Book picks similar to
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Men with Balls: The Professional Athlete's Handbook
Drew Magary - 2008
Because after you have read this book, you, Good Sir, will know how to be a pro athlete. And pro athletes don't need books. Or strong family bonds. Or any of that stupid crap. Not when they have ready access to millions of dollars and scores of smoking hot chicks with questionable judgment. This book will be all you require to cast aside your boring life as some jackass who cruises around bookstores hoping to score grad-school trim. With Men with Balls, you will learn how to: Showboat using classical pantomime techniques Figure out whether or not a stripper actually fancies you Emotionally cope from the emotional fallout of rookie year hazing games Find out which free locker room amphetamines will give you a shot of energy, and which will cause you to run down terrified schoolchildren with your Escalade (NOTE: Some do both) Avoid media scrutiny by directing beat writers and columnists to the nearest hot buffet So grab your balls, bookboy. You're about to become a home-run hitting, steroid-injecting, angry-orgy-having Turbostud. They're gonna need a whole ocean just to wash your jock.
Overpaid, Oversexed and Over There: How a Few Skinny Brits with Bad Teeth Rocked America
David Hepworth - 2020
Suddenly the youth of the richest, most powerful nation on earth was trying to emulate the music, manners and the modes of a rainy island that had recently fallen on hard times.The resulting fusion of American can-do and British fuck-you didn’t just lead to rock and roll’s most resonant music. It ushered in a golden era when a generation of kids born in ration card Britain, who had grown up with their nose pressed against the window of America’s plenty, were invited to wallow in their big neighbour’s largesse.It deals with a time when everything that was being done - from the Beatles playing Shea Stadium to the Rolling Stones at Altamont, from the Who performing their rock opera at the Metropolitan Opera House to David Bowie touching down in the USA for the first time with a couple of gowns in his luggage - was being done for the very first time.Rock and roll would never be quite so exciting again.
Rickey & Robinson: The True, Untold Story of the Integration of Baseball
Roger Kahn - 2014
Focusing on Branch Rickey and Jackie Robinson, Kahn's account is based on exclusive reporting and his personal reminiscences, including revelatory material he buried in his notebooks in the '40s and '50s.Rickey and Robinson were chiefly responsible for making integration happen. Through in-depth examinations of both men, Kahn separates fact from myth to present a truthful portrait of baseball and its participants at a critical juncture in American history.
Let the Right One In
Anne Billson - 2010
"Twilight," "True Blood," "Being Human," "The Vampire Diaries," "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," "Blade," "Underworld," and the novels of Anne Rice and Darren Shan--against this glut of bloodsuckers, it takes an incredible film to make a name for itself. Directed by Tomas Alfredson and adapted for the screen by John Ajvide Lindqvist, The Swedish film "L't den r?tte komma in" (2008), known to American audiences as "Let the Right One In," is the most exciting, subversive, and original horror production since the genre's best-known works of the 1970s. Like "Twilight," "Let the Right One In" is a love story between a human and a vampire--but that is where the resemblance ends. Set in a snowy, surburban housing estate in 1980s Stockholm, the film combines supernatural elements with social realism. It features Oskar, a lonely, bullied child, and Eli, the girl next door. "Oskar, I'm not a girl," she tells him, and she's not kidding--she's a vampire. The two forge an intense relationship that is at once innocent and disturbing. Two outsiders against the world, one of these outsiders is, essentially, a serial killer. What does Eli want from Oskar? Simple companionship, or something else? While startlingly original, "Let the Right One In" could not have existed without the near century of vampire cinema that preceded it. Anne Billson reviews this history and the film's inheritence of (and new twists on) such classics as "Nosferatu" (1979) and "Dracula" (1931). She discusses the genre's early fliration with social realism in films such as "Martin" (1977) and "Near Dark" (1987), along with its adaptation of mythology to the modern world, and she examines the changing relationship between vampires and humans, the role of the vampire's assistant, and the enduring figure of vampires in popular culture.
Seagalogy: a Study of the Ass-Kicking Films of Steven Seagal
Vern - 2007
a national treasure!”Now, finally, Vern is ready to unleash his magnum opus: an in-depth study of the world's only aikido instructor turned movie star/director/writer/blues guitarist/energy drink inventor — the ass-kicking auteur Steven Seagal. From Above the Law to his Mountain Dew commercials, his entire career is covered in Vern’s inimitable style.As Vern himself puts it, Seagalogy is “a book that will shake the very foundations of film criticism, break their wrists and then throw them through a window."
The Virgin Diet Cookbook: 150 Easy and Delicious Recipes to Lose Weight and Feel Better Fast
J.J. Virgin - 2014
With more than 150 delicious and practical recipes, The Virgin Diet Cookbook is designed to show you how to incorporate anti-inflammatory, healing foods into your diet to reclaim your health and reset your metabolism, while avoiding the 7 foods that are most likely to cause food intolerance. These tasty, easy-to-make recipes are free of gluten, soy, dairy, eggs, corn, peanuts, and sugar and artificial sweeteners. With mouthwatering suggestions for breakfast, lunch, dinner, dessert and snacks, you'll lose weight fast while enjoying what you eat!. The Virgin Diet Cookbook will also help you to stock your kitchen, provide delicious substitutes for common ingredients, and offer easy swaps for eating out and on-the-go.
Movies (And Other Things)
Shea Serrano - 2019
One of the chapters, for example, answers which race Kevin Costner was able to white savior the best, because did you know that he white saviors Mexicans in McFarland, USA, and white saviors Native Americans in Dances with Wolves, and white saviors Black people in Black or White, and white saviors the Cleveland Browns in Draft Day? Another of the chapters, for a second example, answers what other high school movie characters would be in Regina George's circle of friends if we opened up the Mean Girls universe to include other movies (Johnny Lawrence is temporarily in, Claire from The Breakfast Club is in, Ferris Bueller is out, Isis from Bring It On is out...). Another of the chapters, for a third example, creates a special version of the Academy Awards specifically for rom-coms, the most underrated movie genre of all. And another of the chapters, for a final example, is actually a triple chapter that serves as an NBA-style draft of the very best and most memorable moments in gangster movies. Many, many things happen in Movies (And Other Things), some of which funny, others of which are sad, a few of which are insightful, and all of which are handled with the type of care and dedication to the smallest details and pockets of pop culture that only a book by Shea Serrano can provide.
The Godfather Legacy: The Untold Story of the Making of the Classic Godfather Trilogy Featuring Never-Before-Published Production Stills
Harlan Lebo - 2005
The director was a renegade filmmaker who'd never made a profitable picture. The producer was hired because he could stay below budget. The star had a reputation for being difficult. A formula for disaster?No, the makings of one of the greatest films of all time.The Godfather Legacy explores the fascinating behind-the-scenes intrigue and uproar during the making of all three films:The clashes between Coppola and the studio chiefs during the filming of The Godfather, the pressurized production schedule, and the project's near cancellationThe real story behind the cooperation of the Mafia in the creation of The GodfatherThe worldwide acclaim and stunning financial success following the release of The Godfather -- a triumph that set the stage for the film industry's renaissanceThe production of The Godfather Part II and the rise of Coppola, Al Pacino, and others to the loftiest heights of power in HollywoodThe creation of The Godfather Part III two decades after the original film and the completion of video projects that unified the three films for the first timeFeaturing production records, credits, reviews, and interviews with many of the principals involved, The Godfather Legacy is a rare and vivid peek into the making of three of the most compelling films in Hollywood history.
Agee on Film: Criticism and Comment on the Movies
James Agee - 1960
H. AudenJames Agee was passionately involved with the movies throughout his life. A master of both fiction and nonfiction, he wrote about film in clean, smart prose as the reviewer for Time magazine and as a columnist for The Nation. Agee was particularly perceptive about the work of his friend John Huston and recognized the artistic merit of certain B films such as The Curse of the Cat People and other movies produced by Val Lewton.
'Broadsword Calling Danny Boy': On Where Eagles Dare
Geoff Dyer - 2018
'Broadsword Calling Danny Boy' is Geoff Dyer's tribute to the film he has loved since childhood: an analysis taking us from its snowy, Teutonic opening credits to its vertigo-inducing climax. For those who have not even seen Where Eagles Dare, this book is a comic tour-de-force of criticism. But for the film's legions of fans, whose hearts will always belong to Ron Goodwin's theme tune, it will be the fulfilment of a dream.
The Making of 2001: A Space Odyssey
Stephanie Schwam - 2000
The critics initially disliked it, but the public loved it. And eventually, the film took its rightful place as one of the most innovative, brilliant, and pivotal works of modern cinema. The Making of 2001: A Space Odyssey consists of testimony from Kubrick's collaborators and commentary from critics and historians. This is the most complete book on the film to date--from Stanley Kubrick's first meeting with screenwriter Arthur C. Clarke to Kubrick's exhaustive research to the actual shooting and release of the movie.From the Trade Paperback edition.
My Dead Dad Was in ZZ Top: 100% Real*, Never-Before-Seen Documents from the World of Rock and Roll
Jon Glaser - 2011
In this book, you'll discover the following:• Handwritten letters by Glaser's own father, which reveal him to be an early member of the band we now know as ZZ Top• Old lyrics journals of, among others, Bob Dylan and David Bowie, featuring a collection of songs they probably hoped would never see the light of day• A letter from Ringo to the rest of the Beatles, the week after their breakup, informing them of his plans to start a Beatles tribute band• Formerly classified government documents with shocking revelations about the Navy SEALs and the Butthole Surfers• Prince's set list for the bat mitzvah of Steven Spielberg's daughter Rachel, including the songs "Purple Oy Vey," "I Could Never Take the Place of Your Rabbi," and "When Doves Kvetch"My Dead Dad Was in ZZ Top is for everyone who loves absurd, made-up stories about their favorite bands. It's also for everyone who doesn't love absurd, made-up stories about their favorite real bands—they just might not enjoy it as much.
Closely Watched Films: An Introduction to the Art of Narrative Film Technique
Marilyn Fabe - 2004
Ranging from D. W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation to Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing, and ending with an epilogue on digital media, Closely Watched Films focuses on exemplary works of fourteen film directors whose careers together span the history of the narrative film. Lively and down-to-earth, this concise introduction provides a broad, complete, and yet specific picture of visual narrative techniques that will increase readers' excitement about and knowledge of the possibilities of the film medium.Shot-by-shot analyses of short passages from each film ground theory in concrete examples. Fabe includes original and well-informed discussions of Soviet montage, realism and expressionism in film form, classical and modern sound theory, the classic Hollywood film, Italian neorealism, the French New Wave, auteur theory, modernism and postmodernism in film, political cinema, feminist film theory and practice, and narrative experiments in new digital media. Encompassing the earliest silent films as well as those that exploit the most recent technological innovations, this book gives us the particulars of how film—arguably the most influential of contemporary forms of representation—constitutes our pleasure, influences our thoughts, and informs our daily reality.
Lifted
Evan Ratliff - 2011
The police were on to them—or so they thought. What happened next would make headlines around the world, but the robbery was just part of the story. Evan Ratliff presents the inside tale of one of history's most elaborate heists, and the race to unravel it.Evan Ratliff is the editor of The Atavist, a new home for original nonfiction. His writing appears in Wired, where he is a contributing editor, The New Yorker, National Geographic, and other publications. He is also the story editor of Pop-Up Magazine, a live event.
Schmidt Steps Back
Louis Begley - 2011
His only hope is Alice Verplanck, the French widow of a former partner, as elusive as she is beautiful. Whether his rusty seduction skills can lure her from Paris to the Hamptons won’t be known, though, until Schmidt endures one more ordeal by fire. Hilarious, engrossing, and deeply poignant, Schmidt Steps Back is Louis Begley’s finest novel yet.