Carmela Soprano from the hit Tv series 'The Sopranos' offers a complete guide to entertaining - from dinner parties to barbecues, from student parties to birthdays and anniversaries.

    These other subjects include...Caffeine | Ghostbusters | Being Poor | Twitter | Caravans | Obama | Wales | Paul McCartney | The Welfare State | Sherlock | David Cameron Looking Like Ham | Amy Winehouse | ‘The Big Society’ | Big Hair | Nutter-letters | Michael Jackson's funeral | Failed Nicknames | Wolverhampton | Squirrels’ Testicles | Sexy Tax | Binge-drinking | Chivalry | Rihanna’s Cardigan | Party Bags | Hot People| Transsexuals | The Gay Moon Landings

    Professor at Large features English comedian and actor John Cleese in the role of ivy league professor at Cornell University. His almost twenty years as professor-at-large has led to many talks, essays, and lectures on campus. This collection of the very best moments from Cleese under his mortarboard provides a unique view of his endless pursuit of intellectual discovery across a range of topics. Since 1999, Cleese has provided Cornell students and local citizens with his ideas on everything from scriptwriting to psychology, religion to hotel management, and wine to medicine.

    A collection of twenty of Paglia's out-spoken essays on contemporary issues in America's ongoing cultural debate such as Anita Hill, Robert Mapplethorpe, the beauty myth, and the decline of education in America.

    While the series has surreal elements, he believes it provides the answers to all the questions which have confounded viewers: who is Number 6? Who runs The Village? Who—or what—is Number 1? According to Cox, the key is to view the series in the order in which the episodes were made, not in the order of the UK or US television screenings. In this book he does exactly that, and provides an entirely original and controversial “explanation” for what is perhaps the best, and certainly the most perplexing, TV series of all time.

    Contributors include bestselling legend David Brin, critically acclaimed novelist Scott Westerfeld, cult-favorite vampire author Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, and award-winner Sarah Zettel. The show and its cast are the topics of such critical pieces as Lawrence Watt-Evans's “Matchmaking in Hellmouth” and Sherrilyn Kenyon's “The Search for Spike's Balls.” An informed introduction for those not well acquainted with the show, and a source of further research for Buffy buffs, this book raises interesting questions concerning a much-loved program and future cult classic.

    He drove a rental car from New York to Rhode Island to Georgia to Mississippi to Iowa to Minneapolis to Fargo to Seattle, and he chased death and rock ‘n’ roll all the way. Within the span of twenty-one days, Chuck had three relationships end—one by choice, one by chance, and one by exhaustion. He snorted cocaine in a graveyard. He walked a half-mile through a bean field. A man in Dickinson, North Dakota, explained to him why we have fewer windmills than we used to. He listened to the KISS solo albums and the Rod Stewart box set. At one point, poisonous snakes became involved. The road is hard. From the Chelsea Hotel to the swampland where Lynyrd Skynyrd’s plane went down to the site where Kurt Cobain blew his head off, Chuck explored every brand of rock star demise. He wanted to know why the greatest career move any musician can make is to stop breathing...and what this means for the rest of us.

    In between, Nick de Semlyen takes us on a trip through the tumultuous '80s, delving behind the scenes of movies such as Ghostbusters, Beverly Hills Cop, The Blues Brothers, Trading Places, and dozens more. Chronicling the off-screen, larger-than-life antics of Bill Murray, Eddie Murphy, Chevy Chase, Steve Martin, John Belushi, et al, it's got drugs, sex, punch-ups, webbed toes, and Bill Murray being pushed into a swimming pool by Hunter S. Thompson, while tied to a lawn chair. What's not to like?Based on candid interviews from the stars themselves, as well as those in their immediate orbit, Wild and Crazy Guys is a fantastic insider account of the friendships, feuds, triumphs, and disasters experienced by these iconic funnymen, and reveals the hidden history behind the most fertile period ever for screen comedy.

    Shawn Spencer has convinced everyone he's psychic. Now, HE HAS TO either clean up--or be found out…After the PSYCH detective agency gets some top-notch publicity, Shawn's high-school nemesis, Dallas Steele, hires him to help choose his investments. Naturally, their predictions turn out to be total busts. And the deceptive Dallas is thrilled that he has completely discredited and humiliated Shawn once and for all--until he's found murdered. But the police have a suspect found--at the scene with a smoking gun. And she says Shawn took control of her mind and forced her to do it. After all, he is a psychic...

    Adam Kotsko argues that the popularity of the ruthless sociopath reflects our dissatisfaction with a failed social contract, showing that we believe that the world rewards the evil and uncaring rather than the good.

    The result is a conservative's guide to love, work, dinner party mischief and staying un-smeared in liberal America.

    Each season American Idol delivers on a promise whose epic scope is unparalleled in the annals of competition: to take an unknown dreamer from the middle of America and turn him or her into a genuine star. It has become not only the biggest show on television, but the biggest force in all of entertainment; its alumni dominate the recording charts and Broadway, win Academy Awards, and sweep up Grammys. In fact, American Idol has reshaped the very idea of celebrity. But it didn't start out that way. When the little singing contest debuted as a summer replacement on the U.S. airwaves, it was packed between reruns and low-cost filler. The promise that it would find America's next pop star produced a hearty round of guffaws from the country's media critics. Now, some ten years and millions of records later, no one is laughing.American Idol: The Untold Story chronicles the triumphs and travails, the harrowing backstage drama and the nail-biting onstage battles that built this revolutionary show. In this revealing book, veteran journalist Richard Rushfield goes deeper inside the circus than any reporter ever has. Candid interviews with Idol alumni, including Simon Fuller and Simon Cowell, shed new light on the show that changed the entertainment industry. And because Rushfield had full access to the people who created the show, starred in it, and kept it atop the pop culture pyramid, this book is the first to take Americans behind the curtain and tell what has really been happening on the world's most watched and speculated-about stage.

    They shared months of hot passion that neither will ever forget. An emotional difference of opinion created a rift the couple could not overcome.Proud and stubborn, literary agent Kiki moved to New York to work with her father’s publishing company and to put distance between her and the man who controls her heart. Successful entertainment agent,Ty, accepted Kiki’s decision to walk away and moved on with his life--until danger surfaced, threatening her life and the lives of others connected to him. Bound together by uncontrollable forces, Ty and Kiki search for their enemy while trying to resist the passion that burns within--without dying or breaking…The Pendleton Rule.Show more Show less

    Summaries of every sketch feature a roundup of major characters, episode-by-episode descriptions, and familiar trademark phrases. Includes all musical groups to appear as well. Photos, many in color.

    The Reverend Jim Jones, the darling of the San Francisco political establishment, orchestrates the murders and suicides of 918 people at a remote jungle outpost in South America. Days later, Harvey Milk, one of America’s first openly gay elected officials—and one of Jim Jones’s most vocal supporters—is assassinated in San Francisco’s City Hall. This horrifying sequence of events shocked the world. Almost immediately, the lives and deaths of Jim Jones and Harvey Milk became shrouded in myth. The distortions and omissions have piled up since. Now, forty years later, this book corrects the record. The product of a decade of research, including extensive archival work and ­dozens of exclusive interviews, Cult City reveals just how confused our understanding has become. In life, Jim Jones enjoyed the support of prominent politicians and Hollywood stars even as he preached atheism and communism from the pulpit; in death, he transforms into a fringe figure, a “fundamentalist Christian,” and a “fascist.” In life, Harvey Milk outed friends, faked hate crimes, and falsely claimed that the U.S. Navy dishonorably discharged him over his homosexuality; in death, he is honored in an Oscar-winning movie, with a California state holiday, and with a U.S. Navy ship named for him. His assassin, a blue-collar Democrat who often voted with Milk in support of gay issues, is remembered as a right-winger and a homophobe. But the story extends far beyond Jones and Milk. Author Daniel J. Flynn vividly portrays the strange intersection of mainstream politics and murderous extremism in 1970s San Francisco—the hangover after the high of the Summer of Love. In recounting the fascinating, intersecting lives of Jim Jones and ­Harvey Milk, Cult City tells the story of a great city gone horribly wrong.