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Beautiful Stranger (A-List Novel #9)
by Zoey DeanAnna decides to take an end-of-summer getaway-to get away from her drama-filled LA life. So she packs her Louis Vuitton, grabs her close friend Sam, and heads to the Big Apple. Between trips to the Met and shopping at Bendel's, the girls are living the A-List life on Anna's home turf. But their trip isn't exactly a vacation. Sam is here to spy on Eduardo and decode his recent strange behavior. Will what she discovers send her hopping on the next private jet back to Beverly Hills? And who is the beautiful stranger who appears on Anna's Upper East Side doorstep? Anna begins to wonder whether she wants to head back west again-especially since Ben seems to have moved on . . . with someone who isn't a stranger at all. When it comes to the A-List, there's drama coast to coast.
Beautiful TV: The Art and Argument of Ally McBeal
by Greg M. SmithDuring its five-year run from 1997 to 2002, the popular TV show Ally McBeal engaged viewers in debates over what it means to be a woman or a man in the modern workplace; how romance factors into the therapeutic understanding of relationships; what value eccentricity has and how much oddity society should tolerate; and what utility fantasy has in the pragmatic world. In addition to these social concerns, however, Ally McBeal stood out for being well-constructed, narratively complex, and stylistically rich--in short, beautiful TV. Starting from the premise that much of television today is "drop-dead gorgeous" and that TV should be studied for its formal qualities as well as its social impact, Greg M. Smith analyzes Ally McBeal in terms of its aesthetic principles and narrative construction. He explores how Ally's innovative use of music, special effects, fantasy sequences, voiceovers, and flashbacks structures a distinctive fictional universe, while it also opens up new possibilities for televisual expression. Smith also discusses the complex narrative strategies that Ally's creator David E. Kelley used to develop a long-running storyline and shows how these serial narrative practices can help us understand a wide range of prime-time TV serials. By taking seriously the art and argument of Ally McBeal, Beautiful TV conclusively demonstrates that aesthetic and narrative analysis is an indispensable key for unlocking the richness of contemporary television.
Beautiful Terrible Ruins
by Dora ApelOnce the manufacturing powerhouse of the nation, Detroit has become emblematic of failing cities everywhere--the paradigmatic city of ruins--and the epicenter of an explosive growth in images of urban decay. In Beautiful Terrible Ruins, art historian Dora Apel explores a wide array of these images, ranging from photography, advertising, and television, to documentaries, video games, and zombie and disaster films. Apel shows how Detroit has become pivotal to an expanding network of ruin imagery, imagery ultimately driven by a pervasive and growing cultural pessimism, a loss of faith in progress, and a deepening fear that worse times are coming. The images of Detroit's decay speak to the overarching anxieties of our era: increasing poverty, declining wages and social services, inadequate health care, unemployment, homelessness, and ecological disaster--in short, the failure of capitalism. Apel reveals how, through the aesthetic distancing of representation, the haunted beauty and fascination of ruin imagery, embodied by Detroit's abandoned downtown skyscrapers, empty urban spaces, decaying factories, and derelict neighborhoods help us to cope with our fears. But Apel warns that these images, while pleasurable, have little explanatory power, lulling us into seeing Detroit's deterioration as either inevitable or the city's own fault, and absolving the real agents of decline--corporate disinvestment and globalization. Beautiful Terrible Ruins helps us understand the ways that the pleasure and the horror of urban decay hold us in thrall.
Beautiful on the Outside: A Memoir
by Adam RipponFormer Olympic figure skater and self-professed America's Sweetheart Adam Rippon shares his underdog journey from beautiful mess to outrageous success in this hilarious, big-hearted memoir.Your mom probably told you it's what on the inside that counts. Well, then she was never a competitive figure skater. Olympic medalist Adam Rippon has been making it pretty for the judges even when, just below the surface, everything was an absolute mess. From traveling to practices on the Greyhound bus next to ex convicts to being so poor he could only afford to eat the free apples at his gym, Rippon got through the toughest times with a smile on his face, a glint in his eye, and quip ready for anyone listening. Beautiful on the Outside looks at his journey from a homeschooled kid in Scranton, Pennsylvania, to a self-professed American sweetheart on the world stage and all the disasters and self-delusions it took to get him there. Yeah, it may be what's on the inside that counts, but life is so much better when it's beautiful on the outside.
Beautiful: The Life of Hedy Lamarr
by Stephen Michael Shearer“A fascinating biography that re-creates Hollywood’s Golden Age of Glamour” as it recounts the life of the star and inventor (Publishers Weekly).Hedy Lamarr’s exotic beauty was heralded across Europe in the early 1930s. Yet she became infamous for her nude scenes in the scandalous movie Ecstasy. Trapped in a marriage to one of Austria’s munitions barons, a friend of Mussolini’s who hid his Jewish heritage to become an “honorary Aryan” at the onset of World War II, Lamarr fled Europe for Hollywood, where she was transformed into one of cinema’s most glamorous stars, appearing opposite such actors as Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, and James Stewart. As her career faded, she went from one husband to the next, her personal troubles and legal woes casting a shadow over her phenomenal intelligence and former image.Stephen Michael Shearer separates the truth from the rumors regarding the life of Hedy Lamarr, and highlights her astonishing role as inventor of a technology that has become an essential part of everything from military weaponry to today’s cell phones.Praise for Beautiful“In Beautiful, Mr. Shearer writes with humor and has fun with some of the glorious nonsense of Lamarr’s movies.” —Jeanine Basinger, The Wall Street Journal“Much more than a standard Hollywood biography.” —Edge Magazine
Because He's Jeff Goldblum: The Movies, Memes and Meaning of Hollywood's Most Enigmatic Actor
by Travis M. AndrewsAn irreverent yet deeply researched biography about the always offbeat, suddenly meme-able, and wildly popular actor When did you first encounter Jeff Goldblum? Maybe as a deranged killer in his 1974 screen debut in Death Wish? Maybe as a cynical journalist in 1983s The Big Chill? Or a brilliant if egotistical scientist-turned-fly in 1986s The Fly? Perhaps as the wise-cracking skeptical mathematician in 1993s Jurassic Park? Or maybe you&’re not a film buff but noticed his face as part of one of the Internet&’s earliest memes. Who knows? Whenever it was, you&’ve probably noticed that Goldblum has become one of Hollywood&’s most enduring actors, someone who only seems to grow more famous, more heralded, more beloved through the decades, even though he&’s always followed his own, strange muse. The guy primarily plays jazz music these days, but is more famous than ever. Actor, pianist, husband, father, style icon, meme. Goldblum contains multitudes, but why? What does he mean? The Washington Post&’s Travis M. Andrews decided to find out. And so he set out on a journey through Goldblum's career, talking to directors like Lawrence Kasdan and Philip Kaufman, colleagues like Harry Shearer and Billy Crudup, and pop culture experts like Chuck Klosterman and Sean Fennessey, to get to the bottom of this whole Goldblum thing. And then he took what he learned and he wrote this book, which is titled Because He&’s Jeff Goldblum and is the best thing written since The Brothers Karamazov and slightly easier to follow. But you should already know that. In this new semi-biography, semi-rumination, and semi-ridiculous look at the career of Goldblum, Andrews takes you behind the scenes of his iconic movies, explores the shifting nature of fame in the twenty-first century, and spends far too much time converting Goldblum&’s name into various forms of speech. Want to hear how Goldblum saved a script supervisor from an amorous baboon? Or what he would write on the mirror after taking showers when he was a teenager? How about his feelings on various brands of throat lozenges? (That one could be an entire book unto itself.) Then this is the book for you!
Becca Fair and Foul
by Deirdre BakerA summer on an idyllic island surrounded by water and wildlife. What could possibly go wrong?When eleven-year-old Becca returns to her grandmother’s rustic cottage for another summer, she finds herself seeing her beloved island in new ways. A hunting owl mistakes a bobbing ponytail for prey. A cozy sleepover on the beach takes on the tinges of a nightmare when a family of river otters shows up to claim their territory. An argument between a nestbound baby eaglet and its haranguing mother reaches operatic dimensions. Becca finds a dead bear on the beach and helps to give it a burial at sea.Then there are dramas of the human variety. Aunt Meg is grieving over a miscarriage, and Aunt Clare’s medical work in Africa has brought on a sadness that even the love of family and the island’s beauty can’t cure. And there is the burning question of whether Aunt Fifi and the local plumber will ever become an item, and would that mean losing the only plumber on the island?Meanwhile, cousin Alicia claims to be too old to participate in the kids’ summer project — a performance of The Tempest, a play that seems to find unsettling echoes in the natural surroundings Becca thought she knew so well.Correlates to the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts:CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.4.2Determine a theme of a story, drama, or poem from details in the text; summarize the text.CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.5.2Determine a theme of a story, drama, or poem from details in the text, including how characters in a story or drama respond to challenges or how the speaker in a poem reflects upon a topic; summarize the text.CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.6.3Describe how a particular story's or drama's plot unfolds in a series of episodes as well as how the characters respond or change as the plot moves toward a resolution.
Beckett and Politics: Politics, Propaganda And A 'universe Become Provisional' (New Directions in Irish and Irish American Literature)
by William Davies Helen BaileyThis collection of essays reveals the extent to which politics is fundamental to our understanding of Samuel Beckett’s life and writing. Bringing together internationally established and emerging scholars, Beckett and Politics considers Beckett’s work as it relates to three broad areas of political discourse: language politics, biopolitics and geopolitics. Through a range of critical approaches, including performance studies, political theory, gender theory, historicizing approaches and language theory, the book demonstrates how politics is more than just another thematic lens: it is fundamentally and structurally intrinsic to Beckett’s life, his texts and subsequent interpretations of them. This important collection of essays demonstrates that Beckett’s work is not only ripe for political engagement, but also contains significant opportunities for understanding and illuminating the broader relationships between literature, culture and politics.
Beckett, Deleuze and Performance: A Thousand Failures and A Thousand Inventions (Performance Philosophy)
by Daniel KoczyThis book draws on the theatrical thinking of Samuel Beckett and the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze to propose a method for research undertaken at the borders of performance and philosophy. Exploring how Beckett fabricates encounters with the impossible and the unthinkable in performance, it asks how philosophy can approach what cannot be thought while honouring and preserving its alterity. Employing its method, it creates a series of encounters between aspects of Beckett’s theatrical practice and a range of concepts drawn from Deleuze’s philosophy. Through the force of these encounters, a new range of concepts is invented. These provide novel ways of thinking affect and the body in performance; the possibility of theatrical automation; and the importance of failure and invention in our attempts to respond to performance encounters. Further, this book includes new approaches to Beckett’s later theatrical work and provides an overview of Deleuze’s conception of philosophical practice as an ongoing struggle to think with immanence.
Becky Chan: A Novel
by Jared MitchellBecky Chan’s life gets off to a rocky start. She is born into a poor family, with a ne’er-do-well father. But by 1967, she is the reigning queen of the Hong Kong film industry, and her life is frequently confused by her public with the roles that she plays, including the Goddess of Mercy. In the city, Communist factions are setting bombs and kidnapping people. In mainland China, itself in the throes of the Cultural Revolution, rival factions of the Communist Party are terrorizing the nation. In the midst of this turmoil, Becky Chan disappears.Told from the point of view of an aging Canadian expatriate residing in the colony, Becky Chan is an absorbing and intriguing story that is entirely set in the Hong Kong film world. Woven into Becky’s life story, itself the stuff of a Mandarin movie, are the plots of several of her 190 films.
Becky Lynch: Not Your Average Average Girl
by Rebecca QuinA New York Times bestseller! This &“infectious and contagious&” (&“Stone Cold&” Steve Austin) memoir from WWE superstar Rebecca Quin—a.k.a. The Man, a.k.a. Becky Lynch—delves into her earliest wrestling days, her scrappy beginnings, and her meteoric rise to fame.Raised in Dublin, Ireland, in a devoutly Catholic family, Rebecca Quin constantly invented new ways to make her mother worry—roughhousing with the neighborhood kids, hosting secret parties while her parents were away, enrolling in a warehouse wrestling school, nearly breaking her neck and almost kneecapping a WWE star before her own wrestling career even began—and she was always in search of a thrilling escape from the ordinary. Rebecca&’s childhood love of wrestling set her on an unlikely path. With few female wrestlers to look to for guidance, Rebecca pursued a wrestling career hoping to change the culture and move it away from the antiquated disrespect so often directed at the elite female athletes who grace the ring. Even as a teenager, she knew that she would stop at nothing to earn a space among the greatest wrestlers of our time and to pave a new path for female fighters. Culled from decades of journal entries, this &“endearing debut memoir&” (Publishers Weekly) offers a candid depiction of the complex woman behind the character Rebecca Quin plays on TV.
Become a Chess Champion: Learn the Basics from a Pro
by Neon Squid James Canty IIIKids will learn how to master the basics of the classic board game in this fun beginner’s guide from professional chess player James Canty III.Become a Chess Champion is structured like a chess course, with knowledge carefully introduced as readers turn the pages – assisted by hilarious chess pieces illustrated by Brian Lambert. The emphasis is on fun: James Canty III uses mini games and chess puzzles to teach important concepts and avoid overwhelming beginners. Kids will learn key skills like how to play the perfect opening and trick their opponents to bring about checkmate. By the end of the book readers should be able to confidently take on their parents, guardians or grandparents in a competitive game of chess!Become a Chess Champion also introduces kids to the wonderful world of chess. They’ll meet the chess player who didn’t lose a game for 30 years, the priest who invented the folding chess board, and the astronauts on the International Space station who had a chess match with people back on Earth!As well as being great fun, chess also helps kids develop key skills such as strategising, patience, and logic, and helps them excel in school subjects such as mathematics.The cover features gold foil, making this book the perfect gift. Check it out!
Becoming Beatriz
by Tami CharlesBeatriz dreams of a life spent dancing--until tragedy on the day of her quinceañera changes everything.Up until her fifteenth birthday, the most important thing in the world to Beatriz Mendez was her dream of becoming a professional dancer and getting herself and her family far from the gang life that defined their days--that and meeting her dance idol Debbie Allen on the set of her favorite TV show, Fame. But after the latest battle in a constant turf war leaves her brother, Junito, dead and her mother grieving, Beatriz has a new set of priorities. How is she supposed to feel the rhythm when her brother's gang needs running, when her mami can't brush her own teeth, and when the last thing she can remember of her old self is dancing with her brother, followed by running and gunshots? When the class brainiac reminds Beatriz of her love of the dance floor, her banished dreams sneak back in. Now the only question is: will the gang let her go? Set in New Jersey in 1984, Beatriz's story is a timeless one of a teenager's navigation of romance, her brother's choices, and her own family's difficult past. A companion novel to the much-lauded Like Vanessa.
Becoming Beautiful: Ballroom Dance in the American Heartland
by Joanna BosseIn Becoming Beautiful, Joanna Bosse explores the transformations undergone by the residents of a Midwestern town when they step out on the dance floor for the very first time. Bosse uses sensitive fieldwork as well as her own immersion in ballroom culture to lead readers into a community that springs up around ballroom dance. The result is a portrait of the real people who connect with others, change themselves, and join a world that foxtrots to its own rules, conventions, and rewards. Bosse's eye for revealing, humorous detail adds warmth and depth to discussions around critical perspectives on the experiences the dance hall provides, the nature of partnership and connection, and the notion of how dancing allows anyone to become beautiful.
Becoming Belafonte: Black Artist, Public Radical (Discovering America)
by Judith E. SmithThis biography of the singer, actor, and fearless anti-racism activist is “so engaging that readers will crave a sequel” (Kirkus Reviews).A son of poor Jamaican immigrants who grew up in Depression-era Harlem, Harry Belafonte became the first black performer to gain artistic control over the representation of African Americans in commercial television and film. Forging connections with an astonishing array of consequential players on the American scene in the decades following World War II—from Paul Robeson to Ed Sullivan, John Kennedy to Stokely Carmichael—Belafonte established his place in American culture as a hugely popular singer, matinee idol, internationalist, and champion of civil rights, black pride, and black power.In Becoming Belafonte, Judith E. Smith presents the first full-length interpretive study of this multitalented artist. She sets Belafonte’s compelling story within a history of American race relations, black theater and film history, McCarthy-era hysteria, and the challenges of introducing multifaceted black culture in a moment of expanding media possibilities and constrained political expression. Smith traces Belafonte’s roots in the radical politics of the 1940s, his careful negotiation of the complex challenges of the Cold War 1950s, and his full flowering as a civil rights advocate and internationally acclaimed performer in the 1960s. In Smith’s account, Belafonte emerges as a relentless activist, a questing intellectual, and a tireless organizer—and a performer who never shied away from the dangerous crossroads where art and politics meet.
Becoming Belafonte: Black Artist, Public Radical (Discovering America)
by Judith E. SmithThis biography of the singer, actor, and fearless anti-racism activist is “so engaging that readers will crave a sequel” (Kirkus Reviews).A son of poor Jamaican immigrants who grew up in Depression-era Harlem, Harry Belafonte became the first black performer to gain artistic control over the representation of African Americans in commercial television and film. Forging connections with an astonishing array of consequential players on the American scene in the decades following World War II—from Paul Robeson to Ed Sullivan, John Kennedy to Stokely Carmichael—Belafonte established his place in American culture as a hugely popular singer, matinee idol, internationalist, and champion of civil rights, black pride, and black power.In Becoming Belafonte, Judith E. Smith presents the first full-length interpretive study of this multitalented artist. She sets Belafonte’s compelling story within a history of American race relations, black theater and film history, McCarthy-era hysteria, and the challenges of introducing multifaceted black culture in a moment of expanding media possibilities and constrained political expression. Smith traces Belafonte’s roots in the radical politics of the 1940s, his careful negotiation of the complex challenges of the Cold War 1950s, and his full flowering as a civil rights advocate and internationally acclaimed performer in the 1960s. In Smith’s account, Belafonte emerges as a relentless activist, a questing intellectual, and a tireless organizer—and a performer who never shied away from the dangerous crossroads where art and politics meet.
Becoming Bille Holiday
by Carole Boston WeatherfordIn a series of free-verse poems and bluesy lyrics, headed by song titles, Weatherford retraces Holiday's childhood and early career in the renowned jazz singer's own voice. "At eleven, I had the body / of a grown woman, / the mouth of a sailor, and a temper / hot enough to fry an egg." Growing up in Baltimore, she moved to Harlem with her sometimes-absent mother after being molested by a neighbor, and quickly fell in love with late-night life. Dubbed "Lady Day," she earned money singing in clubs, was "discovered" by jazz-enthusiast John Hammond, and battled racism on a groundbreaking tour with Artie Shaw's all-white band. Closing with Holiday's spectacular headline gig at the Café Society, where she sang "Strange Fruit"--"how could I not claim: / this is my song?"--Weatherford leaves the 25-year-old at a high spot in her career, before later troubles and drug addiction. After the whole story readers will find a generous assortment of recommended reading and listening at the end of this proud, clear-voiced testimonial. Grades 6-9. --John Peters
Becoming Centaur: Eighteenth-Century Masculinity and English Horsemanship (Animalibus)
by Monica MattfeldIn this study of the relationship between men and their horses in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century England, Monica Mattfeld explores the experience of horsemanship and how it defined one’s gendered and political positions within society.Men of the period used horses to transform themselves, via the image of the centaur, into something other—something powerful, awe-inspiring, and mythical. Focusing on the manuals, memoirs, satires, images, and ephemera produced by some of the period’s most influential equestrians, Mattfeld examines how the concepts and practices of horse husbandry evolved in relation to social, cultural, and political life. She looks closely at the role of horses in the world of Thomas Hobbes and William Cavendish; the changes in human social behavior and horse handling ushered in by elite riding houses such as Angelo’s Academy and Mr. Carter’s; and the public perception of equestrian endeavors, from performances at places such as Astley’s Amphitheatre to the satire of Henry William Bunbury. Throughout, Mattfeld shows how horses aided the performance of idealized masculinity among communities of riders, in turn influencing how men were perceived in regard to status, reputation, and gender.Drawing on human-animal studies, gender studies, and historical studies, Becoming Centaur offers a new account of masculinity that reaches beyond anthropocentrism to consider the role of animals in shaping man.
Becoming Centaur: Eighteenth-Century Masculinity and English Horsemanship (Animalibus: Of Animals and Cultures #9)
by Monica MattfeldIn this study of the relationship between men and their horses in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century England, Monica Mattfeld explores the experience of horsemanship and how it defined one’s gendered and political positions within society.Men of the period used horses to transform themselves, via the image of the centaur, into something other—something powerful, awe-inspiring, and mythical. Focusing on the manuals, memoirs, satires, images, and ephemera produced by some of the period’s most influential equestrians, Mattfeld examines how the concepts and practices of horse husbandry evolved in relation to social, cultural, and political life. She looks closely at the role of horses in the world of Thomas Hobbes and William Cavendish; the changes in human social behavior and horse handling ushered in by elite riding houses such as Angelo’s Academy and Mr. Carter’s; and the public perception of equestrian endeavors, from performances at places such as Astley’s Amphitheatre to the satire of Henry William Bunbury. Throughout, Mattfeld shows how horses aided the performance of idealized masculinity among communities of riders, in turn influencing how men were perceived in regard to status, reputation, and gender.Drawing on human-animal studies, gender studies, and historical studies, Becoming Centaur offers a new account of masculinity that reaches beyond anthropocentrism to consider the role of animals in shaping man.
Becoming Cleopatra: The Shifting Image of an Icon
by Francesca T. RoysterCleopatra is one of our icons of “exotic” femininity. Sexy, political, and racially ambiguous--since the time of Shakespeare she has been a central character in popular culture. And, more often than not, Cleopatra has been imagined as the epitome of dangerous female sexuality. Moving fluidly from Shakespeare's England to contemporary Los Angeles, Francesca Royster looks at the performance of race and sexuality in a wide range of portrayals of Cleopatra. Royster begins with Shakespeare's original appropriation of Plutarch, and then moves on to analyze performances of the Cleopatra icon by Josephine Baker, and the on screen performances of Elizabeth Taylor, Tamara Dobson (Cleopatra Jones), and Queen Latifah (in Set It Off).
Becoming Ella Fitzgerald: The Jazz Singer Who Transformed American Song
by Judith TickAn NPR “Books We Love” Pick of the Year A Kirkus Best Nonfiction Book of the Year “[A] radiant, rich, no-stone-unturned biography.”—Paula J. Giddings, author of When and Where I Enter A landmark biography that reclaims Ella Fitzgerald as a major American artist and modernist innovator. Ella Fitzgerald (1917–1996) possessed one of the twentieth century’s most astonishing voices. In this first major biography since Fitzgerald’s death, historian Judith Tick offers a sublime portrait of this ambitious risk-taker whose exceptional musical spontaneity made her a transformational artist. Becoming Ella Fitzgerald clears up long-enduring mysteries. Archival research and in-depth family interviews shed new light on the singer’s difficult childhood in Yonkers, New York, the tragic death of her mother, and the year she spent in a girls’ reformatory school—where she sang in its renowned choir and dreamed of being a dancer. Rarely seen profiles from the Black press offer precious glimpses of Fitzgerald’s tense experiences of racial discrimination and her struggles with constricting models of Black and white femininity at midcentury. Tick’s compelling narrative depicts Fitzgerald’s complicated career in fresh and original detail, upending the traditional view that segregates vocal jazz from the genre’s mainstream. As she navigated the shifting tides between jazz and pop, she used her originality to pioneer modernist vocal jazz. Interpreting long-lost setlists, reviews from both white and Black newspapers, and newly released footage and recordings, the book explores how Ella’s transcendence as an improvisor produced onstage performances every bit as significant as her historic recorded oeuvre. From the singer’s first performance at the Apollo Theatre’s famous “Amateur Night” to the Savoy Ballroom, where Fitzgerald broke through with Chick Webb’s big band in the 1930s, Tick evokes the jazz world in riveting detail. She describes how Ella helped shape the bebop movement in the 1940s, as she joined Dizzy Gillespie and her then-husband, Ray Brown, in the world-touring Jazz at the Philharmonic, one of the first moments of high-culture acceptance for the disreputable art form. Breaking ground as a female bandleader, Fitzgerald refuted expectations of musical Blackness, deftly balancing artistic ambition and market expectations. Her legendary exploration of the Great American Songbook in the 1950s fused a Black vocal aesthetic and jazz improvisation to revolutionize the popular repertoire. This hybridity often confounded critics, yet throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Ella reached audiences around the world, electrifying concert halls, and sold millions of records. A masterful biography, Becoming Ella Fitzgerald describes a powerful woman who set a standard for American excellence nearly unmatched in the twentieth century.
Becoming Free Indeed: My Story of Disentangling Faith from Fear
by Jinger VuoloJinger Vuolo, the sixth child in the famous Duggar family of TLC's 19 Kids and Counting and Counting On, recounts how she began to question the unhealthy ideology of her youth and learned to embrace true freedom in Christ.When Jinger Duggar Vuolo was growing up, she was convinced that obeying the rules was the key to success and God's favor. She zealously promoted the Basic Life Principles of Bill Gothard,fastidiously obeying the modesty guidelines (no shorts or jeans, only dresses),eagerly submitting to the umbrella of authority (any disobedience of parents would place her outside God's protection), promoting the relationship standard of courtship, andavoiding any music with a worldly beat, among others. Jinger, along with three of her sisters, wrote a New York Times bestseller about their religious convictions. She believed this level of commitment would guarantee God's blessing, even though in private she felt constant fear that she wasn't measuring up to the high standards demanded of her.In Becoming Free Indeed, Jinger shares how in her early twenties, a new family member—a brother-in-law who didn't grow up in the same tight-knit conservative circle as Jinger—caused her to examine her beliefs. He was committed to the Bible, but he didn't believe many of the things Jinger had always assumed were true. His influence, along with the help of a pastor named Jeremy Vuolo, caused Jinger to see that her life was built on rules, not God's Word.Jinger committed to studying the Bible—truly understanding it—for the first time. What resulted was an earth-shaking realization: much of what she'd always believed about God, obedience to His Word, and personal holiness wasn't in-line with what the Bible teaches.Now with a renewed faith of personal conviction, Becoming Free Indeed shares what it was like living under the tenants of Bill Gothard, the Biblical truth that changed her perspective, and how she disentangled her faith with her belief in Jesus intact.
Becoming Jimi Hendrix: From Southern Crossroads to Psychedelic London, the Untold Story of a Musical Genius
by Steven Roby Brad SchreiberThe first in-depth biography of the formative years of the greatest electric guitarist of all time, with 25 rare photos, complete sessionography, and tour itinerary
Becoming Molly-Mae
by Molly-Mae HagueThe real Molly-Mae, in her own wordsMolly-Mae Hague is no stranger to the limelight, having found fame on TV and online. But behind the polished exterior there is a young girl with a unique story. It's the Molly not everyone gets to see.In Becoming Molly-Mae she unravels herself completely for the first time to open up about how she nurtured her creativity from a young age, took ownership of her body image, battle self-doubt and built a happy life. Along the way she shares the moments, relationships and life lessons that have made her who she is. From the energetic child who loved Irish dancing and pageants, to the teenager holding down a job at Boots whilst building her dreams at fashion school, her journey to Love Island and how she copes with fame today.By sharing these parts of herself, Molly-Mae gives a fresh take on finding beauty and balance in a busy world.
Becoming Richard Pryor
by Scott SaulAn intimate biography with photographs included: “The most detailed and rigorously researched work on the comic’s life and performances.” —The Washington PostRichard Pryor may have been the most unlikely star in Hollywood history. Raised in his family’s brothels, he grew up an outsider to privilege. He took to the stage, originally, to escape the hard-bitten realities of his childhood, but later came to a reverberating discovery: that by plunging into the depths of his experience, he could make stand-up comedy as exhilarating and harrowing as the life he’d known. He brought that trembling vitality to Hollywood, where his movie career—Blazing Saddles, the buddy comedies with Gene Wilder, Blue Collar—flowed directly out of his spirit of creative improvisation. The major studios considered him dangerous. Audiences felt plugged directly into the socket of life.Becoming Richard Pryor brings the man and his comic genius into focus as never before. Drawing upon a mountain of original research—interviews with family and friends, court transcripts, unpublished journals, screenplay drafts—Scott Saul traces Pryor’s rough journey to the heights of fame: from his heartbreaking childhood, his trials in the army, and his apprentice days in Greenwich Village to his soul-searching interlude in Berkeley and his ascent in the “New Hollywood” of the 1970s.Illuminating an entertainer who, by bringing together the spirits of the black freedom movement and the counterculture, forever altered the DNA of American comedy, it reveals that, while Pryor made himself a legend with his own account of his life onstage, the full truth of that life is more bracing still.“Absorbing, incisive . . . .With skill and insight, Saul shows how both the best and the worst of Pryor could merge into a great body of work unmatched by anyone who was ever paid to make people laugh.”—USA Today“A pop-culture masterpiece of exhaustive reporting, psychological insight and elegant writing.”—Cleveland Plain Dealer“Shines a light on a revolutionary stand-up comic who perfected the art of dramatizing his own imperfections, and the world’s.”—Publishers Weekly