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Dolly Parton, Songteller: My Life in Lyrics
by Dolly Parton Robert K. OermannDolly Parton, Songteller: My Life in Lyrics is a landmark celebration of the remarkable life and career of a country music and pop culture legend.As told by Dolly Parton in her own inimitable words, explore the songs that have defined her journey. Illustrated throughout with previously unpublished images from Dolly Parton's personal and business archives.Mining over 60 years of songwriting, Dolly Parton highlights 175 of her songs and brings readers behind the lyrics.• Packed with never-before-seen photographs and classic memorabilia• Explores personal stories, candid insights, and myriad memories behind the songsDolly Parton, Songteller: My Life in Lyrics reveals the stories and memories that have made Dolly a beloved icon across generations, genders, and social and international boundaries. Containing rare photos and memorabilia from Parton's archives, this book is a show-stopping must-have for every Dolly Parton fan.• Learn the history behind classic Parton songs like "Jolene," "9 to 5," "I Will Always Love You," and more.• The perfect gift for Dolly Parton fans (everyone loves Dolly!) as well as lovers of music history and countryAdd it to the shelf with books like Coat of Many Colors by Dolly Parton, The Beatles Anthology by The Beatles, and Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen.
Rene Girard, Law, Literature, and Cinema: The Legal Drama of the Scapegoat
by Eric M. WilsonThis book is the first monograph to critically evaluate the work of the literary scholar René Girard from the perspectives of Law and Literature and Law and Film Studies, two of the most multidisciplinary branches of critical legal theory. The central thesis is that Girard’s theory of the scapegoat mechanism provides a wholly new and original means of re-conceptualizing the nature of judicial modernity, which is the belief that modern Law constitutes an internally coherent and exclusively secular form of rationality. The book argues that it is the archaic scapegoat mechanism – the reconciliation of the community through the direction of unified violence against a single victim – that actually works best in explaining all of the outstanding issues of Law and Literature in both of its sub-forms: law-as-literature (the analysis of legal language and practice exemplified by literacy texts) and law-in-literature (the exploration of issues in legaltheory through the fictitious form of the novel). The book will provide readers with: (i) a useful introduction to the most important elements of the work of René Girard; (ii) a greater awareness of the ‘hidden’ nature of legal culture and reasoning within a post-secular age; and (iii) a new understanding of the ‘subversive’ (or ‘enlightening‘) nature of some of the most iconic works on Law in both Literature and Cinema, media which by their nature allow for the expression of truths repressed by formal legal discourse.
Abraham Lincoln and Women in Film: One Hundred Years of Hollywood Mythmaking (Conflicting Worlds: New Dimensions of the American Civil War)
by Frank J. Wetta Martin A. NovelliFrank J. Wetta and Martin A. Novelli’s Abraham Lincoln and Women in Film investigates how depictions of women in Hollywood motion pictures helped forge the myth of Lincoln. Exploring female characters’ backstories, the political and cultural climate in which the films appeared, and the contest between the moviemakers’ imaginations and the varieties of historical truth, Wetta and Novelli place the women in Lincoln’s life at the center of the study, including his mother, Nancy Hanks Lincoln; his stepmother, Sarah Bush Lincoln; his lost loves, Ann Rutledge and Mary Owens; and his wife and widow, Mary Todd Lincoln. Later, while inspecting Lincoln’s legacy, they focus on the 1930s child actor Shirley Temple and the 1950s movie star Marilyn Monroe, who had a well-publicized fascination with the sixteenth president. Wetta and Novelli’s work is the first to deal extensively with the women in Lincoln’s life, both those who interacted with him personally and those appearing on screen. It is also among the first works to examine how scholarly and popular biography influenced depictions of Lincoln, especially in film.
Stella Rising (Orca Soundings)
by Nancy BelgueStella Connors has spent her whole life bouncing around from one town to the next, following the latest musician her mother has fallen in love with. She has always vowed she will never become a pathetic groupie like her mother, Viv. But then her best friend uploads a video of Stella singing a cover of her favorite band’s biggest hit. It goes viral, and suddenly Stella’s ideas about who she is and what she wants take a real hit. As a publicity stunt, the band’s manager asks Stella to perform with them when they come to town. Stella is thrilled and agrees immediately. Soon she finds herself in the spotlight, with everyone after her for interviews and photo ops. And unless she’s reading things wrong, she’s pretty sure the band’s lead singer has a thing for her. When she gets invited to go on the road with the band and perform in another concert, Stella forgets every bad thing she ever thought about being a groupie. After all, she’s nothing like her mother. She’s a star. Isn’t she?
An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood
by Neal GablerA provocative, original, and richly entertaining group biography of the Jewish immigrants who were the moving forces behind the creation of America's motion picture industry. The names Harry Cohn, William Fox, Carl Laemmle, Louis B. Mayer, Jack and Harry Warner, and Adolph Zucker are giants in the history of contemporary Hollywood, outsiders who dared to invent their own vision of the American Dream. Even to this day, the American values defined largely by the movies of these émigrés endure in American cinema and culture. Who these men were, how they came to dominate Hollywood, and what they gained and lost in the process is the exhilarating story of An Empire of Their Own.
Farida Benlyazid and Moroccan Cinema (Palgrave Studies in Arab Cinema)
by Florence MartinThis book project unfolds and analyzes the work of Moroccan director, producer, and scriptwriter Farida Benlyazid, whose career extends from the beginning of cinema in independent Morocco to the present. This study of her work and career provides a unique perspective on an under-represented cinema, the gender politics of cinema in Morocco, and the contribution of Arab women directors to global cinema and to a gendered understanding of Muslim ethics and aesthetics in film. A pioneer in Moroccan cinema, Farida Benlyazid has been successful at negotiating the sometimes abrupt turns of Morocco’s rocky 20th century history: from Morocco under French occupation to the advent of Moroccan independence in 1956; the end of the international status of Tangier, her native city, in 1959; the “years of lead” under the reign of Hassan II; and finally Mohamed VI’s current reign since 1999. As a result, she has a long view of Morocco’s politics of self-representation as well as of the representation of Moroccan women on screen
Best Big Sister Ever! (Angelina Ballerina)
by Katharine HolabirdAngelina Ballerina and her friends put on a welcome ballet for Angelina&’s little sister and other new students in this sweet chapter book featuring an all-new, original Angelina Ballerina story and black-and-white illustrations throughout!Angelina Ballerina&’s little sister, Polly, is starting school for the first time. Angelina wants to make her and the other mouselings feel welcome, so she puts on a special ballet show with her friends! This charming chapter book is perfect for Angelina Ballerina fans beginning to read on their own or for reading aloud! © 2023 Helen Craig Ltd and Katharine Holabird. The Angelina Ballerina name and character and the dancing Angelina logo are trademarks of HIT Entertainment Limited, Katharine Holabird, and Helen Craig.
Angelina Ballerina's Ballet Tour (Angelina Ballerina)
by Katharine HolabirdAngelina Ballerina goes on a tour like a real ballerina in this chapter book featuring an all-new, original Angelina Ballerina story and black-and-white illustrations throughout!Angelina and the other little dancers at Miss Lilly&’s Ballet School are going on a ballet tour! They are traveling to towns near Chipping Cheddar to perform. Angelina is excited but also nervous. Will she still dance her best when she isn&’t on her home stage? This charming chapter book is perfect for Angelina Ballerina fans beginning to read on their own or for reading aloud! © 2023 Helen Craig Ltd and Katharine Holabird. The Angelina Ballerina name and character and the dancing Angelina logo are trademarks of HIT Entertainment Limited, Katharine Holabird, and Helen Craig.
Forever Yours, Faithfully: My Love Story
by Lorrie MorganBy turns passionate and desperate, tragic and triumphant--the life of Lorrie Morgan could easily have been lifted from the lyrics of a classic country song. Now, in Forever Yours, Faithfully, Lorrie shares all the pleasure and the pain of her remarkable career and her turbulent, consuming love for doomed, brilliant blue-grass star, Keith Whitely. Lorrie Morgan was born to be a country music star. Thanks to a father who was also a Grand Ole Opry legend, Lorrie grew up in the shadows of such country greats as Minnie Pearl and Roy Acuff. Inspired by such talent and nurtured in a stable home, she sang at the Opry when she was only thirteen years old. In a voice all her own, Lorrie takes us inside the country music world where she would rise to become Nashville gold. Over the next several years, Lorrie's home life was to become a lot less stable. When Lorrie was twenty-two years old, she heard a voice on the radio--and fell under its seductive spell. That voice belonged to singer Keith Whitely. They soon met, left their respective marriages, and started a life that Lorrie hoped would be "happily ever after." Yet it was a relationship marred by dark moods, drinking, and drugs, as Lorrie, blinded by devotion, refused to see that she was hopelessly in love with a chronic alcoholic. She stayed by his side until his untimely death in 1989--only to be hit with a second blow: the shocking news of Keith's infidelities. With amazing insight and candor, Lorrie opens her heart, answering such personal questions as Who was with Keith when he died? What actually killed him? How does one reconcile the "man of your dreams" with the man in real life? And perhaps most important: Can he be forgiven? Fortunately, Lorrie's life did not end after Keith's death. Her star went on to shine even brighter. She rose to superstar status as a singer and, eventually, true love came calling again. Beloved, betrayed, and ultimately resilient, Lorrie Morgan has written a painfully honest memoir about rising above and moving on. Forever Yours, Faithfully resonates with emotion and the power of the human spirit.
You Never Know: A Memoir
by Ellis Henican Tom SelleckThere are many miles from the business school and basketball court at the University of Southern California to 50 million viewers for the final episode of a TV show called Magnum P.I. Tom Selleck has lived every one of those miles in his own iconoclastic and joyful way. Frank, funny and open-hearted, You Never Know is an intimate memoir from one of the most beloved actors of our time, the highly personal story of a remarkable life and thoroughly accidental career. In his own voice and uniquely unpretentious style, the famed actor brings readers on his uncharted but serendipitous journey to the top in Hollywood, his temptations and distractions, his misfires and mistakes and, over time, his well-earned success. Along the way, he clears up an armload of misconceptions and shares dozens of never-told stories from all corners of his personal and professional life. His rambunctious California childhood. His clueless arrival as a good-looking college jock in Hollywood (from the Dating Game to the Fox New Talent Program to co-starring with Mae West and escorting her to black-tie social functions). What it was like to emerge as a mega-star in his mid-thirties and remain so for decades to come, an actor whose authenticity and ease in front of the camera connected with audiences worldwide while embodying and also redefining the clichés of onscreen manhood.In You Never Know, Selleck recounts his personal friendships with a vivid army of A-listers, everyone from Frank Sinatra to Carol Burnett to Sam Elliott, paying special tribute to his mentor James Garner of The Rockford Files, who believed, like Selleck, that TV protagonists are far more interesting when they have rough edges. He also more than tips his hat to the American western and the scruffy band of actors, directors and other ruffians who helped define that classic genre, where Selleck has repeatedly found a happy home. Magnum fans will be fascinated to learn how Selleck put his career on the line to make Thomas Magnum a more imperfect hero and explains why he walked away from a show that could easily have gone on for years longer.Hollywood is never easy, even for stars who make it look that way. In You Never Know, Selleck explains how he’s struggled to balance his personal and professional lives, frequently adjusting his career to protect his family’s privacy and normalcy. His journey offers a truly fresh perspective on a changing industry and a changing world. Beneath all the charm and talent and self-deprecating humor, Selleck’s memoir reveals an American icon who has reached remarkable heights by always insisting on being himself.
The Secret Life of John le Carre
by Adam SismanThe extraordinary secret life of a great novelist, which his biographer could not publish while le Carré was alive. Secrecy came naturally to John le Carré, and there were some secrets that he fought fiercely to keep. Adam Sisman's definitive biography, published in 2015, provided a revealing portrait of this fascinating man; yet some aspects of his subject remained hidden.Nowhere was this more so than in his private life. Apparently content in his marriage, the novelist conducted a string of love affairs over five decades. To these relationships he brought much of the tradecraft that he had learned as a spy - cover stories, cut-outs and dead letter boxes. These clandestine operations brought an element of danger to his life, but they also meant deceiving those closest to him. Small wonder that betrayal became a running theme in his work.In trying to manage his biography, the novelist engaged in a succession of skirmishes with his biographer. While he could control what Sisman wrote about him in his lifetime, he accepted that the truth would eventually become known. Following his death in 2020, what had been withheld can now be revealed.The Secret Life of John le Carré reveals a hitherto-hidden perspective on the life and work of the spy-turned-author and a fascinating meditation on the complex relationship between biographer and subject. “Now that he is dead,” Sisman writes, “we can know him better.”
Stardust: Cinematic Archives at the End of the World
by Hannah GoodwinAn exploration of the fundamental bond between cinema and the cosmos The advent of cinema occurred alongside pivotal developments in astronomy and astrophysics, including Albert Einstein&’s theories of relativity, all of which dramatically altered our conception of time and provided new means of envisioning the limits of our world. Tracing the many aesthetic, philosophical, and technological parallels between these fields, Stardust explores how cinema has routinely looked toward the cosmos to reflect our collective anxiety about a universe without us. Employing a &“cosmocinematic gaze,&” Hannah Goodwin uses the metaphorical frameworks from astronomy to posit new understandings of cinematic time and underscore the role of light in generating archives for an uncertain future. Surveying a broad range of works, including silent-era educational films, avant-garde experimental works, and contemporary blockbusters, she carves out a distinctive area of film analysis that extends its reach far beyond mainstream science fiction to explore films that reckon with a future in which humans are absent. This expansive study details the shared affinities between cinema and the stars in order to demonstrate how filmmakers have used cosmic imagery and themes to respond to the twentieth century&’s moments of existential dread, from World War I to the atomic age to our current moment of environmental collapse. As our outlook on the future continues to change, Stardust illuminates the promise of cinema to bear witness to humanity&’s fragile existence within the vast expanse of the universe.
En estas tierras mágicas
by Yamile Saied MéndezMinerva esta encargada de sus hermanas después de la desaparición de su madre en estamágica historia argentina de medio grado que combina perfectamente con la historia de Peter Pan. Minerva must take care of her sisters after her mother's disappearance in this magical Argentinean middle grade story that pairs perfectly with Peter Pan.Ya a los doce años, Minerva Soledad Miranda está decidida a alcanzar sus metas, a pesar de asumir más responsibilidades que los demás niños de las escuela--como cuidar a sus dos hermanas mientras su mamá maneja dos trabajos. Pero una noche, la mamá de Minerva no regresa a casa y Minerva tiene que decider qué hacer. ¿Fue Mama secuestrada por ICE? ¿Serán las niñas enviadas a hogares de acogida o centros de detención para niños inmigrantes? Minerva y su hermanas no pueden dejar que nadie sepa que mamá ha desparecido. Simplemente fingirán que todo sigue normal hasta que ella regrese. El plan de Minerva se desmorona la primera tarde, cuando su hermanita hace un berrinche durante la audición de Minerva para la obra de Peter Pan. Pero a medida que pasan los días y Minerva se preocupa cada vez más por su madre, algo mágico parece estar cuidándolos: dejándoles pastelitos, ayudándolos a encontrar dinero, e incluso dirigiéndolos a amigos y familiares lejanos que pueden ayudarlos. Eventualmente, Minerva debe tomar la decision más dificil de su vida. Y cuando lo haga, estará preparada para enfrentar los desafíos de la vida, con amistad, esparanza y un poco de magia de hadas. Twelve-year-old Minerva Soledad Miranda is determined to reach her goals, despite shouldering more responsibility than the other kids at school--like caring for her two sisters while her mom works two jobs. But one night, Minerva's mom doesn't come home, and Minerva has to figure out what to do. Was Mamá snapped up by ICE? Will the girls be sent to foster homes or holding centers for migrant kids? Minerva and her sisters can't let anyone know Mamá has disappeared. They'll just pretend everything is normal until she comes back. Minerva's plan falls apart the first afternoon, when her baby sister throws a tantrum during Minerva's audition for Peter Pan. But as the days pass and Minerva grows ever more worried about her mother, something magical seems to be watching out for them: leaving them cupcakes, helping her find money, even steering them to friends and distant family who can help. Eventually, Minerva must make the hardest choice of her life. And when she does, she'll be prepared to face life's challenges--with friendship, hope, and a little bit of fairy magic.
The Children’s Hour (Queer Film Classics #10)
by Julia ErhartBased on a play by Lillian Hellman, The Children’s Hour (1961) was the first mainstream commercial American film to feature a lesbian character in a leading role. It centres on a teacher at a girls’ school (Shirley MacLaine) who is accused of harbouring feelings for her co-worker (Audrey Hepburn) and depicts the intense moral panic that ensues. Produced in the social climate of the Lavender Scare, the film reveals deep insights into the politics of sexuality and censorship in midcentury America, only a few years before more visible struggles for queer liberation.The director, William Wyler, lobbied hard to get the film made after an earlier straight-washed version in 1936. The tense road to production included debates about whether to eliminate mentions of lesbianism from the script and how implicitly queer subject matter might conflict with the Production Code, by then weakened but still in force. Julia Erhart’s reading of the film’s conception, production, and reception advances a nuanced case of censorship as a productive force. While contests between Hellman and Wyler suppressed scenes of overt affection between main characters Karen and Martha, reception was comparatively fixated on the characters’ lesbianism: it threatened middlebrow movie critics in the mainstream press and resonated with queer audiences. Erhart’s attentive interpretation of both the script and the sonic landscape yields a detailed analysis of the soundtrack as an original pro-lesbian element.As issues of queer censorship continue to permeate life and culture more than fifty years later, Erhart demonstrates that The Children’s Hour is as salient to social and political tensions around gender and sexuality today as it was in the 1960s.
Performing Chinatown: Hollywood, Tourism, and the Making of a Chinese American Community (Asian America)
by William GowIn 1938, China City opened near downtown Los Angeles. Featuring a recreation of the House of Wang set from MGM's The Good Earth, this new Chinatown employed many of the same Chinese Americans who performed as background extras in the 1937 film. Chinatown and Hollywood represented the two primary sites where Chinese Americans performed racial difference for popular audiences during the Chinese exclusion era. In Performing Chinatown, historian William Gow argues that Chinese Americans in Los Angeles used these performances in Hollywood films and in Chinatown for tourists to shape widely held understandings of race and national belonging during this pivotal chapter in U.S. history. Performing Chinatown conceives of these racial representations as intimately connected to the restrictive immigration laws that limited Chinese entry into the U.S. beginning with the 1875 Page Act and continuing until the passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. At the heart of this argument are the voices of everyday people including Chinese American movie extras, street performers, and merchants. Drawing on more than 40 oral history interviews as well as research in more than a dozen archival and family collections, this book retells the long-overlooked history of the ways that Los Angeles Chinatown shaped Hollywood and how Hollywood, in turn, shaped perceptions of Asian American identity.
Down with the System: A Memoir (of Sorts)
by Serj TankianAn exhilarating, thoughtful, and beautifully written memoir by musician, songwriter, and lead singer-lyricist of Grammy award-winning metal band, System Of A Down, Serj Tankian. <P><P> Serj Tankian will be the first to admit that his band, System Of A Down, was “unlikely a chart-topper as had ever existed in modern music history: a band of Armenian-Americans playing a practically unclassifiable clash of wildly aggressive metal riffs, unconventional tempo-twisting rhythms, and Armenian folk melodies, with me alternately growling, screaming, and crooning lyrics that could pivot from avant-garde silliness to raging socio-political rants in the space of a single line.” After all, as Serj concedes, “it’s not easy listening.” <P><P> Even so, there’s no doubt that System’s music had struck a chord with millions of listeners across the globe ever since they burst on the scene in the mid-1990s. With nearly 40 million album sales, three albums topping the Billboard charts, and a devoted legion of fans, the band dominated the alt-rock and metal scenes just as the world hurtled into a new millennium, redefining the very idea of what rockstars could and couldn’t talk about, could and couldn’t do, could and couldn’t represent. <P><P> In DOWN WITH THE SYSTEM, Serj presents readers with a memoir that is far more than just a rock 'n' roll fable. It's an immigrant's tale, it’s an activist's awakening, and it's a spiritual journey from darkness toward light. And all of this comes down to the fact that Serj himself has had the chance to live an extraordinary life—thanks to a combination of luck, circumstance, struggle, talent, and spiritual awakening. Born to Armenian parents in Beirut, Serj grows up hearing bombs drop outside his childhood home during the country’s civil war, before moving to Los Angeles at the age of seven. As a young man, he is immersed in the SoCal community of “Little Armenia,” learning more and more about the brutal genocide faced by his ancestors while helping his parents adapt to the constraints and contradictions of the American Dream. Then, during a pivotal drive home from an LSAT class, Serj decides to turn away from a promising future in business and law to make music instead—a decision that leads him to touring five continents as the lead singer of a hugely popular rock band, hitting number #1 on the Billboard album charts the morning of 9/11, and then having the hit single from the same album banned from radio two days later. In the years that follow, his uniquely singular story continues, as he evades glass bottles hurled at a cancelled show by angry Slayer fans, teams up with Tom Morello to push social justice causes on unsuspecting metalheads, argues with LAPD officers over the best way to quell rioting fans, and defines new sounds and singing tactics with Rick Rubin. <P><P> Braiding together Serj’s thought-provoking insight with heartfelt and poetic prose, DOWN WITH THE SYSTEM retraces Serj’s remarkable and unlikely journey, and explores what it’s taught him—about music, about art, about activism, and about himself. It’s an unforgettable ride that will leave you breathless—and an absolute delight for new fans and old ones alike. <p> <b>New York Times Bestseller</b>
Hollywood Pride: A Celebration of LGBTQ+ Representation and Perseverance in Film
by Alonso DuraldeFor generations, members of the LGBTQ+ community in Hollywood needed to be discreet about their lives but—make no mistake—they were everywhere, both in front of and behind the camera. On the eve of the twentieth century, in Thomas Edison&’s laboratory, one of the earliest attempts at a sound film depicted two men dancing together as a third plays the violin. It&’s only a few minutes long, but this cornerstone of early cinema captured a queer moment on film. It would not be the last. With Hollywood Pride, renowned film critic Alonso Duralde presents a history spanning from the dawn of cinema through the &“pansy craze&” of the 1930s and the New Queer Cinema of the 1990s, all the way up to today. He showcases the hard-working actors, writers, directors, producers, cinematographers, art directors, and choreographers whose achievements defined the American film industry and charts the evolution of LGBTQ+ storytelling itself—the way mainstream Hollywood decided it would portray (or erase) their lives and the narratives created by queer filmmakers who fought to tell those stories themselves. Along the way, readers will encounter a fascinating cast of characters, such as the first generation of queer actors, including J. Warren Kerrigan, Ramon Novarro, and William Haines. Early cinema pioneers like Alla Nazimova and F. W. Murnau helped shape the new medium of moving pictures. The sex symbols, both male (Rock Hudson, Tab Hunter, and Anthony Perkins) and female (Lizabeth Scott and Greta Garbo), lived under the threat of their private lives undermining their public personas. Underground filmmakers Kenneth Anger and John Waters made huge strides in LGBTQ+ representation with their off-off-Hollywood productions in the 1960s and &’70s. These screen legends paved the way for every openly queer figure in Hollywood today. Illustrated with more than 175 full-color and black-and-white images, Hollywood Pride points to the bright future of LGBTQ+ representation in cinema by revealing the story of the community&’s inclusion and erasure, its visibility and invisibility, and its triumphs and tragedies.
Olive Blackwood Takes Action!
by Sonja ThomasAn anxious aspiring filmmaker bands together with an unlikely friend group to protect their beloved state animal in this heartwarming contemporary middle grade novel perfect for fans of Jamie Sumner and Erin Entrada Kelly.Twelve-year-old Olive Blackwood&’s dream is to direct blockbuster fantasy movies, just like her dad wanted to before he died. She decides to apply to the highly competitive Rose City Summer Film Camp with the help of her best friend, Kayla. But Olive isn&’t sure how she can cast the movie when the mere thought of talking to a stranger makes her nervous. Then a surprise project in Olive&’s film class presents her best chance at going to Rose City: the group who makes the best documentary trailer will receive a recommendation to the elite program! But Olive&’s hopes are quickly dashed when she&’s paired with the two worst students in class: loud Jo Willems has a flashy style of dressing just as intimidating as their outspoken opinions and David Moore is even quieter than Olive, fading into the background. It seems impossible for the three of them to find enough common ground to produce something noteworthy. When Olive stumbles across an old lady chasing a beaver with a frying pan, she&’s disturbed to discover it&’s legal to kill beavers in Oregon—which has the animal on the state flag! Olive posts the video she took of the incident, and it goes viral. She wants to raise more awareness, and if she uses her documentary to do it, she could even get the coveted Rose City recommendation at the same time. With the help of unexpected friendship, counseling, and a little everyday magic, can Olive make her voice be heard?
Keep Living
by Loreal Chanel PalmerAs long as you&’re alive and breathing, you have a say in what direction your life will take. Just keep living.After seven years of marriage, multiple miscarriages, and three beautiful children, Loreal&’s life changed in an instant when she found out that her husband, her first and only love, had a secret. At first, they embraced an untraditional solution, separating romantically but choosing to live in the same house to continue raising their children together. But ultimately, at thirty-two, Loreal would need to start over in life, find herself, and pave her own way forward. Loreal used to make decisions based on internal fear and arbitrary timelines—until life started making decisions for her. In her inspirational memoir, she decides to step up and start taking control of her own destiny. Choosing to look back and learn from her past, with new insight, Loreal draws from the wisdom of her grandmother and her own personal journey to embolden readers to take control of their futures and turn change into fuel for self-discovery. By remembering her grandmother&’s phrase, &“keep living,&” she realizes that no matter what your past looks like, you are responsible for your own future.
Variable Valve Timings: Memoirs of a car tragic
by Chris HarrisTyre destruction, power slides and continuous droolingChris Harris has driven more cars than most people could ever dream of. His vast knowledge is legendary. He calls it 'unhinged geekery'. But we call it infectious enthusiasm, adrenaline-fueled escapism and peerless journalistic rigour and integrity.And then there are his famous skills at the wheel, from city cars to rally cars, F1 to vintage, not forgetting the Guinness World Record 3.4km sideways in an electric car.And now for the first time, Harris is going all out with that unhinged geekery, and takes us down the road of his life-long adventure with the automobile - from the Scalextric track to the Nürburgring 24 Hour, via his own formative low-powered Somerset version of The Dukes of Hazard.A highly individual, petrol-soaked life story that's all down to variable valve timings.
Fire Dancers in Thailand's Tourism Industry: Art, Affect, and Labor
by Tiffany Rae PollockFire Dancers in Thailand's Tourism Industry explores the evolution of fire dancing from informal community jam sessions into the iconic, tourist-oriented performances at beach parties and bars, through a close consideration of the role of affect in the lives of fire dancers in the ever-changing scene. Rather than pursuing the common notion that tourism industries are exploitative enterprises that oppress workers, Tiffany Rae Pollock centers the perspectives of fire artists themselves, who view the industry as simultaneously generative and destructive. Dancers reveal how they employ affect to navigate their lives, art, and labor in this context, showcasing how affect is not only a force that acts on people but also is used and shaped by social actors toward their own ends. Fire Dancers in Thailand's Tourism Industry highlights men as affective laborers, investigating how they manage the eroticization of their identities and the intersections of art and labor in tourist economies. Exploring moments of performance and everyday life, Pollock examines how fire artists reimagine their labor, lives, and communities in Thailand's tourism industry.
Cinema Speculation
by Quentin TarantinoInstant New York Times bestsellerThe long-awaited first work of nonfiction from the author of the #1 New York Times bestselling Once Upon a Time in Hollywood: a deliriously entertaining, wickedly intelligent cinema book as unique and creative as anything by Quentin Tarantino.In addition to being among the most celebrated of contemporary filmmakers, Quentin Tarantino is possibly the most joyously infectious movie lover alive. For years he has touted in interviews his eventual turn to writing books about films. Now, with Cinema Speculation, the time has come, and the results are everything his passionate fans—and all movie lovers—could have hoped for. Organized around key American films from the 1970s, all of which he first saw as a young moviegoer at the time, this book is as intellectually rigorous and insightful as it is rollicking and entertaining. At once film criticism, film theory, a feat of reporting, and wonderful personal history, it is all written in the singular voice recognizable immediately as QT’s and with the rare perspective about cinema possible only from one of the greatest practitioners of the artform ever.
Diddly Squat: Pigs Might Fly
by Jeremy ClarksonGet tucked in to a third bestselling helping of Clarkson's Farm from our favourite wellie-wearing wannabe farmer, Jeremy ClarksonWelcome back to Clarkson's Farm. Since taking the wheel three years ago Jeremy's had his work cut out. And it's now clear from hard-won experience that, when it comes to farming, there's only one golden rule:Whatever you hope will happen, won't.Enthusiastic schemes to diversify have met with stubborn opposition from the red trouser brigade, defeat at the hands of Council Planning department, and predictable derision from Kaleb - although, to be fair, even Lisa had doubts about Jeremy's brilliant plan to build a business empire founded on rewilding and nettle soup. And only Cheerful Charlie is still smiling about the stifling amount of red tape that's incoming . . . But he charges by the hour.Then there are the animals: the sheep are gone; the cows have been joined by a rented bull called Break-Heart Maestro;. the pigs are making piglets; and the goats have turned out to be psychopaths.But despite the naysayers and (sometimes self-inflicted) setbacks, Jeremy remains irrepressibly optimistic about life at Diddly Squat. Because It's hard not to be when you get to harvest blackberries with a vacuum cleaner.And, after all, it shouldn't just be Break-heart Maestro who gets to enjoy a happy ending . . .Diddly Squat, Number 1 Sunday Times bestseller, October 2022
Tell Me Everything: A Memoir
by Minka KellyNEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERA Washington Post best celebrity memoir of 2023An Audible best celebrity memoir of 2023“A timely, urgent portrait of working-class American women.”—Gabrielle UnionIn her highly anticipated memoir Tell Me Everything, Minka Kelly shares a story as powerful as it is page-turning.Fans know her as the spoiled, rich cheerleader Lyla Garrity on Friday Night Lights or as the affluent, mysterious Samantha on the HBO megahit Euphoria. But as revealed for the first time in these pages, Minka Kelly’s life has been anything but easy.Raised by a single mother who worked as a stripper and struggled with addiction, Minka spent years waking up in strange apartments as she and her mom bounced around the country, relying on friends and relatives to take them in. At times they even lived in storage units. She reconnected with her father, Aerosmith’s Rick Dufay, and eventually made her way to Los Angeles, where she landed the role of a lifetime on Friday Night Lights.Now an established actress and philanthropist, Minka takes this next step in her career as a writer. She has poured her soul into the pages of this book, which ultimately tells a story of triumph over adversity, and how resilience and love are all we have in the end.
Hanna and Barbera: Conversations (Television Conversations Series)
by Kevin Sandler and Tyler Solon WilliamsHanna and Barbera: Conversations presents a lively portrait of Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera, the influential producers behind Tom and Jerry, the Flintstones, Scooby-Doo, the Smurfs, and hundreds of other cartoon characters who continue to entertain the world today. Encompassing more than fifty years of film and television history, the conversations in this volume include first-person accounts by the namesakes of the Hanna-Barbera studio as well as recollections by artists and executives who worked closely with the pair for decades. It is the first collection of its kind about Hanna and Barbera, likely the most prolific animation producers of the twentieth century, whose studio once outflanked its competitor Walt Disney in output and influence.Bill Hanna fell into animation in 1930 at the Harman-Ising studio in Los Angeles, gaining skills across the phases of production as MGM opened its animation studio. Joe Barbera, a talented and sociable artist, entered the industry around the same time at the wild and woolly Van Beuren studio in Manhattan, learning the ins and outs of animation art before crossing the country to join MGM. In television, Hanna’s timing and community-oriented work ethic along with Barbera’s knack for sales and creating funny characters enabled Hanna-Barbera to build a roster of beloved cartoon series. A wide range of pieces map Hanna and Barbera’s partnership, from their early days in Hollywood in the 1930s to Cartoon Network in the 1990s, when a new generation took the reins of their animation studio. Relatively unknown when they made over one hundred Tom and Jerry theatrical cartoons at MGM in the 1940s and 1950s, Hanna and Barbera became household names upon entering the new medium of television in 1957. Discussions here chart their early primetime successes as well as later controversies surrounding violence, overseas production, and the lack of quality in their Saturday morning cartoons. With wit, candor, insight, and bravado, Hanna and Barbera: Conversations reflects on Bill and Joe’s breakthroughs and shortcomings, and their studio’s innovations and retreads.