self-discovery. 
The adventure of all adventures is self-discovery. Yet this journey, like life itself, is full of dangers and traps - hidden pitfalls, and land mines. Navigating the pathways to life successfully is not a matter of mere luck, hard work, or good intentions; it is a matter of understanding. 
In this book, Roy Masters provides the road map. 
In practical and common-sense terms, Masters describes many of the major "land mines" of life, and how to avoid them. With such insightful chapters as "Rebellion and Conformity," "How To Have A Perfect Marriage," "Sex: The Substitute Love," "Be Still and Know," and "No One Has To Die," Masters communicates with insight that can be found nowhere else.

Beyond the Known

Politics & Social Sciences

Masters, Roy

Philosophy

Foundation of Human Understanding

What is sex? 
Is it a harmless source of fun and pleasure? A sinful, evil indulgence? Is the proper attitude toward sexuality casual and carefree, or cautious and serious? Is the real basis of sexuality a natural, physical "animal instinct," - or something of a deeper nature? 
Almost no one is free of sexual conflict. Few people understand the roots of this conflict . . . let alone the cure. 
What is the truth behind this vital topic? Is the answer repression, or promiscuity . . . or neither? Few subjects dominate our lives the way sexuality does, and few subjects are the source of so much confusion, disagreement, and suffering. 
What is really going on between men and women? What lies at the root of the tension, conflict, and even violence between the sexes? What is the secret of a happy marriage, and what are the reasons for divorce? Is a relationship, free of conflict and full of love, possible? 
Roy Masters, in this searingly insightful work, lays bare the underlying dynamics of one of the most vital topics of all.

Understanding Sexuality: The Mystery of Our Lost Identities

Health, Fitness & Dieting

Psychology & Counseling

Zone Once you escape into the "zone," you may become lost there forever. What is the "zone"? 
It is a state of mind, body, and soul that we all run to when we find ourselves unable to deal properly with the pressures of the world. The doorway into the "zone" is a false need for comfort: when fulfilled, it causes more hunger. 
In moments of confusion, anger, and fear, everyone experiences this primal need to "escape." The comfort we seek seems like an oasis in the desert, the answer to our anguish. But by escaping into a comfort zone, we actually make ourselves vulnerable to all kinds of misery, suffering, and addiction. 
Almost everyone is addicted to something. To the alcoholic its liquor; to the drug adddict its some mind-altering substance; to the people pleaser it may simply be a kind word or a pat on the back. Even such simple acts as knitting, stamp collecting, or goal-forming can serve essentially the same purpose as a drink to the alcoholic. 
The first step in breaking free lies in becoming aware of how our "escape routes" have transformed into prison chains which dominate our lives. Only then will we be in a position to choose between our old enslavements and a new opportunity for freedom.

Surviving the Comfort Zone

Religion & Spirituality

Christian Books & Bibles

Cassandra Edwards is a graduate student at Berkeley: gay, brilliant, nerve-wracked, miserable. At the beginning of this novel, she drives back to her family ranch in the foothills of the Sierras to attend the wedding of her identical twin, Judith, to a nice young doctor from Connecticut. Cassandra, however, is hell-bent on sabotaging the wedding.
Dorothy Baker's entrancing tragicomic novella follows an unpredictable course of events in which her heroine appears variously as conniving, self-aware, pitiful, frenzied, absurd, and heartbroken—at once utterly impossible and tremendously sympathetic. Cassandra reckons with her complicated feelings about the sister who she feels owes it to her to be her alter ego; with her father, a brandy-soaked retired professor of philosophy; and with the ghost of her dead mother, as she struggles to come to terms with the only life she has.
First published in 1962, Cassandra at the Wedding is a book of enduring freshness, insight, and verve. Like the fiction of Jeffrey Eugenides and Jhumpa Lahiri, it is the work of a master stylist with a profound understanding of the complexities of the heart and mind.

Cassandra at the Wedding

Literature & Fiction

United States

NYRB Classics

Rick Martin loved music and the music loved him. He could pick up a tune so quickly that it didn’t matter to the Cotton Club boss that he was underage, or to the guys in the band that he was just a white kid. He started out in the slums of LA with nothing, and he ended up on top of the game in the speakeasies and nightclubs of New York. But while talent and drive are all you need to make it in music, they aren’t enough to make it through a life. Dorothy Baker’s Young Man with a Horn is widely regarded as the first jazz novel, and it pulses with the music that defined an era. Baker took her inspiration from the artistry—though not the life—of legendary horn player Bix Beiderbecke, and the novel went on to be adapted into a successful movie starring Kirk Douglas, Lauren Bacall, and Doris Day.

Young Man with a Horn (New York Review Books Classics)

Cassandra Edwards is a graduate student at Berkeley: gay, brilliant, nerve-racked, miserable. At the beginning of this novel, she drives back to her family ranch in the foothills of the Sierras to attend the wedding of her identical twin, Judith, to a nice young doctor from Connecticut. Cassandra, however, is hell-bent on sabotaging the wedding. Dorothy Baker’s entrancing tragicomic novella follows an unpredictable course of events in which her heroine appears variously as conniving, self-aware, pitiful, frenzied, absurd, and heartbroken—at once utterly impossible and tremendously sympathetic. As she struggles to come to terms with the only life she has, Cassandra reckons with her complicated feelings about the sister who she feels owes it to her to be her alter ego; with her father, a brandy-soaked retired professor of philosophy; and with the ghost of her dead mother. First published in 1962, Cassandra at the Wedding is a book of enduring freshness, insight, and verve. Like the fiction of Jeffrey Eugenides and Jhumpa Lahiri, it is the work of a master stylist with a profound understanding of the complexities of the heart and mind.

Cassandra at the Wedding (New York Review Books Classics)

'I am not, at heart, a jumper. I think I knew all the time I was sizing up the bridge that the strong possibility was I'd attend my sister's wedding' Cassandra Edwards is driving home to her family's Californian ranch to attend the wedding of her beloved identical twin, Judith. A graduate student at Berkeley, Cassandra is gay, brilliant, nerve-racked, miserable - and hell-bent on making sure her sister's wedding doesn't happen. Armed with a clutch bag full of pills and an unquenchable thirst for brandy, Cassandra arrives determined to make Judith see sense. But over the course of the next couple of days, Cassandra unravels. A classic of twentieth-century American literature, Cassandra at the Wedding is a stylish, witty and insightful novel about love, loyalty and coming to terms with the only life you have. 'Modern readers will relish the pin-sharp portrait of a tiny part of society, as if picked out in Californian sunlight. Really good writing like this doesn't age.' Guardian 'The mastery of technique here is just about absolute.' New York Times 'So brilliant, completely mad. It s about female rivalry, being left behind... It really made me laugh. A great examination of a female friendship.'Dolly Alderton Witty and assured. Her tone is dark but jaunty, the writing off-handedly smart.' London Review of Books 'Baker's touching, witty and sharp character study is an overlooked twentieth century American literary classic, featuring a protagonist easily as headstrong, vulnerable and compelling as Holden Caulfield.' BBC Radio 4 '[Baker's] ear for dialogue is acute, her prose immaculate... this is a novel of exceptional quality.' TLS

Cassandra At The Wedding

Literary

Daunt Books

Zwei Schwestern: Roman

dtv Verlagsgesellschaft

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