Felipe Collazo
How Music Works
“This book really changed the way I think about making music and putting on live events. It taught me to be more free and more rigid at the same time depending on the circumstances. It helped dig deeper into how I thought of music and live performance and helped me realize that making something moving does not require a massive budget but just the right ideas and a good implementation of those ideas.” - Felipe
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Best known as a founding member and principal songwriter of the iconic band Talking Heads, David Byrne has received Grammy, Oscar, and Golden Globe awards and has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In the insightful How Music Works, Byrne offers his unique perspective on music - including how music is shaped by time, how recording technologies transform the listening experience, the evolution of the industry, and much more.
War Against All Puerto Ricans: Revolution and Terror in America's Colony
“Did you know that the United States military attacked the Puerto Rican town of Jayuya with bomber planes and on land by artillery. Their own citizens…. How about this, Did you know that in a 1965 survey of Puerto Rican residents it was found that one-third of all Puerto Rican mothers 20-49 were sterilized as part of a US effort to control the population. This is a real eye opener to how Puerto Rico and it’s people have been treated throughout its history.” - Felipe
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Nelson A. Denis tells this powerful story through the controversial life of Pedro Albizu Campos, who served as the president of the Nationalist Party. A lawyer, chemical engineer, and the first Puerto Rican to graduate from Harvard Law School, Albizu Campos was imprisoned for twenty-five years and died under mysterious circumstances. By tracing his life and death, Denis shows how the journey of Albizu Campos is part of a larger story of Puerto Rico and US colonialism.
Bread and Roses: Mills, Migrants, and the Struggle for the American Dream
“As the president of the Bread Roses Heritage Festival this was something I felt I needed to dig into to truly understand the magnitude of our city’s great strike. We Lawrencians have a revolutionary history and the lessons learned from the 1912 strike can still teach us a lot about how to battle the injustices of the world today.” - Felipe
ABOUT THE MAGAZINE
Bruce Watson is the author of "Light: A Radiant History from Creation to the Quantum Age" (Bloomsbury, Feb. 2016). Starting with creation stories and following the trail of luminescence through three millennia, "Light" explores how humanity has worshiped, captured, studied, painted, and finally controlled light. The book's cast of characters includes Plato, Ptolemy, Alhacen, Dante, Leonardo, Rembrandt, Galileo, Newton, Daguerre, Monet, Edison, Einstein... The American Library Association's Booklist called "Light: A Radiant History" "a dazzling book."
David And Goliath
“If you are like me you always find yourself rooting for the underdog. In this book Malcolm Gladwell highlights different accounts where although the odds were seemingly unsurmountable the underdog found a strategy to succeed. This book really has you rethink things that are usually perceived as disadvantages in a new way and will have you ready to slay giants in no time. Like the Alchemist this one will leaving you feeling inspired and ready to take on the world.” - Felipe
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Malcolm Gladwell is the author of five New York Times bestsellers—The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers, What the Dog Saw, and David and Goliath. He is also the co-founder of Pushkin Industries, an audio content company that produces the podcasts Revisionist History, which reconsiders things both overlooked and misunderstood, and Broken Record, where he, Rick Rubin, and Bruce Headlam interview musicians across a wide range of genres. Gladwell has been included in the TIME 100 Most Influential People list and touted as one of Foreign Policy's Top Global Thinkers.
I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story Of The Music Video Revolution
“This might have been the most fun I have ever had reading a book. You are going to want to have Youtube handy for this one so after you read about how some of the most iconic music videos were made you can check them out with a new set of eyes. This one is great for music lovers, film aficionados and pop culture lovers alike.” - Felipe
ABOUT THE BOOK
Remember the first time you saw Michael Jackson dance with zombies in "Thriller"? Diamond Dave karate kick with Van Halen in "Jump"? Tawny Kitaen turning cartwheels on a Jaguar to Whitesnake's "Here I Go Again"? The Beastie Boys spray beer in "(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party)"? Axl Rose step off the bus in "Welcome to the Jungle"?
Pedro Pietri Collection
“I first came across the work of Pedro Petri at El Museo Del Barrio in the early 2000’s and I was immediately was captivated by his art. The way he blended deeper themes with humor and performance art really spoke to my younger self. His eccentric style was refreshing to me as I was used to seeing prominent Puerto Rican male figures that I couldn’t really relate to. Seeing this man’s work in a museum really made me feel a deeper sense of belonging in this world.” - Felipe
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Poet and playwright Pedro Pietri was born in Ponce, Puerto Rico, on March 21, 1944. Three years later, his family moved to Harlem. He attended public schools in New York City and was drafted to serve in the Vietnam War from 1966-68. His publications include Illusions of a Revolving Door: Plays (1992), The Masses are Asses (1984), Traffic Violations (1983), Lost in the Museum of Natural History (1980), Invisible Poetry (1979), and Puerto Rican Obituary (1973). His work has also been included in anthologies such as The Prentice Hall Anthology of Latino Literature (ed. Eduardo del Rio, 2002); The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry (ed. Alan Kaufman, 2000), The Latino Reader (eds. Harold Augenbraum and Margarite Fernandez Olmos, 1997), Inventing a Word: An Anthology of Twentieth-Century Puerto Rican Poetry (ed. Julio Marzan, 1980), and The United States of Poetry. His honors include several New York State Creative Arts in Public Service grants and a grant from the New York Foundation for the Arts. A resident of New York City and prominent Nuyorican poet, Pedro Pietri died on March 3, 2004.
The Alchemist
“This is one of the only books I have ever reread. Every reread acts like an inspirational pick me up for me so I find myself picking this one up every couple years whenever I need to get that feeling back.” - Felipe
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
The Brazilian author Paulo Coelho was born in 1947 in the city of Rio de Janeiro. Before dedicating his life completely to literature, he worked as theatre director and actor, lyricist and journalist. In 1986, Paulo Coelho did the pilgrimage to Saint James of Compostella, an experience later to be documented in his book The Pilgrimage. In the following year, COELHO published The Alchemist. Slow initial sales convinced his first publisher to drop the novel, but it went on to become one of the best selling Brazilian books of all time.
Latino City
“This book highlights how a lot of our parents and grandparents came to Lawrence and helped keep the city a float when so many ran to the suburbs as the factories shut down. It is great to get a better understanding of the sacrifices and efforts the older generations in the community put in to get us to where we are today.” - Felipe
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
In this book, Llana Barber interweaves the histories of urban crisis in U.S. cities and imperial migration from Latin America. Pushed to migrate by political and economic circumstances shaped by the long history of U.S. intervention in Latin America, poor and working-class Latinos then had to reckon with the segregation, joblessness, disinvestment, and profound stigma that plagued U.S. cities during the crisis era, particularly in the Rust Belt. For many Puerto Ricans and Dominicans, there was no -American Dream- awaiting them in Lawrence; instead, Latinos struggled to build lives for themselves in the ruins of industrial America.
