On the fifth anniversary of the show’s hotly debated series finale, in 2007, Vanity Fair releases a 20,000-word e-book, the untold, behind-the-scenes story of The Sopranos. With this oral history, expanded from the article in the magazine’s April 2012 issue, The Sopranos cast and crew—from creator David Chase and James Gandolfini (Tony Soprano), to Edie Falco (Carmela Soprano) and Lorraine Bracco (Dr. Melfi)—give their unexpurgated thoughts on the show’s ambiguous ending and the possibilities of a Sopranos movie. Sam Kashner and Jim Kelly lead readers through the writers’ room where Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner and Boardwalk Empire creator Terence Winter cut their teeth, through the grueling shooting schedules during which the late Nancy Marchand (Tony Soprano’s mother, Livia), behind the cameras, slapped herself with pepperoni to try to lighten the mood, and through the “whackings” of Big Pussy, Adriana La Cerva, and Bobby “Bacala.” The book discusses the show’s soundtrack (which ranged from Bruce Springsteen to Britney Spears, from Journey to The Rolling Stones) and influences (from Goodfellas to The Three Stooges) and, above all else, how much it is the creation of a singular genius, David Chase. Much more than a show about the Mafia, The Sopranos is an American cultural phenomenon—as much about the domestic family as the Mob family—that succeeded against all odds. As Edie Falco recalls, “After we shot the pilot, David [Chase] said, ‘Well, that was a lot of fun. Unfortunately, no one will ever watch this show, but you guys have been great.’ And that was the end. Or so we thought.”

    Deeply felt and insightful, Anthony Zuiker’s searing memoir of dreams and losses, successes and heartbreaks, is not only a behind-the-scenes look at television’s most-watched drama, but an essential guide for aspiring script writers and filmmakers, featuring practical tips and inspiring lessons to help tomorrow’s writers succeed today. Fans of crime dramas, anyone who dreams of unraveling the mysteries of their own story, and everyone who dreams of making it big, will find themselves immediately drawn in by the one-of-a-kind story of the man who became Mr. CSI.

    Join the creator of Gilligan's Island for a three-hour tour!Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale,A tale of a fateful show,That started as just one man's dream,A long, long time ago.That man was a mightily wily guy,With smarts enough for eight.If the brass upstairs let him be,The program would be great.The program would be great.The meddlesome executivesBlew up a mighty storm,If not for the courage of the fearless man,The program would be lost.The program would be lost.The show's preserved in the leaves of thisTerrific kooky book.With anecdotes, synopses too,Rare photographs and drawings.The whole storyAnd lots, lots moreAre here Inside Gilligan's Island!Find out: Where the Howells got all those clothes!Learn: Did Gilligan and the Skipper ever get hurt when the coconuts hit them on the head?Discover: What was "Lovey's" real name?Imagine: What kind of a pet the studio almost gave Gilligan!Sing: The original lyrics to the theme song!

    As far as apps go, what do you put on your new Fire? With tens of thousands of apps out there and more appearing on a daily basis, how do you choose what's useful, as opposed to what may be a waste of your download time? Here is the answer, newly updated with over 300 of the best FREE apps for your Fire. Top 300 Free Apps for the Kindle Fire is your guide to 300 of the top rated apps that you'll find useful for your Kindle Fire. Jones has taken the time to research and compile this extensive list of apps for your Kindle Fire, and best of all, each of these apps are FREE. You'll find apps for the home office, for entertainment, for news, weather, and sports, for your health, for managing your finances, for playing games, and more. A new local news apps section provides news, weather, and traffic apps for over 50 major US cities, and a new travel section gives you an insight to the best apps that will help you find great deals on flights, hotel rooms, cruises, dining, and even the best gas prices around your hometown or when on the road.We’ve also taken the time to create each listing beginning with a clickable link back to the Amazon catalog. So as you read this book on your Kindle, if any particular app sounds like what you’ve been looking for, just tap the image or heading name. You’ll be taken directly to the Amazon page for the app, where you can click the button to install that app. (Active wi-fi connection required.)And this isn't just a list of names with little helpful information, like some guides out there that we'd prefer not to mention. In this book, you'll find detailed write-ups for each app, with specifics as to what the app can (and cannot) do for you. Let Top 300 Free Apps for the Kindle Fire be your guide to the best free apps for your new tablet!Top 300 Free Apps for the Kindle Fire comes from the pen of Edward Jones, the principal technology writer behind the "Get-it-Done" series of computer books. Jones is an experienced computer and technology writer, database applications development analyst, consultant, and trainer who understands the issues faced by people dealing with technology, day in and day out. His career spans years of technology training, database development, and consulting services for major law firms and government agencies in the Washington, DC area, and he currently resides in Charlotte, NC where he is concentrating on providing publications to the rapidly growing digital marketplace. Jones is also a best-selling author whose printed titles have sold over one million copies, and he has served as a technical editor on numerous computer books.

    In Where There's a Will, Stephen M. Silverman shows just how different with a peek at the wills of the richest, most celebrated people of all time, and he provides the intimate scoop on what their heirs had to say about it. Discover what secret pact Clark Gable made in 1942 and took to his grave - only to be exposed when his will was read. Learn why it took more than a year for Liza Minnelli to raise the $37,500 needed to bury the ashes of her mother, Judy Garland, and what treasures were left to the heirs of Babe Ruth, James Dean, John Jacob Astor, Ernest Hemingway, and Ayn Rand once those wills cleared probate. From Marilyn Monroe and Andy Warhol to John Lennon, Jim Morrison, John Steinbeck, Rita Hayworth, and Jack Dempsey, Where There's a Will . . . is an utterly engrossing read sure to captivate tycoons and gossip addicts alike with its fascinating tales of how the other half bequeaths.

    However, The State’s innovative members continue to make groundbreaking and celebrated films, television, online series and live shows. “The Union of The State” is the oral history of the troupe’s creation, dissolution, reinvention and reunion over the last three decades, told by the members of the group: Kevin Allison, Michael Ian Black, Robert Ben Garant, Todd Holoubek, Michael Patrick Jann, Kerri Kenney-Silver, Thomas Lennon, Joe Lo Truglio, Ken Marino, Michael Showalter, and David Wain. “The members of The State are my heroes, my peers and my friends. Individually and collectively they are responsible for an impressively large percentage of everything funny that currently exists in the world. For comedy nerds like me, it’s essential reading,” “Weird Al” Yankovic said about "The Union of The State." The book follows the members of The State from their time as classmates at New York University in the late 1980s to their quick ascent to fame via their three-season, sketch-comedy series at MTV and through their post-MTV projects. It also includes histories of the movie-turned-Netflix-series, “Wet Hot American Summer;” the Comedy Central hit, “Reno 911!;” and cult favorite comedy show/series, Stella. "The Union of The State also features commentary from The State's collaborators and cohorts such as, Paul Rudd, Keegan-Michael Key, Chris Meloni, Rob Corddry, A.D. Miles (Head Writer for “The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon”), Doug Herzog (President of Viacom), James Dixon (agent for Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel), Mo Willems (best-selling children’s book author), cast and crew from “Wet Hot American Summer,” “Reno 911!”, and more. “The State was the first time I’d ever seen ‘sarcastic sarcasm.’ They are the all-time champions of bum-out humor. They embodied the lameness of the lamest people and celebrated them for our enjoyment. Every time a comic does an intentionally lame joke and it makes you go, ‘Ewww’ with delight, you have them to thank.,” said Andy Samberg. The projects the members of The State have written, directed or performed in leave no degree of separation between them and nearly everyone working in comedy today, such as Key and Peele. The book also features rare photos and illustrations from the troupe’s 25-year history. “The Union of The State” will appeal not only to The State’s extensive fan base but also to comedy aficionados, showbiz biography fans and those who love an underdog success tale.

    Haven’t we all? It’s for this reason that I decided to write this book. What better way to break that silence than to throw out some of these facts: Wolves have a serious appetite! They can eat up to twenty pounds of meat in one sitting! The first high heeled shoes were worn by Egyptian butchers to help them walk above the bloodied bodies of animal carcasses. The vintage date on a bottle of wine indicates the year the grapes were harvested, not the year of bottling Your mouth produces about one liter of saliva each day. Greece has more archaeological museums than any other country in the world. Whatever your motivation may be, there’s a really good chance you’ll find these facts and tidbits useful. So if you’re ready, here are 1,000 random facts that everyone should know !

    When he was seventeen years old, his demons led him to a Massachusetts mental institution where he confronted them the only way he knew how, by writing his first songs. Thirty years later, Taylor's songs are among the most popular in the annals of music, but the demons are still with him. But unlike many of his contemporaries who faced a similar struggle, Taylor managed to emerge as an inspirational figure. Fire and Rain traces this remarkable path, including his troubled marriage to pop star Carly Simon and the premature alcoholism-related death of his brother: Taylor's ten-month stay in the exclusive private psychiatric institution where he finished high school; His self-imposed exile to England where he submitted some of his music to the Beatles' Apple Records, which signed him to his first record contract in 1968. Paul McCartney mentored Taylor's early career; The story behind his second album, Sweet Baby James, which contained the song "Fire and Rain" about the hopelessness of mental illness and suicide; As Taylor's fame increased, so did his problems with heroin, alcohol, and mental illness. In the seventies, the singer nearly fell over the edge many times.

    Improve your knowledge and find things you've never heard before, or learn the facts behind the facts you already knew.So sit back, grab a spoon, and help yourself to a heaping bowl of Knowledge Stew.

    In Slap Shot Original, Dave Hanson gives readers not only a behind the scenes look at what life was like on the set during the filming of the classic movie, but also treats them to stories from the actors and players themselves.

    It was on this fateful day that "Monty Python's Flying Circus" debuted. From the Dead Parrot skit to the Lumberjack Song, The Attila the Hun Show to the Cheese Shop routine, the Pythons set a standard for irreverent, obnoxious, nonsensical comedy never before seen.

     Meticulously compiled by two crossword professionals with a combined fifty years in the field and based on a massive analysis of current crosswords, there has never been a crossword dictionary with the breadth, depth, and currency of this one. From Jim Carrey to Sister Carrie, Homer Simpson to Homer’s Iliad, the wide-ranging entries include 500,000+ synonyms, 3,000+ literary works, 3,000+ films, 20,000+ famous people from all fields, and more than 50,000 fill-in-the-blank clues so popular in today’s crosswords.Featuring an introduction by New York Times crossword editor Will Shortz, The Million Word Crossword Dictionary makes every other crossword dictionary obsolete.This updated edition offers thousands of new entries, including slang terms; brand names; celebrity names; and the latest films, novelists’ works, sports Hall of Famers, automobile models, and more. The new, larger type size makes finding the answers easier than ever.

    Then her life was irreversibly transformed—and so was her philosophy. In this wholly unexpected personal account, the author of A Vindication of Love: Reclaiming Romance for the Twenty-first Century (2009) offers us a Vindication of Life as inspiring as it is heartbreaking. The story of Cristina and her little daughter, Eurydice, is a tale of redemption and self-reinvention. It is about expanding definitions of love--and it is about confronting death. Not least, it speaks to us of life’s sweeping ironies: Sometimes bad luck is the new good luck, and the realization of your worst fears may be the greatest gift you can receive.Biography: Nehring first acquired national attention through her fiery criticism in the pages of Harper's Magazine, The Atlantic Monthly and The New York Times Book Review. A "compassionate contrarian," she won many awards for her politically incorrect cultural and literary essays. Her first book, A Vindication of Love (Harper Collins, 2009) argues for a bolder, braver, wilder form of modern loving, drawing extensively on literary and historical analysis. It was published to wide acclaim and translated into several languages. Nehring also works as a travel writer for Condé Nast Traveler, and holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of California, Los Angeles. She lives in Paris and Los Angeles.

    Since 2008 the fiendishly difficult quiz show has been challenging contestants to find connections between apparently unrelated clues.The Only Connect Quiz Book collects over 200 of the most entertaining and perplexing challenges from the team behind the BBC’s hugely popular quiz show - including many new (never broadcast) questions. Covering each of the show’s four rounds – Connections, Sequences, the Connecting Wall and Missing Vowels – and with introductions from presenter Victoria Coren Mitchell, here is your chance to put your own sleuthing and quizzical knowledge to the Only Connect test.

    Writer Scott E. Williams has pored through records and conducted dozens of interviews through records and conducted dozens of interviews with fans, company officials, business partners, and the wrestlers themselves to bring readers the most balanced account possible of this bizarre company.