What with broken promises, complicated jargon and a lack of simple and clear information, is it any wonder that voter turnout is plummeting? It's not that you don't care about the way the country is run - it's that you don't think you can change it. Well, you can. And this book aims to show you how, by setting out basic politics and answering questions we've all asked, like: Why do politicians lie? What do UKIP stand for? And what's going to happen to the NHS? You have a decision to make in the countdown to the May 2015 General Election. You have something politicians want. Your vote. An ambassador for #SwingtheVote and the presenter of Free Speech, Rick Edwards has written a pithy and succinct book explaining the power of your vote. A refreshing counterpoint to Russell Brand's sentiments on voting in his latest book, Revolution, it will make you think about politics in a completely new way.

    A backstage glimpse of the realities of the new Hollywood focuses on the film releases and strategies of the summer of 1998, showing why Godzilla was fated to fail and how Spielberg triumphed.

    “Photography Demystified—Your Guide to Understanding Photography, Gaining Creative Control and Taking Amazing Photographs!” has been designed to resolve your frustrations and photography difficulties. This book will give you the tools, education and practical applications needed to understand how to take great pictures! PLUS, a section entirely dedicated to assignments has been included! Video tutorials are also available at no charge! http://mckaylive.com/bonus/Along with my wife Ally, I own McKay Photography Academy. Leading hundreds of photographic tours around the world, I have taught over twelve thousand people just like you how to excel in photography. Having earned my Master of Photography and Photographic Craftsmen degrees from Professional Photographers of America, the leading photography organization in the world, I have been a full time professional photographer for over twenty nine years and am passionate about teaching others how to achieve great results in their photography. My motivation is to see that everyone can enjoy photography and take the frustration out of the process!Beginning photographers, camera buffs, photo enthusiast, and many others who struggle with understanding photography concepts, exposure, and their camera manuals have already experienced my proven methods of teaching beginner’s photography. This book will do the same for you!•Terry L from Santa Cruz, CA says: “Taking someone off automatic settings to manual settings can be daunting at times. Fortunately, I have had the experience of learning from David McKay. David has taken me further into the world of photography than I could have ever imagined.”•Keith W from Austin, TX writes: “David is one of those rare individuals that combine passion, extensive knowledge and a laid-back style in teaching photography. What else can I say; it is refreshing to learn from someone this talented.” •Steve of Steve Scurich Photography in Santa Barbara,CA states: “The ability to take decades of complex photography knowledge and boil it down into concepts that are clear, understandable and easy to implement, is David’s gift to the world. Personally, I am forever grateful for the inspiration and encouragement he’s given me.”•Denise Mann from San Antonio, TX says: “David McKay is passionate about photography and equally as passionate about teaching it to those eager to learn.”•Jeff G from Sacramento CA says: “David McKay is a great photographer—not every photographer can be a great educator, David is! David is able to take complicated topics and break them down to something easy to digest and practical to implement—you are inspired to go out and use what you just learned!”•Kara from San Jose, CA writes: “You can’t help but to feel his love for photography and his passion for teaching.

    

    “Curiouser and curiouser” —fun and fascinating facts from the world of drugs. Following in the tradition of The Ultimate Book of Useless Information, The Curious World of Drugs and Their Friends is a wry potpourri of interesting information about every conceivable kind of drug. Readers can feed their heads with anecdotes, facts, lists, statistics, and illustrations, including: • The test results of animals on LSD—cats lose their fear of dogs, and goats walk in geometric patterns • Drugs found in nature, from magic mushrooms to St. John’s wort to beaver secretions • Celebrities who overdosed at age 27—Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain, Brian Jones, and Jean Michel-Basquiat • Imaginary drugs in literature and film, from spice the mélange in Dune to Moloko plus in A Clockwork Orange • Nicknames for a joint—from doobie to giggly stick to Mr. Boom Bizzle • The global percentages of adults who have used cannabis—.004 percent in Singapore and 12.6 percent in the United States • The uses of opium in ancient Rome—from treatments for insomnia and epilepsy to colic and deafness • The most glamorous rehab clinics and their celebrity alumni • Mini-biographies of the biggest drug kingpins around the world Wacky but well-researched, unbiased and shameless, The Curious World of Drugs and Their Friends dares to take readers on a long, strange trivia trip.

    Part of the Imponderables® series, Feldman's book arms readers with information about everyday life -- from science, history, and politics to sports, television, and radio -- that encyclopedias, dictionaries, and almanacs just don't have. Where else will you learn what makes women open their mouths when applying mascara?

    The Vinyl Dialogues offers the stories behind 31 of the top albums of the 70s, including backstories behind the albums, the songs, and the artists. It was the 1970s: Big hair, bell-bottomed pants, Elvis sideburns and puka shell necklaces. The drugs, the freedom, the Me Generation, the lime green leisure suits. And then there was the music and how it defined a generation. The birth of Philly soul, the Jersey Shore Sound and disco. It's all there in "The Vinyl Dialogues," as told by the artists who lived and made Rock and Roll history throughout the decade.Throw in a little political intrigue - The Guess Who being asked not to play its biggest hit, "American Woman," at a White House appearance and Brewer and Shipley being called political subversives and making President Nixon's infamous "enemies list" - and "The Vinyl Dialogues offers a first-hand snapshot of a country in transition, hung over from the massive cultural changes of the 1960s and ready to dress outrageously and to shake its collective booty. All seen through the eyes, recollections and perspectives of the artists who lived it and made all that great music on all those great albums.

    Since all journalists and writers were barred from the shooting of the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind, actor Bob Balaban's diary is a rare on-the-spot account of the making of Steven Spielberg's classic sci-fi film.

    This completely revised 18th edition with 156 patterns and more than 400 beautiful color photographs illustrates, as well as realistically prices, glass made from the 1920s through the end of the 1930s.Collector Books

    Still, this first-hand account does shed much light on what it was really like to come under the charge of many different Indian tribes.Although Brayton’s treatment was not entirely negative or positive, his frank and blunt story does much to dispel the romantic stories that have been perpetuated about young settlers’ children who became Indian chattel. It does much to tell true history and dispel any deliberate or accidental revisions. In many cases the Indians treated Brayton well, but there can be no doubt that they stole from him and his family a life that would end up confused and stuck between two worlds. Although Brayton did finally unite with many of his natural family, he never stopped identifying with Native Americans, and he was forced to leave an Indian wife and child behind. In fact, when the War of Rebellion or Civil War broke out, Brayton enlisted and served in an American Indian brigade. Chet DembeckPublisher of One

    The Thumpin’ is the story of that historic victory and the man at the center on whom Democratic hopes hinged: Congressman Rahm Emanuel, head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC). Chicago Tribune reporter Naftali Bendavid had exclusive access to Emanuel and the DCCC in the year and a half leading up to the elections and ended up with the story of a lifetime, the thrilling blow-by-blow account of how Emanuel remade the campaign in his own ferocious image. Responsible for everything from handpicking Congressional candidates to raising money for attack ads, Emanuel, a talented ballet dancer better known in Washington for his extraordinary intensity and his inexhaustible torrents of profanity, threw out the playbook on the way Democrats run elections.Instead of rallying the base, Rahm sought moderate-to-conservative candidates who could attract more traditional voters. Instead of getting caught in the Democrats’ endless arguments about their positions, he went on the attack, personally vilifying Republicans from Tom DeLay to Christopher Shays. And instead of abiding by the gentlemen’s agreements of good-old-boy Washington, he broke them, attacking his counterpart in the Republican party and challenging Howard Dean, the chairman of his own party. In 2005, no one believed victory was within the Democrats’ grasp. But as the months passed, Republicans were caught in wave after wave of scandal, support for the war in Iraq steadily declined, and the president’s poll numbers plummeted. And in Emanuel, the Democrats finally had a killer, a ruthless closer like Karl Rove or Lee Atwater, poised to seize the advantage and deliver what President Bush would call “a thumpin.’”Taking its cues from classic political page-turners like Showdown at Gucci Gulch and documentaries like The War Room, The Thumpin’ takes us inside the key races and the national strategy-making that moved the Democrats from forecasted gains of three seats in 2005 to a sweeping gain of thirty seats when the votes were finally counted. Through this masterful account of Rahm’s rout, Bendavid shows how the lessons the Democrats learned in 2006—to fight for every vote, to abandon litmus tests, and to take no prisoners—will be crucial to the party’s future electoral success, and shape the political course the nation will take in the twenty-first century.From the Hardcover edition.

    This autobiographical history of Scientology is told by one of L. Ron Hubbard’s staunchest defenders.

    Reserved seats went on sale at premium prices. Audience members dressed up and arrived early to peruse the program during the overture that preceded the curtain's rise. And when the show began, it was--a rather disappointing film musical.In Roadshow!, film historian Matthew Kennedy tells the fascinating story of the downfall of the big-screen musical in the late 1960s. It is a tale of revolutionary cultural change, business transformation, and artistic missteps, all of which led to the obsolescence of the roadshow, a marketing extravaganza designed to make a movie opening in a regional city seem like a Broadway premier. Ironically, the Hollywood musical suffered from unexpected success. Facing doom after its bygone heyday, it suddenly broke box-office records with three rapid-fire successes in 1964 and 1965: Mary Poppins, My Fair Lady, and The Sound of Music. Studios rushed to catch the wave, but everything went wrong. Kennedy takes readers inside the making of such movies as Hello, Dolly! and Man of La Mancha, showing how corporate management imposed financial pressures that led to poor artistic decisions-for example, the casting of established stars regardless of vocal or dancing talent (such as Clint Eastwood in Paint Your Wagon). And Kennedy explores the impact of profound social, political, and cultural change. The traditional-sounding Camelot and Doctor Dolittle were released in the same year as Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, representing a vast gulf in taste. The artifice of musicals seemed outdated to baby boomers who grew up with the Cuban missile crisis, the Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. assassinations, race riots, and the Vietnam War.From Julie Andrews to Barbra Streisand, from Fred Astaire to Rock Hudson, Roadshow! offers a brilliant, gripping history of film musicals and their changing place in our culture.

    government—an usher in the White House. For more than 200 years, a small office has operated on the State Floor of the White House Executive Residence. Known as the Usher's Office, whose mission is to accommodate the personal needs of the first family, and to make the White House feel like a home. The Usher's Office is the managing office of the Executive Residence and its staff of 90-plus. The staff consists of butlers, carpenters, grounds personnel, electricians, painters, plumbers, florists, maids, housemen, cooks, chefs, storekeepers, curators, calligraphers, doormen, and administrative support. Ushers work closely with the first family, senior staff, Social Office, Press Office, Secret Service Agency, and military leaders to carry out White House functions: luncheons, dinners, teas, receptions, meetings, conferences, and more. Chris Emery was only the 18th White House Usher since 1891, and had the honor and privilege to serve presidential families for three years during the Reagan administration, four years for President H. W. Bush, and 14 months under President Clinton. His vignettes recreate intimate White House happenings from an insider’s viewpoint. Chris Emery was the only White House Usher to be terminated in the 20th century. Turn the pages to find out which first lady fired him... “With his book, White House Usher: Stories from the Inside, former usher Chris Emery gives his readers a peek inside what happens upstairs at the White House. Chris’ anecdotes tell a rich story of how America’s house really is the First Families’ home. I loved my trip down memory lane.” - Former First Lady Barbara Bush (October 2017)

    Sayed Ammar Nashawani's lectures on the biographies of the fourteen infallible figures in Shi'a Islam.An invaluable resource that represents a Shi'a view of the history of Islam, the Prophet and Imams for the present day audience. This excellent book will be of benefit to many in understanding the true nature of Islam and also illustrate how the illustrious figures as representing and manifesting universal human values that can serve humanity at large