To millions of listeners, Bruce Springsteen's Born to Run is much more than a rock-and-roll album-it's a poetic explosion of freedom and frustration. It confirmed Springsteen's status as a quintessential American performer: the rocker who, more than any other, gives voice to our hopes, fears, and aspirations. Runaway Dream chronicles the making of the album that launched Springsteen and his E Street Band into the firmament of American art, deftly sketching the ambition, history, and personalities that combined to create the enduring Born to Run. Springsteen wanted Born to Run to be the greatest rock record ever made. For a musician with just two modest-selling LPs to his credit, it was an extraordinary ambition, and session by session, track by track, Masur shows just how much grit, as well as genius, went into realizing it. Runaway Dream offers an expert tour of the trials and triumphs of Springsteen's work. In addition to the story of the album itself, Masur masterfully places Born to Run within American cultural history, showing why the girls, hot rods, and Jersey nights of the album still resonate, even for listeners born years after its release.

Over the course of a career now in its fourth decade, Bruce Springsteen has earned one of the most passionate, devoted followings in all rock 'n' roll. He's selling more records and concert tickets in his fifties than he sold in his twenties. Yet to many fans he remains an enigma. How has Springsteen produced such a consistent body of work and retained his currency while other top rock 'n' rollers have gone by the wayside? Jimmy Guterman, an accessible and entertaining music writer, has been writing about Springsteen since the late 1970s. In Runaway American Dream, he delves deep into dramatic and crucial moments from every phase of Springsteen's career, interpreting the songs and incisively commenting on the man and the culture at large to deliver a nuanced portrait of The Boss from the earliest days right up to Springsteen's 2005 album, Devils & Dust.

There is little question about the incredible power of Bruce Springsteen's work as a particularly transformative art, as a lyrical and musical fusion that never shies away from sifting through the rubble of human conflict. As Rolling Stone magazine's Parke Puterbaugh observes, Springsteen 'is a peerless songwriter and consummate artist whose every painstakingly crafted album serves as an impassioned and literate pulse taking of a generation's fortunes. He is the foremost live performer in the history of rock and roll, a self-described prisoner of the music he loves, for whom every show is played as if it might be his last.' In recent decades, Puterbaugh adds, 'Springsteen's music developed a conscience that didn't ignore the darkening of the runaway American Dream as the country greedily blundered its way through the 1980s' and into the sociocultural detritus of a new century paralysed by isolation and uncertainty. Bruce Springsteen, Cultural Studies, and the Runaway American Dream reflects the significant critical interest in understanding Springsteen's resounding impact upon the ways in which we think and feel about politics, religion, gender, and the pursuit of the American Dream. By assembling a host of essays that engage in interdisciplinary commentary regarding one of Western culture's most enduring artistic and socially radicalizing phenomena, this book offers a cohesive, intellectual, and often entertaining introduction to the many ways in which Springsteen continues to impact our lives by challenging our minds through his lyrics and music.

There is little question about the incredible power of Bruce Springsteen's work as a particularly transformative art, as a lyrical and musical fusion that never shies away from sifting through the rubble of human conflict. As Rolling Stone magazine's Parke Puterbaugh observes, Springsteen 'is a peerless songwriter and consummate artist whose every painstakingly crafted album serves as an impassioned and literate pulse taking of a generation's fortunes. He is the foremost live performer in the history of rock and roll, a self-described prisoner of the music he loves, for whom every show is played as if it might be his last.' In recent decades, Puterbaugh adds, 'Springsteen's music developed a conscience that didn't ignore the darkening of the runaway American Dream as the country greedily blundered its way through the 1980s' and into the sociocultural detritus of a new century paralysed by isolation and uncertainty. Bruce Springsteen, Cultural Studies, and the Runaway American Dream reflects the significant critical interest in understanding Springsteen's resounding impact upon the ways in which we think and feel about politics, religion, gender, and the pursuit of the American Dream. By assembling a host of essays that engage in interdisciplinary commentary regarding one of Western culture's most enduring artistic and socially radicalizing phenomena, this book offers a cohesive, intellectual, and often entertaining introduction to the many ways in which Springsteen continues to impact our lives by challenging our minds through his lyrics and music.

Having developed an impressive reputation for his many novels and non-fiction works, Richard Wagamese now presents a collection of stunning poems ranging over a broad landscape. He begins with an immersion in the unforgettable world where "the ancient ones stand at your shoulder . . . making you a circle / containing everything."These are Medicine teachings told from the experience of one who lived and still lives them. He also describes his life on the road when he repeatedly ran away at an early age, and the beatings he received when the authorities tried "to beat the Indian right out of me." Yet even in the most desperate situations, Wagamese shows us Canada as seen through the eyes and soul of a well-worn traveller, with his love of country, his love of people. Through it all, there are poems of love and music, the language sensuous and tender.

Rebellious, headstrong, independent - and on her own at age 15 - Lorelei dreamed of being a model, and made that happen through serendipity; a chance meeting with a '70s SoCal Rock Star opened the A-list Hollywood doors to a wondrous world, as well as a full-blown romance. Pounding the pavement in L.A. and New York taught her the hard knocks of being a working class model. Sheer will and determination jetted her off to Europe, where she became a top runway and magazine model, and where she met the doomed love of her life, fiancé Steve Clark of Def Leppard. With humor, pathos, and a world map of insight, Runway RunAway takes readers on a breathless journey around the globe with a backstage pass to high fashion, true romance, and Rock 'n Roll from some of the biggest names in the business.

Runaway Dreams tells the story of brothers Pat, John and Tommy McManus who, as Mama's Boys, wrote their own chapter in the history of rock music. From a farmhouse in Derrylin, Northern Ireland, and a family steeped in the traditions of Irish folk music, the three brothers set out at the height of 'The Troubles' to make their mark on a world stage. Given an early leg up by Barry Devlin of Horslips, then by Hawkwind and Wishbone Ash, their success was assured when Phil Lynott chose Mama's Boys to accompany Thin Lizzy on their farewell tour. The band went on to circuit the world many times over, sharing the stage with the likes of Deep Purple, Rush, Sting, Black Sabbath, Rory Gallagher, and Foreigner; and touring in the company of Twisted Sister, Scorpions, Iron Maiden, Ratt and Bon Jovi. At the height of their success tragedy struck the band when youngest brother, Tommy, after years of struggle, died of leukaemia at the age of 28. There could be no Mama's Boys without Tommy, and yet it was unthinkable for the two remaining brothers not to play on. So, after a brief hiatus, the music and the successes continued with Pat and John's new venture, Celtus. Playing their debut at the Royal Albert Hall, the band went on to win the 1998 Irish World Music Award, ahead of U2, The Corrs and Enya, and toured with Sheryl Crow, Deacon Blue, Paul Carrack and Jimmy Nail. Their final performance was with the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Runaway Dreams is the story of a band of brothers who, through passion, talent, loyalty and determination, became cultural icons in Ireland and in the words of Mary Anne Hobbs 'living, breathing Irish history.' Michael Walsh lost count years ago of how many times he saw Mama's Boys, and of how many nights he hitched home in the rain through the back roads of Northern Ireland after their shows. He is now, in addition to being a Mama's Boys and Celtus fan, an Associate Professor of Art History at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Previous books include: This Cult of Violence (Yale University Press, 2002); A Dilemma of English Modernism (University of Delaware Press, 2007); Hanging a Rebel (Lutterworth Press, 2008) and London, Modernism and 1914 (Cambridge University Press, 2010).