Bruce Springsteen might be the quintessential American rock musician but his songs have resonated with fans from all walks of life and from all over the world. This unique collection features reflections from a diverse array of writers who explain what Springsteen means to them and describe how they have been moved, shaped, and challenged by his music.   Contributors to Long Walk Home include novelists like Richard Russo, rock critics like Greil Marcus and Gillian Gaar, and other noted Springsteen scholars and fans such as A. O. Scott, Peter Ames Carlin, and Paul Muldoon. They reveal how Springsteen’s albums served as the soundtrack to their lives while also exploring the meaning of his music and the lessons it offers its listeners. The stories in this collection range from the tale of how “Growin’ Up� helped a lonely Indian girl adjust to life in the American South to the saga of a group of young Australians who turned to Born to Run to cope with their country’s 1975 constitutional crisis. These essays examine the big questions at the heart of Springsteen’s music, demonstrating the ways his songs have resonated for millions of listeners for nearly five decades.   Commemorating the Boss’s seventieth birthday, Long Walk Home explores Springsteen’s legacy and provides a stirring set of testimonials that illustrate why his music matters.

Reading the Boss: Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Works of Bruce Springsteen, edited by Roxanne Harde and Irwin Streight, draws together close readings of Bruce Springsteen's lyrics by scholars across a range of academic disciplines. The editors first make a compelling comparison between Bruce Springsteen and William Shakespeare, carefully building the argument that both men offer profound insight into the hungry human heart. Springsteen, they argue, uses many Shakespearean themes such as the ties of blood and friendship, commitment to country and community, the monsters of lust and jealousy, vanity and power, and the hopeful pursuit of real love. These themes lift his music beyond stories of characters casing the Promised Land of America to universal matters of the heart's truth wherever it is found. Then, the twelve chapters of Reading the Boss, written by established and emerging scholars, engage readers both critically and enthusiastically with central issues in Bruce Springsteen's writing, as they read his explorations of gender, place, religion, philosophy, and other literary texts, notably the works of Walker Percy and Flannery O'Connor. Driven by arguments grounded in a wide variety of theoretical and critical positions, these essays offer a comprehensive and accessible discussion of Springsteen's oeuvre, from Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J. to Working on a Dream that will appeal to both specialist readers and Springsteen fans alike.

Reading the Boss: Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Works of Bruce Springsteen, edited by Roxanne Harde and Irwin Streight, draws together close readings of Bruce Springsteen's lyrics by scholars across a range of academic disciplines. The editors first make a compelling comparison between Bruce Springsteen and William Shakespeare, carefully building the argument that both men offer profound insight into the hungry human heart. Springsteen, they argue, uses many Shakespearean themes such as the ties of blood and friendship, commitment to country and community, the monsters of lust and jealousy, vanity and power, and the hopeful pursuit of real love. These themes lift his music beyond stories of characters casing the Promised Land of America to universal matters of the heart's truth wherever it is found. Then, the twelve chapters of Reading the Boss, written by established and emerging scholars, engage readers both critically and enthusiastically with central issues in Bruce Springsteen's writing, as they read his explorations of gender, place, religion, philosophy, and other literary texts, notably the works of Walker Percy and Flannery O'Connor. Driven by arguments grounded in a wide variety of theoretical and critical positions, these essays offer a comprehensive and accessible discussion of Springsteen's oeuvre, from Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J. to Working on a Dream that will appeal to both specialist readers and Springsteen fans alike.

Part reference guide, part handbook, part travel guide and part resource in one portable volume, Bearing the People Away uses an encyclopedia format geared toward the general reader. The entries vary in length from brief sentences to several paragraphs. They include major Clearance sites, major and minor figures associated with the Clearances, Clearance-related sites outwith Scotland (significant parts of the Scottish Diaspora as Canada, the United States, Australia and New Zealand), places and historical events with Clearance and or Highland connections, and recordings, websites and relevant museums and organizations identified with the Highland Clearances. June Skinner Sawyers is a Scots-born writer who is based in Chicago, USA. She has written or edited more than twenty books, many with a Scottish theme, including popular and regional histories.

Anthology of popular fiction writers using the blues as a powerful story-telling theme. The blues is a feeling. The blues is a way of life. It is also the kind of music that has inspired countless writers over many years. The stories in Best in Blues Fiction are infused with the spirit of the blues; the characters invariably are blues musicians themselves or are somehow enmeshed in the world of the blues. This collection contains excerpts from novels and short stories by major African-American writers and contemporary wordsmiths. The stories evoke another place and time, of jook joints and larger-than-life characters and the mysterious goings-on at deserted crossroads at the toll of midnight. The spirit of classic bluesmen such as Robert Johnson, Charley Patton, and Muddy Waters fills its pages. The power of the storytelling presented here matches the power of the music itself. Twenty-four stories include: James Baldwin - "Going to Meet the Man" William Faulkner - "That Evening Sun" Peter Guralnick - "Nighthawk Blues" Pete Hamill - "A Blues for Yukido" Langston Hughes - "The Blues I'm Playing" Albert Murray - "Train Whistle Guitar" Tom Piazza - "Charly Patton" Alice Walker - "1955"