A glimpse inside the pages of As the Cannon Roar: Hundreds upon hundreds of stories have been written about the American Civil War. Although set in the Antebellum era of the “Old South” this story is not one of them. This is an in depth study of a family’s struggle to hold onto the only home and the only family they have ever known as the war rages all around them. It is a gritty but true to life story. It is both heartwarming and heartbreaking. It is full of despicable men doing despicable things. It is a story of love. It is a story of a marriage that is - in that time - frowned upon. Yet in order to tell this heart-rending story of war and love, and as a way to introduce the dreadfully wounded Confederate Artillery Captain, Thaddeus Biggs and his love of a country girl, one battle, that known as “Malvern Hill,” is used as a backdrop. Lillie Beth is the daughter of a poor dirt farmer, Tink Strickland. Tink is an evil man and void of all humanity. His jealousy of the successes of his neighbors tears at him and he will stop at no depravity in his efforts to obtain similar wealth. Therefore, his family suffers greatly at his hands. Wounded and near death, a handsome, young Confederate Artillery officer is brought to Lillie’s father’s log cabin which has recently been appropriated as a field hospital. There she soothes the man’s heated brow with a wet cloth and cool well water and appoints herself as his nurse. Little does Lillie know the wounded man suffering on the tick-mattress upon the floor is from the wealthiest family in all of North Carolina. But knowing only poverty, such wealth has no meaning to her. Her life changes drastically when Captain Thaddeus Biggs’ father arrives to take his son home. The Biggs family has nearly disintegrated upon learning their beloved son and brother has been wounded in battle, while the Strickland family near the battle of Malvern Hill dissolves so completely it will never recover.

From c.1750 to c.1810 the paths of music history and the history of painting converged with lasting consequences. The publication of Newton's Opticks at the start of the eighteenth century gave a 'scientific' basis to the analogy between sight and sound, allowing music and the visual arts to be defined more closely in relation to one another. This was also a period which witnessed the emergence of a larger and increasingly receptive audience for both music and the visual arts - an audience which potentially included all social strata. The development of this growing public and the commercial potential that it signified meant that for the first time it became possible for a contemporary artist to enjoy an international reputation. Nowhere is this better illustrated than in the career of Joseph Haydn. Although this phenomenon defies conventional modes of study, the book shows how musical pictorialism became a major creative force in popular culture. Haydn, the most popular living cultural personality of the period, proved to be the key figure in advancing the new relationship. The connections between the composer and his audiences and leading contemporary artists (including Tiepolo, Mengs, Kauffman, Goya, David, Messerschmidt, Loutherbourg, Canova, Copley, Fuseli, Reynolds, Gillray and West) are examined here for the first time. By the early nineteenth century, populism was beginning to be regarded with scepticism and disdain. Mozart was the modern Raphael, Beethoven the modern Michelangelo. Haydn, however, had no clear parallel in the accepted canon of Renaissance art. Yet his recognition that ordinary people had a desire to experience simultaneous aural and visual stimulation was not altogether lost, finding future exponents in Wagner and later still in the cinematic arts.

The first-ever oral history of the attack that started the Civil War that combines illuminating historical narrative with intense first-hand accounts. On April 12, 1861, Confederate troops began firing on Fort Sumter, beginning the bloodiest conflict in American history. Since that time numerous historians have described the attack in many well-regarded books, yet the event still remains overlooked at times in the minds of the public. The Cannons Roar seeks to remedy that. Rather than providing a third-person, after-the-fact description, acclaimed author Bruce Chadwick will tell the story of the attack from the people who were in the thick of it. In so doing, readers can hear from people themselves, telling a compelling story in a new way that both draws readers in and lets them walk away with a better understanding and appreciation of one of the most dramatic and important events in our nation’s history. The Cannons Roar will not only provide portraits of the major players that are more descriptive than those offered by historians over the years, it will give voice to dozens of regular people from across the country and socioeconomic spectrum, to provide readers with a true and complete understanding of the mood of the country and in Charleston. Using letters, newspaper articles, diaries, journals, and other written sources, Chadwick describes in vivid detail the events preceding the attack, the attack itself, and its aftermath. While we hear from historic pillars like Abraham Lincoln to PGT Beauregard to Jefferson Davis, Chadwick also features Charleston merchants and Northern farmers, high society doyennes and “the dregs,” South Carolina’s new governor Francis Pickens, who was the blustery former Minister to Russia. Collectively, readers will obtain a fuller understanding of the politics and thinking of political and military leaders that influenced their decisions or lack thereof. The book will also capture both the South and North’s expectations regarding England entering the war (as well as letters from England’s leaders showing their reluctance to do so), as well as an expectation on both sides of a quick resolution. Skillfully combining traditional history with the in-the-moment ethos of an oral history, The Cannons Roar to bring this historic moment in American history to new and vivid life.

Michael Close is an inveterate joke teller whose stories have brought gales of laughter from audiences around the world. For more than twenty years, Michael's friends and colleagues have eagerly awaited a collection of jokes from his enormous repertoire. "That Reminds Me" is that compilation - more than 250 of the best clean (and not so clean) jokes you've ever read. But this is much more than a joke book. Michael shares heartfelt reminiscences of the funny people who have enriched his life, stories of crazy personal experiences, and thoughts on the importance of "finding the funny" in your own life. This is the perfect book for anyone who needs a good laugh. Foreword by Penn Jillette [The jokes in this collection range from squeaky clean to R-rated. Words that you can't use on network television appear occasionally. If such language offends you, please don't purchase this book.]

Reprint of the original, first published in 1880.