Best Selling Books by David Remnick

'Always up close and personal, always tenacious and informed by deep background, and always vivid and veracious' The Times The greatest popular songs, whether it's Aretha Franklin singing 'Respect' or Bob Dylan performing 'Blind Willie McTell', have a way of embedding themselves in our memories. You remember a time and a place and a feeling when you hear that song again. In Holding the Note, David Remnick writes about the lives and work of some of the greatest musicians, songwriters, and performers of the past fifty years. He portrays a series of musical lives - Leonard Cohen, Buddy Guy, Mavis Staples, Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen, Patti Smith, and more - and their unique encounters with the passing of that essential element of music: time. These are intimate portraits of some of the greatest creative minds of our time written with a lifetime's passionate attachment to music that has shaped us all.

Když v noci roku 1964 vstupoval do ringu, aby bojoval proti Sonnymu Listonovi, byl Muhammad Ali (tehdy ještě Cassius Clay) považován za podivína, který při boxování až příliš tancuje a mluví. O šest kol později byl Ali nejen novým šampionem v těžké váze, zároveň byl i „novým typem černocha“, který brzy změní rasovou politiku Ameriky, její pop-kulturu a představy o hrdinství. I přes své kontroverzní chování a názory je Muhammad Ali stále považován za jednoho z nejlepších boxerů v historii. Vzestupy a pády jednoho z největších sportovců světa líčí David Remnick, nositel Pulitzerovy ceny za román Lenin’s Tomb (Leninova hrobka), s nesmírným osobním zaujetím. Dokáže se vcítit jak do něj, tak do jeho soupeřů i vlezlých novinářů. S lehkostí nám předkládá plastický obraz sportovce, ale i doby, ve které žil. Jeho kontroverzní život, temperament a neustálý neklid, který ho popoháněl dál.

From America’s cultural gatekeeper comes a profile of the man who defines the nation’s soul. David Remnick, Pulitzer Prize–winning writer and editor of The New Yorker, applies his unique journalistic voice to paint a portrait of rock legend and working-class poet Bruce Springsteen. The result is what Rolling Stone called ‘one of the most thorough profiles of Springsteen ever published’. Remnick shadows Springsteen from his recent Wrecking Ball world tour, the whole way back to the beginning, back to Asbury Park, to childhood rock’n’roll fantasies. Details of Springsteen’s strained relationship with his father, his battle with mental illness, his marriage, and the joys and anguish of friendships forged and lost with ephemeral E Street Band members, are all delicately woven through a career that spans over four decades as America’s working-class hero. We Are Alive not only tells the story of a living legend, but also produces an insight into the heart of America, the drive of self-transformation and renewal. Remnick has created an important text on the history of music.