You Can't Say That: Memoirs
Ken Livingstone - 2011
From his eccentric South London working class childhood to running one of the biggest cities in the world, Ken Livingstone delivers the turbulent true story of his life as one of Britain's foremost politicians.
Accidentally Wes Anderson
Wally Koval - 2020
Accidentally Wes Anderson began as a personal travel bucket list, a catalog of visually striking and historically unique destinations that capture the imagined worlds of Wes Anderson. Now, inspired by a community of more than one million Adventurers, Accidentally Wes Anderson tells the stories behind more than 200 of the most beautiful, idiosyncratic, and interesting places on Earth. This book, authorized by Wes Anderson himself, travels to every continent and into your own backyard to identify quirky landmarks and undiscovered gems: places you may have passed by, some you always wanted to explore, and many you never knew existed. Fueled by a vision for distinctive design, stunning photography, and unexpected narratives, Accidentally Wes Anderson is a passport to inspiration and adventure. Perfect for modern travelers and fans of Wes Anderson's distinctive aesthetic, this is an invitation to look at your world through a different lens.
Talking as Fast as I Can: From Gilmore Girls to Gilmore Girls (and Everything in Between)
Lauren Graham - 2016
In Talking as Fast as I Can, Lauren Graham hits pause for a moment and looks back on her life, sharing laugh-out-loud stories about growing up, starting out as an actress, and, years later, sitting in her trailer on the Parenthood set and asking herself, “Did you, um, make it?” She opens up about the challenges of being single in Hollywood (“Strangers were worried about me; that’s how long I was single!”), the time she was asked to audition her butt for a role, and her experience being a judge on Project Runway (“It’s like I had a fashion-induced blackout”). In “What It Was Like, Part One,” Graham sits down for an epic Gilmore Girls marathon and reflects on being cast as the fast-talking Lorelai Gilmore. The essay “What It Was Like, Part Two” reveals how it felt to pick up the role again nine years later, and what doing so has meant to her. Some more things you will learn about Lauren: She once tried to go vegan just to bond with Ellen DeGeneres, she’s aware that meeting guys at awards shows has its pitfalls (“If you’re meeting someone for the first time after three hours of hair, makeup, and styling, you’ve already set the bar too high”), and she’s a card-carrying REI shopper (“My bungee cords now earn points!”). Including photos and excerpts from the diary Graham kept during the filming of the recent Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life, this book is like a cozy night in, catching up with your best friend, laughing and swapping stories, and—of course—talking as fast as you can.
P.S. I Still Hate It Here: More Kids' Letters From Camp
Diane Falanga - 2012
I Hate it Here comes an all-new, even more outrageous and laugh-out-loud funny collection of real letters written by children ages eight to sixteen to their parents about their adventures at summer camp. Written with the same wit and honesty that made the first book a runaway hit, these new letters take the reader on a familiar adventure that conjures up the experience of being away from home, and the hilarious and lasting memories that accompany that special place called sleepaway camp.
The Longest Ride: My Ten-Year 500,000 Mile Motorcycle Journey
Emilio Scotto - 2007
Promptly he announced his plan to make a route that would pass through all the countries of the world, a route he named BLUE ROAD ONE. When, some years later, he found himself astride a black 1100 Honda Gold Wing motorcycle, Blue Road One beckoned, and Scotto set off on a journey that would last more than a decade, take him virtually everywhere in the world, and land him in the Guinness Book of World Records. This is his story, a thrill ride that begins in his native Argentina, crosses Panama in the tumultuous time of Noriega, Mexico in the midst of an earthquake, and finds him broke in L.A. where, in a chance meeting, Muhammad Ali gives him fifty dollars and a signed book. Breaching the Iron Curtain, crossing the Berlin Wall at Checkpoint Charlie, being blessed by the Pope, set upon by cannibals in Sierra Leone, fleeing Somalia on a freighter, Scotto's adventures would be unbelievable if they weren't true. His tale of touring the world from Tunisia to Turkey, Petra to Afghanistan, Yugoslavia to Singapore, traveling miles enough to take him to the moon and back, is unlike any ever told. Come along, for the ride of a lifetime.
Travel as a Political Act
Rick Steves - 2009
It helps us fit more comfortably and compatibly into a shrinking world. And it inspires creative new solutions to persistent problems facing our nation. We can’t understand our world without experiencing it. Traveling as a Political Act helps us take that first step. There’s more to travel than good-value hotels, great art, and tasty cuisine. Americans who “travel as a political act” can have the time of their lives and come home smarter?with a better understanding of the interconnectedness of today’s world and just how our nation fits in. In his new book, acclaimed travel writer Rick Steves explains how to travel more thoughtfully?to any destination. He shares a series of field reports from Europe, Central America, Asia, and the Middle East to show how his travels have shaped his politics and broadened his perspective. www.ricksteves.com
The Rolling Stones Discover America
Michael Lydon - 2013
His long, intimate piece on the tour, The Rolling Stones Discover America, captures the highs and lows of the grueling tour and has become a classic of rock ‘n’ roll journalism—one that the Maysles brothers studied to guide the editing of their film, Gimme Shelter.
Unbothered: Break Down the Boulders Between You and Your True Potential
Angela Rummans - 2019
Perform a flawless Level 10 gymnastics routine? Easy. Jump fourteen feet in the air using a spindly fiberglass pole? Please. Turn two hundred dollars into a six-figure business? Piece of cake. Live in a house with sixteen strangers, surrounded by cameras? Uh . . . With a wry sense of humor and fearless attitude, Angela Rummans takes us on a journey from top-tier athlete to reality TV star and self-made businesswoman in this tell-all memoir. Along the way, she shares powerful lessons of how to get back up when life knocks you down. Throughout the book, Angela rips the band-aid off her most painful moments and tells life where to stick those lemons. From her highest highs—competing in pole vault at the Olympic level, building a business from scratch and finding her soulmate—to the lowest lows, she shows how it is truly possible to reinvent yourself as many times as you want.
The Americans
Robert Frank - 1958
There is no question that Robert Frank's The Americans is the most famous and influential photography book ever published. It was 1959 when the book first came out: a series of deceptively simple photographs that Frank took on a trip through America in '55 and '56, pictures of normal people, everyday scenes: lunch counters, bus depots, cars, and the stangely familiar faces of people we don't quite know but have seen somewhere. They are pictures that saw the "American way of life" as we hadn't yet quite been able to see it ourselves, photographs that condensed the entire life of a nation in classic images that still speak to us today, forty years and several generations later.
Distraction Pieces
Scroobius Pip - 2016
Distraction Pieces features both curated highlights from the iTunes-chart-topping podcast - from Akala to Howard Marks via the likes of Adam Buxton, Romesh Ranganathan and Amanda Palmer - and exclusive new content, with chapters on politics, social media, music, comedy and more. Featuring illustrations by tattoo artist mr heggie, this is a must-have for fans of the Distraction Pieces podcast, and a must-read for anyone interested in the creative mind.
Still Whispering After All These Years: My Autobiography
Bob Harris - 2015
He continues to be a household name today and his velvety voice can be heard on Radio 2's The Bob Harris Show and Bob Harris Country. In this fully revised and updated autobiography, with a forward by Robert Plant, Bob tells his story of over 40 years of broadcasting with the BBC, from the young, passionate music fan who moved to London determined to make music his life, to being presented with an OBE for his services to music broadcasting. Much like his musical heroes, Bob's personal life has had somewhat of a rock 'n' roll vibe: he has been married three times, gone bankrupt, fought cancer, weathered a very public spat with a fellow DJ and has had to revamp his career four times. Throughout all these times, however, his love of music and talent for broadcasting has endured. The Whispering Years is a frank, vibrant and inspiring tale of one of the most influential names on the radio and reveals the story of the man behind the voice.
Tomboy Style: Beyond the Boundaries of Fashion
Lizzie Garrett Mettler - 2012
They are bold, brazen, fierce—and sexy. They aren’t known for following rules, they are known for doing—and wearing—whatever they want. Tomboy captures the tomboy’s style, her je ne sais quoi, her wardrobe, and most importantly, her spirit. Throughout the twentieth century, the mass marketing of gender stereotypes meant tomboys cropped up against the odds, trends, and ads. As menswear-inspired fashions for women have exploded into the mainstream under the helm of designers and stylists ranging from J.Crew to Rag & Bone to Boy by Band of Outsiders, acceptance of both the word tomboy and the women associated with its edge has been set into play. But a tomboy is not just about style—tomboys are measured in equal parts wardrobe and spirit.A visual history that chronicles the past eighty years of women who blur the line between masculinity and femininity, Tomboy explores the evolution of the style and its icons. Vivid commentary illuminates the tomboy’s history and captures a diversity of women who are bound together by their inherent ability to seamlessly blend a rugged sensibility with classic, understated elegance.
Of Time and Memory: My Parents' Love Story
Don J. Snyder - 1999
All his life Don had been too shy, too deeply pained to ask his father or grandparents to tell him the story of the lovely girl named Peggy Snyder--what delighted or troubled her, who her friends were, how she fell in love, what cut short her brief life.But then, nearing his fiftieth birthday and compelled by his father's failing health, Snyder embarked on a quest to find his mother. He traveled many times from his home in Maine down to his mother's small Pennsylvania town to trace her childhood and adolescence. He tracked down Peggy's high school friends, spent time with her teachers, probed the memories of the girls--now elderly women-- who had been her bridesmaids. Detail by detail, Don pieced together the harrowing story of Peggy's final year--her passionate love affair with her husband, the unexpected pregnancy, the sudden illness that consumed her, and the impossible choice she was forced to make.A heartbreaking, overwhelmingly beautiful book, Of Time and Memory is a story of remembering--and reclaiming--the fragile mystery of a beloved life.
Mr. Know-It-All: The Tarnished Wisdom of a Filth Elder
John Waters - 2019
The man in the pencil-thin moustache, auteur of the transgressive movie classics Pink Flamingos, Polyester, the original Hairspray, Cry-Baby, and A Dirty Shame, is one of the world’s great sophisticates, and in Mr. Know-It-All he serves it up raw: how to fail upward in Hollywood; how to develop musical taste from Nervous Norvus to Maria Callas; how to build a home so ugly and trendy that no one but you would dare live in it; more important, how to tell someone you love them without emotional risk; and yes, how to cheat death itself. Through it all, Waters swears by one undeniable truth: “Whatever you might have heard, there is absolutely no downside to being famous. None at all.”Studded with cameos of Waters’s stars, from Divine and Mink Stole to Johnny Depp, Kathleen Turner, Patricia Hearst, and Tracey Ullman, and illustrated with unseen photos from Waters’s personal collection, Mr. Know-It-All is Waters’s most hypnotically readable, upsetting, revelatory book—another instant Waters classic.