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Starboy: Inspired by the Life and Lyrics of David Bowie
by Jami GigotA starry-eyed ode to self-expression and staying true to yourself, inspired by the life and lyrics of beloved icon David Bowie.For as long as David could remember, he felt like a stranger on his own planet. As if he’d fallen to Earth from outer space…David Bowie is one of the most influential artists of our time, beloved for his joyful self-expression and fierce individuality. But how did he come to be this iconic Starman, celebrated by millions around the world? Inspired by the life and lyrics of David Bowie, author-illustrator Jami Gigot imagines the story of a lonely young boy enchanted by the music of the stars—yet no one else can hear the shimmy-shake rhythm that moves through his body. At first misunderstood and ignored, David ultimately finds the courage to be true to himself, sparking a dazzling revolution… At once vibrantly imaginative and true to the spirit of Bowie, Starboy is about embracing your individuality and discovering the cosmic rhythm that hums within each of us.
I Came All This Way to Meet You: Writing Myself Home
by Jami AttenbergA Most Anticipated Title from: USA Today * The Guardian * Alma * Fodor’s * AV Club * Vogue * KatieCouric.com * BookRiot * LithubFrom New York Times bestselling author Jami Attenberg comes a dazzling memoir about unlocking and embracing her creativity—and how it saved her life. In this brilliant, fierce, and funny memoir of transformation, Jami Attenberg—described as a “master of modern fiction” (Entertainment Weekly) and the “poet laureate of difficult families” (Kirkus Reviews)—reveals the defining moments that pushed her to create a life, and voice, she could claim for herself. What does it take to devote oneself to art? What does it mean to own one’s ideas? What does the world look like for a woman moving solo through it?As the daughter of a traveling salesman in the Midwest, Attenberg was drawn to a life on the road. Frustrated by quotidian jobs and hungry for inspiration and fresh experiences, her wanderlust led her across the country and eventually on travels around the globe. Through it all she grapples with questions of mortality, otherworldliness, and what we leave behind.It is during these adventures that she begins to reflect on the experiences of her youth—the trauma, the challenges, the risks she has taken. Driving across America on self-funded book tours, sometimes crashing on couches when she was broke, she keeps writing: in researching articles for magazines, jotting down ideas for novels, and refining her craft, she grows as an artist and increasingly learns to trust her gut and, ultimately, herself.Exploring themes of friendship, independence, class, and drive, I Came All This Way to Meet You is an inspiring story of finding one’s way home—emotionally, artistically, and physically—and an examination of art and individuality that will resonate with anyone determined to listen to their own creative calling.
Lion of Speech: The Life of Mipham Rinpoche
by Dilgo Khyentse Jamgon MiphamA traditional biography on the life of Mipham Rinpoche--one of the greatest 19th-century masters--from Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, one of the greatest 20th-century masters.The first half of this volume comprises the first-ever English translation of the biography of Mipham Rinpoche written by Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, a teacher to His Holiness the Dalai Lama as well as an entire generation of other teachers and students throughout the Himalayan region and the West. Composed in 1939, it was left behind in Tibet in 1959 when Khyentse Rinpoche went into exile and was lost for fifty-one years before its discovery in 2010 by an extraordinary stroke of good luck. Reverential in tone, it is informed by both oral accounts preserved in notes kept by Khyentse Rinpoche's elder brother and the recollections of Mipham's devoted personal attendant of thirty-seven years.In keeping with the identification of Mipham as an emanation of Manjushri, the lion of speech, the second half comprises a selection of Mipham's writings, designed to give the reader an experience of Mipham's eloquent speech and incisive thought. It includes both a new translation of The Lion's Roar: A Comprehensive Discourse on the Buddha-Nature and A Lamp to Dispel the Dark, a teaching of the Great Perfection, as well as excerpts from previously published translations of his works on Madhyamaka and tantra.
Gordon Parks: How the Photographer Captured Black and White America
by Carole Boston Weatherford Jamey ChristophGordon Parks is most famous for being the first black director in Hollywood. But before he made movies and wrote books, he was a poor African American looking for work. When he bought a camera, his life changed forever. He taught himself how to take pictures and before long, people noticed. This is a fixed-format ebook, which preserves the design and layout of the original print book.
Moscow Mule
by James YoungA marvellously funny and sharply observed account of a journey to Russia by one of Britain's most talented young writers. Moscow - a labyrinth where the humans try to keep one step ahead of the roaches. Everyone on the move, some in search of the quick buck, and others just trying to survive. All dazzled by the neon glare of the western dream. The soviet monolith has broken down in tribalism, tribes who go to war not just on the streets but in overheated rooms, with drugs, vodka and Cindy Crawford carrier bags. James Young gives an unparalleled account of today's Moscow from the bottom side up. He takes us on a odyssey through this strange no man's land where East meets West, where the old certainties have gone, the KGB men wear Italian suits, the Mafia tycoonskis style themselves on the Godfather flicks and the rest are queuing to change dollars.
Charles & Ray: A Story of Charles and Ray Eames
by James YangA playful introduction to the designs of Charles and Ray Eames by Geisel-winning creator James Yang.Charles was an architect. Ray was a painter. Together they made the perfect team. By using structure, shape, and color, they knew they could transform anything. And because they saw problem-solving as an adventure, they were able to incorporate playfulness into everything they designed.Geisel Award-winning author and illustrator James Yang has created an exuberant story about Charles and Ray Eames, two of the most iconic designers of the Mid-century modern design movement, which will inspire readers to dream up new ways to see the world around them.
Who Killed Daniel Pearl?
by Bernard-Henri Lévy James X. MitchellThe international bestseller The New York Times called "a gripping synthesis of philosophy and reportage," Levy's undercover investigation into the gruesome killing of journalist Daniel Pearl leads to stunning revelations about Pakistan's secret nuclear arms trading.
Nazi Wives: The Women at the Top of Hitler's Germany
by James WyllieAn in-depth look at the personal lives, psychological profiles, and marriages of the wives of officers in Hitler’s inner circle: “Compelling.” —The Washington PostGoering, Goebbels, Himmler, Heydrich, Hess, Bormann—names synonymous with power and influence in the Third Reich. Perhaps less familiar are Carin, Emmy, Magda, Margaret, Lina, Ilse, and Gerda.These are the women behind the infamous men—complex individuals with distinctive personalities who were captivated by Hitler and whose everyday lives were governed by Nazi ideology. Throughout the rise and fall of Nazism these women loved and lost, raised families and quarreled with their husbands and each other, all the while jostling for position with the Fuhrer himself. Until now, they have been treated as minor characters, their significance ignored, as if they were unaware of their husbands’ murderous acts, despite the evidence that was all around them: the stolen art on their walls, the slave labor in their homes, and the produce grown in concentration camps on their tables.James Wyllie’s Nazi Wives explores these women in detail for the first time, skillfully interweaving their stories through years of struggle, power, decline, and destruction into the post-war twilight of denial and delusion.“A chilling and richly detailed group portrait of the women who married Third Reich leaders.” —Publishers Weekly
A Wild Perfection: The Selected Letters of James Wright
by James WrightThe life and work of a major American poet described in his own words."There is something about the very form and occasion of a letter--the possibility it offers, the chance to be as open and tentative and uncertain as one likes and also the chance to formulate certain ideas, very precisely--if one is lucky in one's thoughts," wrote James Wright, one of the great lyric poets of the last century, in a letter to a friend. A Wild Perfection is a compelling collection that captures the exhilarating and moving correspondence between Wright and his many friends. In letters to fellow poets Donald Hall, Theodore Roethke, Galway Kinnell, James Dickey, Mary Oliver, and Robert Bly, Wright explored subjects from his creative process to his struggles with depression and illness.A bright thread of wit, gallantry, and passion for describing his travels and his beloved natural world runs through these letters, which begin in 1946 in Martin's Ferry, Ohio, the hometown he would memorialize in verse, and end in New York City, where he lived for the last fourteen years of his life. Selected Letters is no less than an epistolary chronicle of a significant part of the midcentury American poetry renaissance, as well as the clearest biographical picture now available of a major American poet.
Enduring Vietnam: An American Generation and Its War
by James WrightA history of the American War in Vietnam that provides a rich overview of that war and an evocative reminder of the human faces of the generation who served.The Vietnam War is largely recalled as a mistake, either in the decision to engage there or in the nature of the engagement. Or both. Veterans of the war remain largely anonymous figures, accomplices in the mistake. Critically recounting the steps that led to the war, this book does not excuse the mistakes, but it brings those who served out of the shadows.Enduring Vietnam recounts the experiences of the young Americans who fought in Vietnam and of families who grieved those who did not return. By 1969 nearly half of the junior enlisted men who died in Vietnam were draftees. And their median age was 21—among the non-draftees it was only 20. The book describes the “baby boomers” growing up in the 1950s, why they went into the military, what they thought of the war, and what it was like to serve in “Nam.” And to come home. With a rich narrative of the Battle for “Hamburger Hill,” and through substantial interviews with those who served, the book depicts the cruelty of this war, and its quiet acts of courage.James Wright's Enduring Vietnam provides an important dimension to the profile of an American generation—and a rich account of an American War.
Into the Crucible: Making Marines for the 21st Century
by James WoulfeThis book describes the 54 hour exercise in which recruits are put through a series of taxing challenges whilst being denied sufficient food or sleep. Woulfe compares this training exercise with other schemes in other branches of service.
A Simple Brazilian Song: Journeys Through The Rio Sound
by James WoodallIn 1992, James Woodall was asked to write an article about a Brazilian musician he'd never heard of, called Chico Buarque. He discovered that Buarque was a national hero in his native country and that interviewing him was a bit like a Latin American interviewing Paul McCartney. Woodall fell under Buarque's spell and began an affair with Brazilian pop music which has lasted to this day. His new passion took him to Brazil and in particular to Rio de Janeiro, world capital of Carnival and samba. Over several visits, he met with Chico Buarque, discovered the city's immodest beach culture and took part in Carnival. He met Chico Buarque's great contemporary, Caetano Veloso and other stars. Picking up Portuguese on the hop, he learnt a great deal about Chico Buarque's life and about the strange and dangerous city where he lives. This book is as much a hymn to Rio de Janeiro as it is to the music that beats at its heart.
Unusual Undertakings: Military Memoirs
by James WilsonTo find an example of a full and successful, yet unconventional, military career, one need look no further than General 'Jim' Wilson. Always an outstanding sportsman, Jim found himself in the Rifle Brigade after Oxford just before the Second World War. His memoir concentrates on six of his major military endeavors; North Africa as a platoon commander followed by the long struggle up through Italy, both with the Rifle Brigade. After the war he was sent to India and became caught up in the momentous events of Partition, and in a position to comment on all the key political and military personalities. His career prospered and he was one of the first commanders of a major peacekeeping operation in Cyprus, again closely involved with leaders such as Archbishop Makarios.
Blackfeet Tales from Apikuni's World
by James Willard Schultz David C. AndrewsA collection of short stories as they appeared in magazines in the early 1900's. These stories chronicle life experiences among the Black Feet Indians. The scholarly notes by the editor, David Andrews discuss the author and his legacy.
The Real James Herriot: A Memoir of My Father
by James WightNo one is better poised to write the biography of James Herriot than the son who worked alongside him in the Yorkshire veterinary practice when Herriot became an internationally bestselling author. Now, in this warm and poignant memoir, Jim Wight talks about his father--the beloved veterinarian whom his family had to share with half the world.Alf Wight (aka James Herriot) grew up in Glasgow, where he lived during a happy rough-and-tumble childhood and then through the challenging years of training at the Glasgow Veterinary College. The story of how the young vet later traveled to the small Yorkshire town of Thirsk, aka Darrowby, to take the job of assistant vet is one that is well known through James Herriot's internationally celebrated books and the popular All Creatures Great and Small television series. But Jim Wight's biography ventures beyond the trials and tribulations of his father's life as a veterinarian to reveal the man behind the stories--the private individual who refused to allow fame and wealth to interfere with his practice or his family. With access to all of his father's papers, correspondence, manuscripts, and photographs--and intimate remembrances of all the farmers, locals, and friends who populate the James Herriot books--only Jim Wight could write this definitive biography of the man who was not only his father but his best friend.NOTE: This edition does not include a photo insert.
Outliving the White Lie: A Southerner's Historical, Genealogical, and Personal Journey
by James WigginsPart history, part memoir, Outliving the White Lie: A Southerner’s Historical, Genealogical, and Personal Journey charts conflicting narratives of American and southern identity through a blend of public, family, and deeply personal history. Author James Wiggins, who was raised in rural Mississippi, pairs thorough historical research with his own lived experiences. Outliving the White Lie looks squarely at the many untruths regarding the history and legacy of race that have proliferated among white Americans, from the misrepresentations of Black Confederates to the myth of a “postracial” America.Though the US was ostensibly established to achieve freedom and shrug off an oppressive English monarchy, this mythology of the United States’ founding belies a glaring paradox—that this is a country whose foundation depends entirely on coercion and enslavement. How, then, could generations of decent people, people who valued individual liberty and personal autonomy, coexist within and alongside such a paradox? Historians suggest an answer: that these apparently dissonant points of view were reconciled in antebellum America by white citizens learning “to live with slavery by learning to live a lie.” The operative lie throughout American history and the lie underpinning the institution of slavery, they argue, has always been the fallacy of race—deliberately propagated tenets asserting skin color as the preeminent marker of identity and value. Wiggins takes accepted delusions to task in this moving reconciliation of southern living.
Elliott Carter (American Composers)
by James WierzbickiThis compact introduction to the life and works of composer Elliott Carter provides a fresh perspective on one of the most significant American composers of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. A leading voice of the American classical music tradition and a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Music, Carter was initially encouraged to become a composer by Charles Ives, and he went on to learn from Walter Piston at Harvard University and Nadia Boulanger in Paris. Drawing on Carter's voluminous writings and compositions, James Wierzbicki provides a clear discussion of Carter's evolving understanding of musical time and the influence of film on his work. Celebrating his 100th birthday in 2008 by premiering a number of new compositions, Carter has been a powerful presence on the American new music scene, an important connection to American music's foundational figures, and a dynamic force in its continuing evolution.
A Better Ending: A Brother's Twenty-Year Quest to Uncover the Truth About His Sister's Death
by James Whitfield Thomson&“Haunting and heartfelt...Thomson&’s memoir is meticulously recounted with powerful suspense and hard-earned wisdom.&” —Robert Kolker, author of Hidden Valley Road A propulsive and moving memoir about a brother&’s decades-long investigation into the circumstances surrounding his sister&’s tragic death—and his own journey to forgiveness and closure.On a summer evening in 1974, Jim Thomson arrived home from a baseball game to the news that his younger sister, Eileen, had taken her own life. To Jim, his parents, and his brother, Keith, the loss was unexpected and devastating. Only twenty-seven years old, Eileen had been living in California with her high school sweetheart, Vic, a cop, surrounded by a circle of close friends and working at a job she loved. It seemed unfathomable that she would kill herself, but as the family gathered in Pittsburgh to say goodbye, more details emerged that seemed to explain the tragedy: Eileen had confided in her parents that she had been suffering from depression, and her storybook marriage had been plagued by bitter fights, infidelity, and guilt. When Jim eventually sat down with his brother-in-law to talk about the final hours of Eileen&’s life, Vic looked him in the eye and explained that he had stormed out of the room in the midst of a volatile argument. Moments later, a gunshot went off. Sensing no lies or evasion, Jim believed him. He recounted the story to the rest of the family, and they got on with their lives as best they could. Twenty-seven years later, with all of his family passed away, Eileen&’s death began to nag at Jim. Now a writer, he wanted to fill in the blanks of her story and answer the questions that were plaguing him. What had the final months of Eileen&’s life been like? Why had she not told him about her troubles? How had the infidelity in her marriage brought her and Vic to that fateful day, and who else had been a part of it? What other demons had she been battling? Determined to uncover the truth, Jim hired a private investigator to help him. Together, they tracked down Eileen&’s old friends and clandestinely obtained copies of police reports, which revealed that Vic and Eileen&’s relationship—and the sheriff&’s investigation that followed her death—was much darker and more complicated than they had imagined. Torn by doubt, Jim began a two-decade journey that took him from the streets of Pittsburgh to the hills of San Bernardino, leading him into a tangled web of secrecy, deception, and shifting stories that forced him to reconsider everything he thought he knew about Vic, Eileen, and himself—and to confront the chilling question of whether his sister had really taken her own life. Told with the precision and pace of a whodunit and the searing emotion of a family saga, A Better Ending is an unforgettable tale about the love between siblings, the murkiness of truth and memory, and the path to acceptance.
Center Center: A Funny, Sexy, Sad Almost-Memoir of a Boy in Ballet
by James Whiteside&“James Whiteside is an electrifying performer, an incredible athlete, and an artist, through and through. To know James is to love him; with Center Center, you are about to fall in love.&” —Jennifer Garner &“A frank examination and celebration of queerness.&”—Good Morning America A daring, joyous, and inspiring memoir-in-essays from the American Ballet Theatre principal dancer-slash-drag queen-slash-pop star who's redefining what it means to be a man in balletThere's a mark on every stage around the world that signifies the center of its depth and width, called "center center." James Whiteside has dreamed of standing on that very mark as a principal dancer with the prestigious American Ballet Theatre ever since he was a twelve-year-old blown away by watching the company's spring gala. The GLAMOUR. The VIRTUOSITY. The RIPPED MEN IN TIGHTS! In this absurd and absurdist collection of essays, Whiteside tells us the story of how he got to be a primo ballerino—stopping along the way to muse about the tragically fated childhood pets who taught him how to feel, reminisce on ill-advised partying at summer dance camps, and imagine fantastical run-ins with Jesus on Grindr. Also in these pages are tales of the two alter egos he created to subvert the strict classical rigor of ballet: JbDubs, an out-and-proud pop musician, and Ühu Betch, an over-the-top drag queen named after Yoohoo chocolate milk. Center Center is an exuberant behind-the-scenes tour of Whiteside&’s triple life, both on- and offstage—a raunchy, curious, and unapologetic celebration of queerness, self-expression, friendship, sex, creativity, and pushing boundaries that will entertain you, shock you*, inspire you, embolden you . . . and maybe even make you cry.*THIS IS NOT A BOOK FOR CHILDREN.
They Say: Ida B. Wells and the Reconstruction of Race
by James West DavidsonIn 'They Say,' James West Davidson recounts the first thirty years in the passionate life of Ida B. Wells--as well as the story of the great struggle over the meaning of race in post-emancipation America. Davidson captures the breathtaking and often chaotic changes that swept the South as Wells grew up in Holly Springs, Mississippi: the spread of education among free blacks, the rise of political activism, and the bitter struggles for equality in the face of entrenched social custom. When Wells came of age she moved to bustling Memphis, where her quest for personal fulfillment was thwarted as whites increasingly used race as a barrier to separate blacks from mainstream America. Davidson traces the crosscurrents of these cultural conflicts through Wells's forceful personality, intertwining her struggle to define herself with her early courageous, and often audacious, behavior. When a conductor threw her off a train for refusing to sit in the segregated car, she sued the railroad--and won. When she protested conditions in segregated Memphis schools, she was fired--and took up journalism. And in 1892, when an explosive lynching rocked Memphis, Wells embarked fully on the career for which she is now remembered, as outspoken anti-lynching writer and lecturer. Period photographs from postcards, newspapers, and Wells's own diary further engage readers in this dynamic story. Richly researched and deftly written, the book offers a gripping portrait of the young Ida B. Wells, who directly encountered and influenced the evolving significance of race in America.
Along This Way
by James Weldon JohnsonThe autobiography of the celebrated African American writer and civil rights activist Published just four years before his death in 1938, James Weldon Johnson’s autobiography is a fascinating portrait of an African American who broke the racial divide at a time when the Harlem Renaissance had not yet begun to usher in the civil rights movement. Not only an educator, lawyer, and diplomat, Johnson was also one of the most revered leaders of his time, going on to serve as the first black president of the NAACP (which had previously been run only by whites), as well as write the groundbreaking novel The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man. Beginning with his birth in Jacksonville, Florida, and detailing his education, his role in the Harlem Renaissance, and his later years as a professor and civil rights reformer, Along This Way is an inspiring classic of African American literature. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
I Heard My Country Calling: A Memoir
by James WebbIn this brilliantly received memoir, former senator James Webb has outdone himself. It is rare in America that one individual is recognized for the highest levels of combat valor, as a respected member of the literary and journalistic world, and as a blunt-spoken leader in national politics. In this extraordinary memoir, Webb writes vividly about the early years that shaped such a remarkable personal journey.Webb’s mother grew up in the poverty-stricken cotton fields of East Arkansas. His father and lifetime hero was the first in many generations of Webbs, whose roots are in Appalachia, to finish high school. He flew bombers in World War II and cargo planes in the Berlin Airlift, graduated from college in middle age, and became an expert in the nation’s most advanced weaponry. Webb’s account of his childhood is a tremendous American saga as the family endures the constant moves and challenges of the rarely examined post–World War II military, with a stern but emotionally invested father, a loving mother who had borne four children by the age of twenty-four, a granite-like grandmother who held the family together during his father’s frequent deployments, and a rich assortment of aunts, siblings, and cousins. Webb tells of his four years at Annapolis in a voice that is painfully honest but in the end triumphant. His description of Vietnam’s most brutal battlefields breaks new literary ground. One of the most highly decorated combat Marines of that war, he is a respected expert on the history and conduct of the war. Webb’s novelist’s eyes and ears invest this work with remarkable power, whether he is describing the resiliency that grew from constant relocations during his childhood, the longing for his absent father, his poignant good-bye to his parents as he leaves for Vietnam, his role as a twenty-three-year-old lieutenant through months of constant combat, or his election to the Senate, where he was a leader on national defense, foreign policy, and economic fairness. This is a life that could happen only in America.
Southern Selves: From Mark Twain and Eudora Welty to Maya Angelou and Kaye Gibbons--A Collection of Autobiographical Writing
by James WatkinsThe memoirist seek to capture not just a self but an entire world, and in this marvelous anthology thirty-one of the South's finest writers--writers like Kaye Gibbons and Reynolds Price, Eudora Welty and Harry Crews, Richard Wright and Dorothy Allison--make their intensely personal contributions to a vibrant collective picture of southern life. In the hands of these superb artists, the South's rich tradition of storytelling is brilliantly revealed. Whether slave or master, intellectual or "redneck," each voice in this moving and unforgettable collection is proof that southern literature richly deserves its reputation for irreverent humor, exquisite language, a feeling for place, and an undying, often heartbreaking sense of the past.From the Trade Paperback edition.
Adventures with a Texas Humanist
by James Ward LeeIn the first two essays in this volume--"The Age of Dobie" and "The Age of McMurtry"--James Ward Lee places the writers, the politicians, and the cultural leaders in the context of each age. Subsequent chapters discuss writers and trends in Texas literature. Lee discusses long-standing arguments about Texas literature and surveys bodies of work that have had an impact on it.