New Releases by Alan Walker

En juillet 1886, Franz Liszt est à Bayreuth, gravement malade et entre les mains de médecins incompétents. Il meurt dans la nuit du 31. En 1977, Alan Walker, biographe de Liszt, découvre au Goethe und Schiller Institut de Weimar, un document oublié dont la publication avait été interdite par les proches du musicien : le Journal de Lina Schmalhausen. Élève de Liszt, mais aussi sa préférée et sa confidente, la jeune femme assista jour après jour à l''agonie du Maître. Par sa sincérité et sa simplicité ingénues, le Journal de Lina Schmalhausen dépasse le cadre du milieu musical et nous fait pénétrer de plain-pied dans un drame humain dont l''amplitude est insoupçonnable concernant un homme adulé dans toute l''Europe pour son génie et sa virtuosité. La simplicité même de l''écriture, l''absence de tout pathos, la franchise de l''expression, font de ce Journal inédit un document passionnant à lire. Il apporte une révélation terrible sur les relations humaines qui existaient entre des êtres appartenant à l''élite créatrice la plus respectée du XIXe siècle.

"No one knows more about Franz Liszt than Alan Walker."--Malcolm Bowie, Times Literary Supplement In a series of lively essays that tell us much not only about the phenomenon that was Franz Liszt but also about the musical and cultural life of...

Detailing the unfolding discovery of a crucial link in our evolution, this book is written in the voice of Walker, whose involvement with Proconsul began when his graduate supervisor analyzed the tree-climbing adaptations in the arm and hand of this extinct creature. Today, Proconsul is the best-known fossil ape in the world.

This book provides a comprehensive picture of quality of life in old age in five very different European Union countries. Based on systematic review of the evidence in Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden and the UIKL by leading national experts the volume constitutes a unique resource for anyone interested in ageing in Europe. As well as covering all the most important issues concerning quality in later life, including physical and mental health, the environments of ageing, employment and income, family and support networks and participation and social integration, each chapter follows a standard format to ensure maximum accessibility of the material presented and comparisons between the countries. A comparative framework is provided in the introductory chapter which also places the five countries in their broad European context. The research evidence contained in this volume has never been available previously in the one place and, therefore, it represents a unique contribution to the literature. The book is intended as a companion volume to the others in the Growing Older series providing the only comparative European perspective. This comparative analysis shows that many similar quality of later life issues are being faced by older people in different EU countries but that the policy and service contexts are quite different, as are the research traditions.

Taking time out from everyday activities, duties, and problems is a proven way for men and women to affirm meaning and spiritual value in their lives. Many people seek a few days'' refuge in a religious environment such as a monastery. However, personal retreats can also take the form of short, intensive periods of entirely private, personal reflection and renewal in the midst of everyday life. This inspiring book offers practical advice on how to get benefit from all types of retreat. The author recommends creative exercises and meditations drawn from many spiritual traditions. He guides readers in the act of reviewing their life''s events and milestones as a first step toward setting future personal goals. For readers who prefer to keep the spiritual retreat personal and private, he advises on creating a schedule that allows time for meditation, and setting aside a space in which to meditate. There is also advice for those who wish to choose a spiritual director, or who wish to make a group retreat. He asserts that now, in our machine-driven age, we need to take control of time and discover proven routes to spiritual renewal and growth. His advice is enhanced with 60 color illustrations.

We have always turned to prayer to share our hopes, needs, and fears with the scared power that sustains the universe. We are inspired to give thanks for our blessings and seek to raise our minds and hearts into communion with the divine. Through prayer we grow, develop, and deepen our spiritual identities, all the while enriching our relationships with others and with the whole of nature. This inspirational and practical guide explores the many forms of prayer, combining insightful text with beautiful prayers drawn from the world''s spiritual traditions. It will lead us to journey more deeply into the mystery of this most profound of human activities.

Uses pictures, stories and activities to help children learn the multiplication tables.

"Fascinating. . . . As engaging an explanation of how scientists study fossil bones as any I have ever read." --John R. Alden, Philadelphia Inquirer In 1984 a team of paleoanthropologists on a dig in northern Kenya found something extraordinary: a nearly complete skeleton of Homo erectus, a creature that lived 1.5 million years ago and is widely thought to be the missing link between apes and humans. The remains belonged to a tall, rangy adolescent male. The researchers called him "Nariokotome boy." In this immensely lively book, Alan Walker, one of the lead researchers, and his wife and fellow scientist Pat Shipman tell the story of that epochal find and reveal what it tells us about our earliest ancestors. We learn that Nariokotome boy was a highly social predator who walked upright but lacked the capacity for speech. In leading us to these conclusions, The Wisdom of the Bones also offers an engaging chronicle of the hundred-year-long search for a "missing link," a saga of folly, heroic dedication, and inspired science. "Brilliantly captures [an] intellectual odyssey. . . . One of the finest examples of a practicing scientist writing for a popular audience." --Portland Oregonian "A vivid insider''s perspective on the global efforts to document our own ancestry." --Richard E. Leakey

The second volume in the Liszt Studies series looks at discoveries about the composer''s life and work.

Esta obra se centra en las políticas y estrategias europeas para combatir las barreras que existen en el empleo para las personas mayores. A través de entrevistas y estudio de casos se proponen medidas de "buena práctica" para facilitar, fomentar e integrar a los trabajadores mayores en el mercado de trabajo.

Contains a summary of the European Commission''s decision on support for actions in favour of older people.

A groundbreaking book concerning the excavation of Nariokotome Boy, which asserts, among other things, that Homo Erectus lacked language.

This text presents the findings of a major research project evaluating the outcomes of the Neighbourhood Support Units innovation in Sheffield. Key issues raised include the goal to create more flexible "tailor-made" services and the promotion of user- and carer-responsive forms of provision.

In this pamphlet, Tony Blair asks: what does ethical socialism, the new buzz-phrase of the Left, mean? Why has Labour been out of power for so long? How can it win again?

In the past, serious biographers of Franz Liszt have found the matter of the thwarted marriage of Liszt and Princess Carolyne von Sayn-Wittgenstein most puzzling, but no longer! The core of this publication is the sixty or so documents which have lain in the Vatican archives for more than a hundred and twenty years until brought to light by Prof. Walker in 1983 and 1985. These documents allow us to piece together for the first time Carolyne''s twelve-year struggle to procure an annulment of her first marriage, a necessary first step to clear the way for her nuptials with Liszt. These documents will be published in English and Latin, with substantial commentary in an introductory essay by Prof. Walker, and will include selected pages and one entire document in facsimile.

This book takes a close look at family relationships at the end of the life cycle. Based on a representative sample of people aged 75 or more in a major British city, it investigates in depth what the caring relationship actually means to those elderly people and carers, mostly family members, who are involved on a day to day basis. An important book for health and welfare professionals involved in planning and providing services.

The third volume in Alan Walker''s magisterial biography of Franz Liszt. "You can''t help but keep turning the pages, wondering how it will all turn out: and Walker''s accumulated readings of Liszt''s music have to be taken seriously indeed."--D. Kern Holoman, New York Review of Books "A conscientious scholar passionate about his subject. Mr. Walker makes the man and his age come to life. These three volumes will be the definitive work to which all subsequent Liszt biographies will aspire."--Harold C. Schonberg, Wall Street Journal "What distinguishes Walker from Liszt''s dozens of earlier biographers is that he is equally strong on the music and the life. A formidable musicologist with a lively polemical style, he discusses the composer''s works with greater understanding and clarity than any previous biographer. And whereas many have recycled the same erroneous, often damaging information, Walker has relied on his own prodigious, globe-trotting research, a project spanning twenty-five years. The result is a textured portrait of Liszt and his times without rival."--Elliot Ravetz, Time "The prose is so lively that the reader is often swept along by the narrative.... This three-part work... is now the definitive work on Liszt in English and belongs in all music collections."--Library Journal

This is the third in a set of three books following the life and achievements of Franz Liszt. This volume focuses on his final years, from 1861-1886.

The final volume of Walker''s monumental study (Franz Liszt, Vol. 1: The Virtuoso Years, 1811-47, Franz Liszt, Vol. 2: The Weimar Years, 1848-61,) draws upon some recent scholarship to present a more complete picture of Liszt''s life and achievements than had been previously possible. Liszt''s remarkably peripatetic existence creates manifold challenges for the conscientious scholar, but Walker is more than equal to the task. His narrative is copiously footnoted yet never seems to bog down in minutiae. In fact, quite the opposite: the prose is so lively that the reader is often swept along by the narrative. A particularly fascinating section concerns the infamous Cosima Liszt-Hans von Buelow-Richard Wagner triangle, which is skillfully dissected by Walker to separate legend from accurate history. Liszt emerges as an unmistakably generous and self-effacing man in his later years whose prodigious gifts as a composer and pianist were undimmed until the very end. Walker provides frequent musical examples throughout, and his comments on them are not too technical for the general reader. This three-part work, which represents a 25-year labor of love, is now the definitive work on Liszt in English and belongs in all music collections. - from Library Journal.