Alice Coltrane (1937 2007) was a composer, master of various musical instruments, improviser, spiritual leader, and wife of John Coltrane. Throughout her adult life, she worked within and combined a broad range of musical genres, including gospel, R&B, bebop, free jazz, Indian devotional song, and Western art music. She recorded more than twenty full-length albums for Impulse and Warner Bros. Her music speaks to her experiences as a child playing for church congregations in Detroit; the transcendent and mind-bending avant-garde improvisations she performed with her husband John Coltrane; and her religious pilgrimages to India. When Monument Eternal was originally published in 1977, Alice Coltrane was living in Southern California and had recently become a swami, building and nurturing an alternative spiritual community. In these pages, she says that the book is 'based upon the soul's realizations in Absolute Consciousness and its spiritual relationships with the Supreme One.' Monument Eternal offers deep insight into Coltrane's tremendous musical output, and shines a light on her transformation from Alice McLeod, Detroit church organist and bebopper, to sage thought leader Swami Turiyasangitananda. It also reflects the extraordinary fluidity of American religious customs in the mid and late twentieth century. Akashic's long-awaited reissue of Monument Eternal will include a new introduction from a notable writer.

From the Introduciton by Jan Karsten: The many facets of Hamburg's ambivalent identity, forged over centuries, are on full display in the stories collected in this anthology. This book assembles some of the city's finest and best-known writers, luminaries in the world of crime fiction and German literature, featuring multiple recipients of the German Crime Fiction Award and the Hubert Fichte Prize, among others. Relative newcomers rub shoulders with established authors, some of whose work now spans decades... The fourteen stories in this collection all look to where good (crime) fiction has always looked: toward lesser-known settings and living situations, repeatedly drawing our attention to lives overlooked, the lost souls and the powerless who have slipped through the cracks of commerce. The perspectives on the metropolis are as varied as the writers' backgrounds, resulting in a varied depiction of Hamburg as a colorful hodgepodge of people inhabiting a lively city of millions. Between water and spirits, between power and oblivion, between dream and reality. FEATURING BRAND-NEW STORIES FROM: Nora Luttmer, Till Raether, Matthias Wittekindt, Ingvar Ambjornsen, Bela B Felsenheimer, Jasmin Ramadan, Frank Gohre, Timo Blunck, Katrin Seddig, Tina Uebel, Zoe Beck, Brigitte Helbling, Kai Hensel, Robert Brack; translated from German by Noah Harley, Paul Young, and Geoff Howes; translated from German by Noah Harley, Geoffrey Howes, and Paul Young.

Omar Rodriguez-Lopez may be best known for his filmmaking and transcendent guitar playing/ songwriting with the Mars Volta, At the Drive-In, and other bands, but many people aren't aware that he is also an exceptional photographer. Hunters in High Heels is Omar's first book of photographs, comprising photos taken between 2000 and 2006, during which the sheer scope of output and travel undertaken by the Grammy Award-winning musician and his fellow bandmates was nothing short of exhausting. Sharply juxtaposed with typical books of rock-and-roll imagery, Omar's photographs present a more elusive and evocative aesthetic that includes subjects such as highway signage, city skylines, and cloud formations, along with empty arenas and recording studios with friends and colleagues. This body of work provides an intimate glimpse into a specific period in the artist's life. In her preface to the book, photo editor Stephanie Celaya writes, 'Omar is deeply interested in the world . . . an observer of changing landscapes, shifting cultures, and evolving relationships. Omar's camera has become his touchstone. The combination of his international recognizability paired with his desire for privacy provides a unique and captivating glimpse into his nomadic life. The irony that Omar Rodriguez-Lopez connects to and captures the quietest moments amid, and in between, some of the loudest places is not lost.' Longtime fans of Omar's music and film will be regaled with the beauty of these photographs, while newcomers will be feted with the sublime visual treasures comprising Hunters in High Heels.

ACCORDING TO THE NATIONAL COALITION AGAINST DOMESTIC VIOLENCE, in the United States, an average of twenty-four people per minute are physically abused by an intimate partner, and one in three women have experienced some form of domestic violence. One of those women was Katrina Brownlee, who as a twenty-two-year-old mother of two experienced hell at the hands of her then-fiance. He was a law enforcement officer - a group two to four times more likely than the general population to be abusive, and who are known for protecting their own. During his dangerous outbursts, Brownlee would call the police for help, only to see the cops turn their backs on her when her abuser flashed his badge. On a cold January morning in 1993, her fiance shot her ten times and left her for dead. Brownlee could have been just one more of the eleven women/girls killed per minute worldwide by a loved one. Instead, miraculously, she survived. Through hard work, faith, and perseverance, she recovered from her injuries and found a path through her trauma. She decided to become a police officer to help others in her situation, to be the 'good cop' who had not been there for her when she had needed saving. In 2021, she retired from a highly decorated twenty-year career with the NYPD. As the founder of a support group for at-risk young women, Young Ladies of Our Future, Brownlee decided that the time had come to tell her story - the whole story - a story of self-empowerment, of healing generational trauma, and of turning pain into hope for herself and her community.

Alice Coltrane (1937 2007) was a composer, master of various musical instruments, improviser, spiritual leader, and wife of John Coltrane. Throughout her adult life, she worked within and combined a broad range of musical genres, including gospel, R&B, bebop, free jazz, Indian devotional song, and Western art music. She recorded more than twenty full-length albums for Impulse and Warner Bros. Her music speaks to her experiences as a child playing for church congregations in Detroit; the transcendent and mind-bending avant-garde improvisations she performed with her husband John Coltrane; and her religious pilgrimages to India. When Monument Eternal was originally published in 1977, Alice Coltrane was living in Southern California and had recently become a swami, building and nurturing an alternative spiritual community. In these pages, she says that the book is 'based upon the soul's realizations in Absolute Consciousness and its spiritual relationships with the Supreme One.' Monument Eternal offers deep insight into Coltrane's tremendous musical output, and shines a light on her transformation from Alice McLeod, Detroit church organist and bebopper, to sage thought leader Swami Turiyasangitananda. It also reflects the extraordinary fluidity of American religious customs in the mid and late twentieth century. Akashic's long-awaited reissue of Monument Eternal will include a new introduction from a notable writer.

From the Introduciton by Jan Karsten: The many facets of Hamburg's ambivalent identity, forged over centuries, are on full display in the stories collected in this anthology. This book assembles some of the city's finest and best-known writers, luminaries in the world of crime fiction and German literature, featuring multiple recipients of the German Crime Fiction Award and the Hubert Fichte Prize, among others. Relative newcomers rub shoulders with established authors, some of whose work now spans decades... The fourteen stories in this collection all look to where good (crime) fiction has always looked: toward lesser-known settings and living situations, repeatedly drawing our attention to lives overlooked, the lost souls and the powerless who have slipped through the cracks of commerce. The perspectives on the metropolis are as varied as the writers' backgrounds, resulting in a varied depiction of Hamburg as a colorful hodgepodge of people inhabiting a lively city of millions. Between water and spirits, between power and oblivion, between dream and reality. FEATURING BRAND-NEW STORIES FROM: Nora Luttmer, Till Raether, Matthias Wittekindt, Ingvar Ambjornsen, Bela B Felsenheimer, Jasmin Ramadan, Frank Gohre, Timo Blunck, Katrin Seddig, Tina Uebel, Zoe Beck, Brigitte Helbling, Kai Hensel, Robert Brack; translated from German by Noah Harley, Paul Young, and Geoff Howes; translated from German by Noah Harley, Geoffrey Howes, and Paul Young.

Omar Rodriguez-Lopez may be best known for his filmmaking and transcendent guitar playing/ songwriting with the Mars Volta, At the Drive-In, and other bands, but many people aren't aware that he is also an exceptional photographer. Hunters in High Heels is Omar's first book of photographs, comprising photos taken between 2000 and 2006, during which the sheer scope of output and travel undertaken by the Grammy Award-winning musician and his fellow bandmates was nothing short of exhausting. Sharply juxtaposed with typical books of rock-and-roll imagery, Omar's photographs present a more elusive and evocative aesthetic that includes subjects such as highway signage, city skylines, and cloud formations, along with empty arenas and recording studios with friends and colleagues. This body of work provides an intimate glimpse into a specific period in the artist's life. In her preface to the book, photo editor Stephanie Celaya writes, 'Omar is deeply interested in the world . . . an observer of changing landscapes, shifting cultures, and evolving relationships. Omar's camera has become his touchstone. The combination of his international recognizability paired with his desire for privacy provides a unique and captivating glimpse into his nomadic life. The irony that Omar Rodriguez-Lopez connects to and captures the quietest moments amid, and in between, some of the loudest places is not lost.' Longtime fans of Omar's music and film will be regaled with the beauty of these photographs, while newcomers will be feted with the sublime visual treasures comprising Hunters in High Heels.

ACCORDING TO THE NATIONAL COALITION AGAINST DOMESTIC VIOLENCE, in the United States, an average of twenty-four people per minute are physically abused by an intimate partner, and one in three women have experienced some form of domestic violence. One of those women was Katrina Brownlee, who as a twenty-two-year-old mother of two experienced hell at the hands of her then-fiance. He was a law enforcement officer - a group two to four times more likely than the general population to be abusive, and who are known for protecting their own. During his dangerous outbursts, Brownlee would call the police for help, only to see the cops turn their backs on her when her abuser flashed his badge. On a cold January morning in 1993, her fiance shot her ten times and left her for dead. Brownlee could have been just one more of the eleven women/girls killed per minute worldwide by a loved one. Instead, miraculously, she survived. Through hard work, faith, and perseverance, she recovered from her injuries and found a path through her trauma. She decided to become a police officer to help others in her situation, to be the 'good cop' who had not been there for her when she had needed saving. In 2021, she retired from a highly decorated twenty-year career with the NYPD. As the founder of a support group for at-risk young women, Young Ladies of Our Future, Brownlee decided that the time had come to tell her story - the whole story - a story of self-empowerment, of healing generational trauma, and of turning pain into hope for herself and her community.