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Committed: Confessions of a Fantasy Football Junkie
Mark St. Amant - 2004
As seen on ESPN's Cold Pizza Fantasy football -- one of America's most popular, and profitable, virtual pastimes -- became a way of life for sports humorist and author Mark St. Amant. Utterly fed up with never having won his league championship, St. Amant abandoned a successful advertising career to make fantasy football his full-time job, embarking on a sprawling reconnaissance mission to discover what really makes this game, and its 20 million players, tick. Committed is the result of St. Amant's ranting, relentless, and strategic pursuit of his own obsession. In this wickedly funny and deeply informative work, St. Amant offers readers an all-access sideline pass to his wild, unprecedented fantasy football season, and to the hobby itself. From its humble beginnings in a New York hotel in 1962 to a multibillion-dollar business today, from local and online leagues to high-stakes, cutthroat Las Vegas competitions, St. Amant lays bare the facts, figures, and fanaticism of fantasy football in all its multidimensional glory.
Brian May's Red Special: The Story of the Home-Made Guitar that Rocked Queen and the World
Brian May - 2014
In 1963, Brian May and his father Harold started to build the Red Special, an electric guitar meant to outperform anything commercially made. "My dad and I decided to make an electric guitar. I designed an instrument from scratch, with the intention that it would have a capability beyond anything that was out there, more tunable, with a greater range of pitches and sounds, with a better tremolo, and with a capability of feeding back through the air in a 'good' way'." (Brian May). Brian used the Red Special guitar on every Queen and solo album that he recorded and at the vast majority of his live performances: the roof of Buckingham Palace, Live Aid, the closing ceremony of the London 2012 Olympics . . . and beyond. Here, Brian talks about his one-of-a-kind instrument, from its creation on. Along with original diagrams, sketches, and notes, May has included a great selection of photographs of himself with the guitar, in action from the last 40 years, and photographs of every stage of the Red Special's creation, which was fully dismantled and photographed inside and out just for this book, as well as close-ups and X-rays, and Brian will be commenting on it all. It is a unique guitar with unique sound. Any fan of Queen, Brian, or electric guitars will find this book utterly fascinating. 200 clr and b&w illus.
A Little History: Nick Cave & Cohorts, 1981-2013
Bleddyn Butcher - 2014
And then enthralled. He set about trying to catch their lightning in his Nikon F2AS.That quixotic impulse became a lifelong quest. A little history got made on the way.Collected here for the first time are the fruits of his labour. A Little History is an extraordinary document, tracking Nick Cave's creative career from the apoplectic extravagance of The Birthday Party to the calmer disquiet of 2013's Push The Sky Away via snapshots, spotlit visions and sumptuous, theatrical portraits. It mixes the candid and uncanny, the spontaneous and the patiently staged, and includes eyeball encounters with Cave's baddest lieutenants, men for the most part who long since burned their own bridges down. Butcher's Nikonic eye defines moment after arresting moment in Cave's glorious, sprawling story: it's a splendid testament to two brilliant careers.
The Clash
Joe Stummer - 2011
Strummer, Jones, Simonon and Headon tell it like it was. Accept no substitutes.The unique story of the Clash, by the Clash. The Clash were a band like no other. Pioneers of punk rock, their incendiary gigs, intelligent songwriting, definitive style and passionate idealism caught the spirit of the times and made them a worldwide phenomenon. Rolling Stone magazine declared London Calling one of the greatest albums of all time, their autobiographical documentary Westway to the World won a Grammy, and their music lives on, influencing emerging bands and exciting new audiences today.This is the only book to be created by the band and is now available as an eBook. The Clash: trendsetters, icons, revolutionaries. One of the most influential bands of their time, they have inspired bookshelves of commentary, but this is the only book to be created by the band themselves. With unprecedented access to the Clash archives and original interviews with band, this publication tells it like it was. The full story from the last gang in town. Strummer, Jones, Simonon and Headon in their own words.Reviews‘One of the greatest bands of all time.' The Edge, U2 'A massive inspiration for me.' Bernard Sumner, Joy Division and New Order 'I adore The Clash.' Pete Townshend, The Who'One of England's greatest bands.' Nick Hornby ‘What could be more fun than a book about The Clash written by The Clash - What makes this tome more worthy than the reams of unofficial Clash literature available is that in it, the band tells their story in their own words - it's packed with little secrets and playful digs - Brilliant.' Short List 'Thrilling - This is a treasure trove of hitherto undiscovered gems. Long overdue.' Classic Rock ''This book is a cracker - crammed with Clash bits and bobs.' The Sunday Times
Paranoid: Black Days with Sabbath & Other Horror Stories - The Unexpurgated Edition
Mick Wall - 1999
‘In his amoral, happy-go-lucky search for the next drink or expenses-paid trip, Wall fearlessly exposes much of the mediocrity and sheer hollowness that lies just beneath the surface glamour of life on the pop media-celebrity circuit… Dark, twisted and frequently hilarious.’ THE TIMES ‘This is the tale of a writer’s travels in nihilism… Up one minute, down the next, Wall teeters on self-destruct.’ MOJO ‘A repulsively compelling account of life on the road and other rock’n'roll stories, the heroin scenes make Irvine Welsh look like the Teletubbies.’ THE GUARDIAN ‘Mick Wall will never work in the music industry again. Not if the men in the corridors of power learn about his utter contempt for [them].’ UNCUT Like all the greatest rock books ever written, this is not a book about rock music; it is a book about rock life. A hard-hitting, iconoclastic tour de force, written with affection, rudeness and wincing honesty, PARANOID proves that music can be an arena for moral choices - that it can quite literally change your life. Mick Wall was a teenage rock fan who, leaving school with no qualifications, somehow found himself working with Black Sabbath. They would help seal his fate forever. As he writes, 'It was never about what happened on stage, it was about what happened afterwards, when the crowd had gone and the bands could really start to play.' Written in prose that pulsates with rock's own rhythms, and featuring a remarkable cast of characters - including Sabbath and their notorious singer Ozzy Osbourne, Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page, Kate Bush David Bowie, Guns & Roses, Stevie Nicks and many, many others - PARANOID is not just the story of one man, or even one band, but a remarkably frank inside look at the rock industry in all its tawdry, self-deluding glory. ‘Far too slowly the truth dawned’, writes Wall. ‘For much of my life, I had been a desperate, hand to mouth junkie in a corrupt, multi-billion dollar industry that didn't give a fuck’. This brand new eBook edition is the first time PARANOID has been published online. It comes with a brand new introduction from the author, outlining for the first time what the book was really all about, and with the manuscript in its original unexpurgated form.
The Filthy Truth
Andrew Dice Clay - 2014
When he released his debut album, Dice, in 1989, the parental advisory label simply read “Warning: This album is offensive.” His material stretched the boundaries of decency and good taste to their breaking point, and in turn he became the biggest stand-up comic in the world.In The Filthy Truth, Dice chronicles his remarkable rise, fall, and triumphant return. Brooklyn-born Andrew Clay Silverstein started out at Pips Comedy Club in Sheepshead Bay and eventually made a name for himself a decade later with a breakout appearance on the Rodney Dangerfield HBO special Nothing Goes Right. With that single TV appearance he became the new king of comedy, and Dicemania was born. He was the first and only comedian to sell out over three hundred sports arenas across the country to an audience of more than twelve million people. He was also the first comedian to sell out Madison Square Garden two nights in a row.But Dice’s meteoric rise and spectacular fame brought on a furious backlash from the media and critics. Billboards for his album produced by Rick Rubin and for his movie The Adventures of Ford Fairlane were defaced and ripped down as fast as they were put up. By the mid-nineties, though still playing to packed audiences, the turmoil in his personal life, plus attacks from every activist group imaginable, led him to make the decision to step out of the spotlight and put the focus on raising his boys.The Diceman was knocked down, but not out. Taking inspiration from what Frank Sinatra once told him—“You work for your fans, not the media. The media gets their tickets for free”—Dice is now back with critically acclaimed roles in HBO’s Entourage and Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine, and is once again playing to sold-out audiences.Filled with no-holds-barred humor and honesty, The Filthy Truth sets the record straight and gives fans plenty of never-before-shared stories from his career and his friendships with Howard Stern, Sam Kinison, Mickey Rourke, Sylvester Stallone, Axl Rose, and countless others.
FIRSTS: Women Who Are Changing the World
TIME Magazine - 2017
A companion to TIME's multi-platform documentary, the book includes 15 first person deep-dives into the lives of influential women such as General Lori Robinson, the first woman to lead troops into combat, Kathryn Sullivan, the first woman to walk in space, and Aretha Franklin, the first woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Many others, including Oprah Winfrey, Madeline Albright, and Sheryl Sandburg offer their own personal reflections, thematic quotes and perspectives on balance, perseverance and strength.Each first-person piece or quote is accompanied by a distinctive portrait by photographer Luisa Dorr ― set up and taken on her iPhone. Others included in this unforgettable volume: Serena Williams, Ellen Degeneres, Loretta Lynch, Shonda Rimes, Nancy Pelosi, Rita Moreno, Cindy Sherman and Mo’Ne Davis.With a stirring introduction by Nancy Gibbs, herself a pioneer as the first female editor of TIME magazine, this is an inspirational book for all women and men.
Peter Grant: The Man Who Led Zeppelin
Chris Welch - 2001
The book reveals the facts about his suspended prison sentence, his dispute with the group over unpaid royalties and his retiring from the music industry, and his rumoured heroin addiction.Written with the full co-operation of Grant's family and friends to give a unique access into the most fabled and feared man in the music business.
I Saw the Light: The Story of Hank Williams
Colin Escott - 2015
In his brief life, Hank Williams created one of the defining bodies of American music. Songs such as "Your Cheatin' Heart," "Hey, Good Lookin'," and "Jambalaya" sold millions of records and became the model for virtually all country music that followed. But by the time of his death at age twenty-nine, Williams had drunk and drugged and philandered his way through two messy marriages and out of his headline spot on the Grand Ole Opry. Even though he was country music's top seller, toward the end he was so famously unreliable that he was lucky to get a booking in a beer hall. Colin Escott's enthralling, definitive biograph -- now the basis of the major motion picture I Saw the Light -- vividly details the singer's stunning rise and his spectacular decline, revealing much that was previously unknown or hidden about the life of this country music legend. Originally published as Hank William: The Biography.
Whisper Mountain
Vivian Higginbotham Nichols - 2017
Because it was extremely difficult to verbalize the events to her own children years later, her adult family knew very little of the details until 30 years after her passing in 1967. That is when her granddaughter discovered her writings and promised to tell the story of what she endured.
Rhinestone Cowboy:: An Autobiography
Glen Campbell - 1994
Glen Campbell's boy-next-door persona belied his hedonistic, near-fatal lifestyle. It all started like a dream - the rise from ruthless poverty as one of twelve children in a small Arkansas town and the against-all struggle for stardom, first as a brilliant studio musician (behind artists such as Sinatra, Elvis, Ray Charles, and Nat King Cole), then as a solo performer who in the sixties and seventies sold some 45 million records (including the timeless classics "Wichita Lineman, " "Gentle on My Mind, " "By the Time I Get to Phoenix, " and, of course, "Rhinestone Cowboy") and hosted his own top-rated TV show. Too quickly, though, the dream became a nightmare of mad spending, multiple marriages, and abusive and all-too-public affairs, as well as wildly escalating alcohol and cocaine dependencies that threatened not only his career but his very existence. Now a Christian and in recovery, he has stepped back into the spotlight a whole man at last. With the help of bestselling author Tom Carter, Glen Campbell has given us a book that is both a star-studded show-biz memoir and a spiritual testimony that radiates great faith and emotion. Rhinestone Cowboy is his personal gift of thanks to the millions who have supported him through decades of good times and bad - and to the vast new audience who have grown to know him through his frequent appearances on cable television's 700Club and other Christian TV shows. "A lot of people are going to be surprised by my story, and I hope that a lot are going to be inspired, " Campbell declares. "All I know for sure is that it's time to tell it. And as honestly as I can, that's just what I've gone and done."
Paul Weller: The Changing Man
Paolo Hewitt - 2007
Hewitt has even been the inspiration for some of Weller's songs - and he has extraordinary in-depth knowledge of the inspiration behind the rest.Once, when Hewitt interviewed Weller for a music magazine, he complained - 'I don't know why people ask me all these questions. All the answers are in my songs.' Largely unnoticed, Weller has used thirty-years of lyrics to explore his personal history and beliefs. Taking as his starting point these lyrics, alongside a lifetime's friendship, Paolo Hewitt shows us the real Paul Weller, the man inside the music.
I Still Believe
Jeremy Camp - 2011
I Still Believe follows Jeremy's life from growing up in Indiana and his struggles as a teen, to his love for his first wife Melissa and her untimely passing, to his growing music ministry and re-found hope and love in his wife Adrienne. "We have choices when life hits us with tragedy or despair, crisis or loss. That's the message of Jeremy Camp's books, and it's the reason you will find hope and healing by journeying through the pages of this story."Bestselling author Karen Kingsbury, from the Foreword
Willin': The Story of Little Feat
Ben Fong-Torres - 2013
Formed in 1969 by ex-members of Frank Zappa’s Mothers of Invention, Little Feat created groove-heavy music that was an irresistible mix of rock, blues, R&B, country, jazz, soul, and funk.Fronted by the charismatic but doomed vocalist and brilliant slide guitarist Lowell George, the band recorded such classic studio albums as Sailin’ Shoes and Dixie Chicken, as well as Waiting for Columbus, which many consider to be one of the best live albums of all time.Acclaimed journalist Ben Fong-Torres—working with Little Feat’s surviving members, their friends, and associates—wrote Willin’ based on hours of brand new interviews with the key players. The result? The first definitive biography of this beloved rock ’n’ roll institution.
Going Back: How a former refugee, now an internationally acclaimed surgeon, returned to Iraq to change the lives of injured soldiers and civilians
Munjed Al Muderis - 2019
The book also detailed his early work as a pioneering orthopaedic surgeon at the cutting edge of world medicine. In Going Back, Munjed shares the extraordinary journey that his life-changing new surgical technique has taken him on. Through osseointegration, he implants titanium rods into the human skeleton and attaches robotic limbs, allowing patients genuine, effective and permanent mobility. Munjed has performed this operation on hundreds of Australian civilians, wounded British soldiers who've lost legs in Iraq and Afghanistan, and a survivor of the Christchurch earthquake in New Zealand. But nothing has been as extraordinary as his return to Iraq after eighteen years, at the invitation of the Iraqi government, to operate on soldiers, police and civilian amputees wounded in the horrific war against ISIS. These stories are both heartbreaking and full of hope, and are told from the unique perspective of a refugee returning to the place of his birth as a celebrated international surgeon.