Get paid to travel and write about it.Only no one told Jules that it would mean eating oily seabirds, repeatedly falling off a husky sled, getting stranded on a Mediterranean island, and crash-landing in Iran.The exotic destinations come thick and fast – Hong Kong, Hawaii, Huddersfield – as Jules navigates what it means to be a travel writer in a world with endless surprises up its sleeve.Add in a cast of larger-than-life characters – Elvis, Captain Cook, his own travel-mad Dad – and an eye for the ridiculous, and this journey with Jules is one you won’t want to miss.

    A terrorist attack on Australian soil. For seventeen hours Islamic State-inspired gunman Man Haron Monis held his captives in a terrifying drama that paralysed Sydney and kept a nation glued to its television screens. Two hostages were killed and three seriously wounded. The others would have their lives changed for ever.Despite the police leadership declaring it was well prepared for a terrorist attack, many shortcomings on the night revealed a response that fell seriously short of that promise. Deborah Snow lays bare what happened behind the scenes in the cafe as the hostages tried to keep themselves alive while waiting for a police response that didn't come. She also takes us into the police command posts as communications, equipment and decision-making structures broke down. Hurtling towards its inevitable and tragic conclusion, Siege draws us into a vortex of police missteps, extraordinary bravery and profound grief to reveal what happened during that awful day. Shocking, compelling and revealing Siege will take its place as the classic account of these events.

    It covers such characters as Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd and Laurel and Hardy.

    Here is a celebration (illustrated in glorious black and white) of the best of the worst cinematic catastrophes -- the shimmering stars, the dreadful directors, and the dubious dialogue that made these movies so abysmal.Remember John Travolta as a melting monster in The Devil's Rain? Henry Fonda as a fearless bee battler in The Swarm? Mary Tyler Moore as a heartsick nun in love with Elvis Presley in Change of Habit? How about Scuttlebutt the Talking Duck in Everything's Ducky?See if you can guess the winners in each of the 30 award categories -- from The Most Obnoxious Child Performer of All Time to the Life Achievement Awards: Worst Actor, Actress, and Director. Applaud the winner in a national poll for The (very) Worst Film of All Time and The Worst Films Compendium, an annotated index of the best of the unbelievable baddies.MC'd by the Brothers Medved--Harry, author of The Fifty Worst Films of All Time, and Michael, author of What Really Happened to the Class of '65? -- The Golden Turkey Awards is a cornucopia of cinemediocrity.WARNING: Over 425 actual films are described in this book, but one is a complete hoax. Can you find it?

    Many films later, he still works outside the studio system and guides every phase of his productions.Now Sayles has written an illuminating book about the complex choices that lie at the heart of every movie. Using the making of his film Matewan as an example, he offers chapters on screenwriting, directing, editing, sound, and more. Photographs, sketches, and the complete shooting script illustrate this engaging account of how Sayles's curiosity about a coal miners' strike in the town of Matewan, West Virginia, became a screenplay--and then a movie.

    Coyote, Donald Duck, Tom and Jerry, and many other cartoon favorites. Beginning with black-and-white silent cartoons, Barrier offers an insightful account, taking us inside early New York studios and such Hollywood giants as Disney, Warner Bros., and MGM. Barrier excels at illuminating the creative side of animation--revealing how stories are put together, how animators develop a character, how technical innovations enhance the realism of cartoons. Here too are colorful portraits of the giants of the field, from Walt and Roy Disney and their animators, to Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera. Based on hundreds of interviews with veteran animators, Hollywood Cartoons gives us the definitive inside look at this colorful era and at the creative process behind these marvelous cartoons.

    Many of the events in his life, and the characters whom he knew, are described in his books: this is the story of the man who wrote them.

    Acclaimed as both actor and director, as well as for his musical compositions, he’s won multiple Oscars for his achievements in front of and behind the camera and has established himself as a true cinematic great. This stunning volume presents a chronological look at his astonishing body of work, from the early “spaghetti westerns” to his iconic role as “Dirty” Harry Callahan in Dirty Harry (1971), to the soulful Bird (1988) and the revolutionary western Unforgiven (1992) through to more recent films such as the Academy Award-winning Mystic River (2003) and Million Dollar Baby (2004), and his latest picture, the rousing drama Invictus, starring Matt Damon and Morgan Freeman, which was released in December 2009. Over 300 spectacular images, including dynamic stills from memorable screen performances and revealing behind-the-scenes photos, are accompanied by Richard Schickel’s incisive and illuminating commentary.

    The author assures us it is not!Three years before they came together, four young American men left their fraternities and college campuses for an adventure exceeding their imaginations. Wanting something more than the draft and unknown to each other, they chose Naval Aviation as the next step in their lives. Generally, they were better than their navy peers, all qualifying for high performance aircraft to be flown from steel decks over foreign seas. They would become the pointy end of the stick in aerial battles over North Vietnam, the most heavily defended patch of real estate in the history of aerial warfare. They were to do this in 1967, the year in which Naval Aviation experienced its greatest losses.These four young men, now Lieutenants Junior Grade, United States Navy, were ordered to Attack Squadron 34 to fly A4 Skyhawks into combat. They were assigned Junior Officer's stateroom 0111 aboard USS Intrepid, a venerable aircraft carrier with a distinguished history. This "bunkroom" better known to them as Triple Sticks was the repository for a log (in navy terms) or journal written by these four young aviators. Forty years later this log was the genesis of this memoir.In the lethal environment over the northern reaches of North Vietnam or ashore in the Officer's clubs and bars of Asia, the writing brings to life wonderful humor, bizarre behavior, vivid aerial battles, uncommon loyalty, anger, frustration and respect. One survived or did not according to his skill and luck.

    Embraced as a cultural touchstone, the 1993 film would also make Matthew McConaughey’s famous phrase—alright, alright, alright—ubiquitous. But it started with a simple idea: Linklater thought people might like to watch a movie about high school kids just hanging out and listening to music on the last day of school in 1976.    To some, that might not even sound like a movie. But to a few studio executives, it sounded enough like the next American Graffiti to justify the risk. Dazed and Confused underperformed at the box office and seemed destined to disappear. Then something weird happened: Linklater turned out to be right. This wasn’t the kind of movie everybody liked, but it was the kind of movie certain people loved, with an intensity that felt personal. No matter what their high school experience was like, they thought Dazed and Confused was about them.Alright, Alright, Alright is the story of how this iconic film came together and why it worked. Combining behind-the-scenes photos and insights from nearly the entire cast, including Matthew McConaughey, Parker Posey, Ben Affleck, Joey Lauren Adams, and many others, and with full access to Linklater’s Dazed archives, it offers an inside look at how a budding filmmaker and a cast of newcomers made a period piece that would feel timeless for decades to come.

    Evanier tackles the themes that Allen has spent a lifetime sorting through in art: morality, sexuality, Judaism, the eternal struggle of head and heart. Woody will be the definitive word on a major American talent as he begins his ninth decade, and his sixth decade of making movies.

    It covered jazz, of course, but it also included Davis’s ruminations on race, politics and culture. Fascinated, Hef sent the writer—future Pulitzer-Prize-winning author Alex Haley, an unknown at the time—back to glean even more opinion and insight from Davis. The resulting exchange, published in the September 1962 issue, became the first official Playboy Interview and kicked off a remarkable run of public inquisition that continues today—and that has featured just about every cultural titan of the last half century.To celebrate the Interview’s 50th anniversary, the editors of Playboy have culled 50 of its most (in)famous Interviews and will publish them over the course of 50 weekdays (from September 4, 2012 to November 12, 2012) via Amazon’s Kindle Direct platform. Here is the interview with the journalist Hunter S. Thompson from the November 1974 issue.

    An all-encompassing manual that addresses safety, equipment, tactics, and the best practices for all shooters, here is an all-encompassing book of use to every gun owner.A result of twelve years of research, The Modern Day Gunslinger was written to meet the needs of the gun owner, the experienced shooter, those who own a weapon strictly for home and self-defense, and for the military member who wants to become a better shooter in defense of our country.It’s also for the law enforcement officer who risks his or her life going against the thugs of our society and for anyone interested in learning the defensive and tactical training techniques from some of the best and most experienced shooters in the world.This comprehensive training manual includes chapters on:Weapons and Range SafetyDry FireUse of ForceLiving in a BattlefieldCombat MindsetShooting CompetenceHandgunsDefensive Handgun AmmunitionMarksmanshipStanceBasic Kneeling PositionsReady PositionsThe Draw StrokesGrip and Trigger ControlVisual Techniques and Sight AlignmentMultiple ShotsFollow-Through and ScanLoading, Reloading, and UnloadingMalfunctionsLow- and No-Light ShootingConcealed Carry and HolstersLearning StylesTraining FundamentalsShooting DrillsThe shooting skills taught in this book carry broad application in civilian, law enforcement, and military contexts. Common criminals, terrorists, assailants—the enemy and threat—all will find themselves outgunned in the face of a properly armed and trained gunslinger. Members of the armed services, government and law enforcement agencies, as well as civilians, will find that the close-range shooting methods addressed in this book can provide a decisive advantage.

    Chris Jones and Genevieve Jolliffe provide a step-by-step guide to all aspects of production, from copyright law to casting agents, directions to stuns, cash sources to distribution. Case studies and a Producer's Toolkit with information on legal documentation, including blank forms and a complete budget breakdown make this an invaluable tool for any independent filmmaker.

    Brain-dead for sight, speech and movement, yet hopelessly alive to pain, hunger and terror, she now lies, barely alive, in the hospital where she once treated patients back to health. Virani's investigations also unearthed the crowning tragedy: while Aruna has been in coma for over twenty-five years, her rapist, a sweeper in the hospital, walked a free man after a mere seven years in prison for 'robbery and attempt to murder'. Vivid and gut-wrenching, this is a book that will haunt the reader long after the final page has been turned. 'Pinki Virani has narrated Aruna's brutalization through meticulous and persistent research. The structure of the book is notable in the way it resists sensationalism.' --The Telegraph 'Virani's book is researched, thought-provoking, sharp. It is both sad and angry, scathing and restrained.' --Pioneer '...her storytelling skil