What do all these people have in common? Fame, of course, and undeniable talent. But most of all, they were cool. Birth of the Cool is a stunningly illustrated, brilliantly written cultural history of the American avant-garde in the 1940s and 1950s -- the decades in which cool was born. From intimate interviews with cool icons like poet Allen Ginsberg, bop saxophonist Jackie McLean, and Living Theatre cofounder Judith Malina, award-winning journalist and poet Lewis MacAdams extracts the essence of cool. Taking us inside the most influential and experimental art movements of the twentieth century -- from the Harlem jazz joints where Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker invented bebop to the back room at Max's Kansas City when Andy Warhol was holding court to backstage at the Newport Folk Festival the night Bob Dylan went electric, from Surrealism to the Black Mountain School to Zen -- MacAdams traces the evolution of cool from the very fringes of society to the mainstream. Born of World War II, raised on atomic-age paranoia, cast out of the culture by the realities of racism and the insanity of the Cold War, cool is now, perversely, as conventional as you can get. Allen Ginsberg suited up for Gap ads. Volvo appropriated a phrase from Jack Kerouac's On the Road for its TV commercials. How one became the other is a terrific story, and it is presented here in a gorgeous package, rich with the coolest photographs of the black-and-white era from Robert Doisneau, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Man Ray, and many others. Drawing a direct line between Lester Young wearing his pork-pie hat and his crepe-sole shoes staring out his hotel window at Birdland to the author's three-year-old daughter saying "cool" while watching a Scooby-Doo cartoon at the cusp of a new millennium, Birth of the Cool is a cool book about a hot subject...maybe even the coolest book ever.

    But behind the sparkling social whirl, Vera is living a life of quiet desperation. Her days are an unbroken loop of empty, champagne-soaked socializing, while her nights are silent and cold, spent waiting alone in her cavernous apartment for a husband who seldom comes home.Then Emil Hallan arrives at The Angelus to paint a mural above its glittering subterranean pool. The handsome French artist moves into the building, shrouds his work in secrecy, and piques Vera’s curiosity, especially when the painter keeps dodging questions about his past. Is he the man he claims to be? Even as she finds herself increasingly drawn to Hallan’s warmth and passion, Vera can’t supress her suspicions. After all, she has plenty of secrets, too—and some of them involve art forgers like her bold, artistically talented former friend, Bea, who years ago, at Vassar, brought Vera to the brink of catastrophe and social exile.When the dangerous mysteries of Emil’s past are revealed, Vera faces an impossible choice—whether to cling to her familiar world of privilege and propriety or to risk her future with the enigmatic man who has taken her heart. A Fine Imitation explores what happens when we realize that the life we’ve always led is not the life we want to have.

    Along the way we see behind the public face of a whole range of relationships, from the straightforwardly romantic to the messily divided, and from the famous (and infamous) to the relatively unknown. All are engaging, full of contemporary detail, and come imbued with the energy and the spirit of the music world over the last half century.

     A Ragdoll Kitten Care Guide: Bringing Your Ragdoll Kitten Home is a comprehensive guide that covers every aspect of kitten care a new owner needs to know written in a warm, friendly tone. What if you knew what to expect and prepare for before you even picked your Ragdoll kitten up? Wouldn't it be nice to know how to kitten proof your home? Or what about what to buy in anticipation for your little one's arrival? Looking for recommended products for a new Ragdoll kitten? Looking for suggestions on everything from water fountains to scratching posts, pet carriers, cat litter, litter boxes, cat bowls, etc....products that a Ragdoll cat owner just can't live without? How about vet visits and cat health insurance? There's a lot to consider and prepare for. A Ragdoll Kitten Care Guide includes links to videos and products, and the information presented is from real life experiences, not repeated from other cat books. There are many quick, simple tips that can be used with Ragdoll kittens. The author also has a corresponding website Floppycats.com, where you can easily connect with other Ragdoll cat owners. Here's a peek inside of A Ragdoll Kitten Care Guide: Chapter 1 - Getting Your Kitten Safe-Room Ready, Kitten-Proofing, and Other Things Chapter 2 - First Days with Your Kitten and Things to Watch Out For Chapter 3 - Diet, Food and Water Bowls, Treats Chapter 4 - Scratchers, Trees, Toys and Beds Chapter 5 - Vets, Carriers, Vaccinations and Cat Health Insurance Chapter 6 - Nail Trimming, Declawing and Grooming Chapter 7 - Litter Boxes, Automatic Litter Boxes and Litter Scoops Chapter 8 - Dental Care, Teething and Teeth Brushing BONUS: How to Introduce Your New Ragdoll Kitten to a Resident Cat BONUS: Bringing Your Ragdoll Kitten Home Checklist BONUS: Questions to ask Ragdoll Breeders Carefully researched, this guide is a fast and enjoyable read with lots of photos and recommendations for the Ragdoll Kitten owner. Everything is broken down into easy chapters, and Jenny writes as if she is there with you to take you there through the various steps.

    Interviewing countless friends, advisers, family members, teachers, coworkers, business partners, neighbors, intimates, and employees, Andersen paints a mesmerizing, often shocking, portrayal of the Man in the Mirror.

    "In the form of a diary, he takes us through the crazy journey that is making music. His excellent recollections of the excesses of morons and geniuses involved in creating melodies and rhythms for us to enjoy are sheer entertainment." - Musician Robert Palmer (from his foreword for the book). From the author's first glimpse of a magical recording studio in the mid-1960s up through a busy career that continues to the present day, this rollicking story can only be told by those that were there. As the young tape operator on sessions for The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, and Joe Cocker at the famed Olympic Sound Studios in London, Phill learned the ropes from experienced engineers and producers such as Glyn Johns and Eddie Kramer. Phill soon worked his way up engineering sessions for Mott the Hoople, David Bowie, Led Zeppelin, Bob Marley and many other lendary rockers. He eventually became a freelance engineer/producer and worked with Roxy Music, Go West, Talk Talk, and Robert Plant. But more than a recollection of participating in some of the most treasured music of the past 40 years, this is a man's journey through life as Phill struggles to balance his home and family with a job where drug abuse, chaos, rampant egos, greed, lies and the increasingly invasive record business take their toll. It's also a cautionary tale, where long workdays and what once seemed like harmless indulgences become health risks, yet eventually offer a time to reflect back on.

    These recipes range from those that you yourself can use as well as those that can benefit your beloved pets and home. If you are someone with minimal or no essential oils experience, this book will be good for you. This can help you get started really quick. If you're someone who has a little more experience with essential oils before, this book is also for you. This book offers tons of essential oils recipes resources laid out in a quick, concise, and easy to read format. In this book, you will learn the following awesome information: The basic information about the different essential oils that you can use! Brief information regarding the effectivity of the essential oils! The 100% best way to ensure that you are mixing the right essential oils together to achieve maximum effect! A step-by-step tutorial on how you can mix the essential oils to achieve the right blend or right essential oil product! The definitive guide that contains tons of awesome essential oils recipes! Our professional tips about these essential oil recipes! We’d love to share these to you! Several recipes for essential oil blends and products which are good for you, your kids, your pets, and even your home! and much much more…. So, what are you waiting for? Get started today and experience the various benefits that essential oils can do to you!!! ***SPECIAL OFFER!!!*** LIMITED TIME OFFER 40% OFF (Regular Price $4.99) This #1 Best Selling Critically Acclaimed Book is now available Globally on Amazon - Download it Now!

    It's for the woman who doesn't want to trade in her champagne for skinny jeans. It's for the woman who is done with dieting, and ready to start paying attention to her health before that number on the scale. It's for the woman who is ready to stop letting her weight define her, and is ready to understand why it always did. This is not a diet book. This is a lifestyle guide. This book will change the way you view your weight and yourself forever. You will walk away feeling empowered, inspired, and downright sexy (and probably craving a glass of bubbly). You will learn how to celebrate yourself and your body. You will learn to make your health a priority, always. And most importantly – you will learn to love yourself, exactly as you are. So get ready to embark on a complete dieting and lifestyle overhaul, sister. You are now on The Champagne Diet! "The Champagne Diet will resonate with every woman with it’s realistic and simple approach to dieting. Alwill delivers a personal, relatable, and funny guide to shedding pounds without deprivation." - Kim Barnouin Co-Author, Skinny Bitch

    

    If you want to achieve maximum success in getting mistakes of the past deleted and restoring your good name so that you can qualify for the best loans at the lowest rates, then you need to follow the same steps taken by attorneys and certified credit consultants. "How do they do that?" people ask. This book reveals the answers, the details, and the steps you can take to repair your own credit in a manner that is legal and effective. Unless you just won the lottery and plan to pay cash for everything for the rest of your life, you need excellent credit and a high FICO score to get respect and the best financing.

    Michael Jackson Treasures pairs a compelling exploration of his story with photographs and memorabilia that illuminate h is fascinating, complicated life. Featuring a number of rare pieces, including selected pages from the Jackson children’s high school yearbook, the patent for the antigravity lean shoes from “Smooth Criminal,” and a fancifully die-cut mask from the Dangerous Tour, Michael Jackson Treasures is a trove of powerful images and ephemera from a truly global superstar.

    For the first time, Aaron Hernandez’s Killing Fields will reveal the real, hitherto unknown motive for the killing of Odin Lloyd—the only crime for which Hernandez was ever convicted and a revelation so shocking it will shake the foundations of the NFL itself. It will also unpick a pattern of violence and brutality stretching back to his time as a teenager at the University of Florida, revealing further shooting victims, evidence of his involvement in the double murder of Daniel Abreu and Safiro Furtado in 2012. Featuring new interviews with Hernandez’s cellmates, serving police investigators, prosecutors, psychologists, attorneys—as well as key witnesses including Hernandez’s drug dealer, a male stripper he hired days before the killing of Lloyd—plus extensive testimony from relatives of Hernandez’s victims, Aaron Hernandez’s Killing Fields is the exhaustive, definitive account of the rise and fall of a man undone by his own appetite for violence, gangsterism, power, drugs, and self-destruction. This is the real Aaron Hernandez story—and perhaps just the beginning of a whole new murder investigation.

    The accompanying photo was a mugshot of a scrawny, seedy looking bloke the archetypal lowlife, a career crook, no doubt. And yet behind the headlines was a story the newspapers never discovered, a story more sensational than they could have wished for. This lowlife, this drug baron was in fact, just a few years before, a meek law-abiding suburban family man... He was my dad.'James is just a normal student - insecure, smelly, geeky and a virgin to boot.His father is a middle class, middle-aged and very well respected Jewish coin dealer.Their life is as good as it gets.Until one day James' father ditches Handel for Hard House and unexpectedly hits the gay club scene of London - trading in coin-dealing for drug-dealing. As James gets to grips with his new reality, will he save his broken dad or be dragged down with him? This is the incredible true story of how one well-to-do family man became Britain's most wanted meth dealer. For the first time, James, his son, tells the true story of their epic highs and crushing comedowns.

    He has a public meltdown while chaperoning Oasis at an awards ceremony; he’s lost joy in his bathroom full of rock’n’roll memorabilia; and his young son is in trouble at school for emulating rock star behaviour.Reluctantly Michael consults Mrs Henckel, a no-nonsense therapist with zero experience of pop culture. As Michael addresses his feelings about the past, in particular his failed teenage band, Mental Elf, he’s forced to confront the question: is it finally time to grow up and forget rock’n’roll?Michael Odell is a former contributing editor to Q magazine and has written about music for NME, the Guardian, the Independent and Spin, among others. Currently he does interviews and writes on family matters for The Times. He lives in Bristol."Please don't put your life in the hands of a rock 'n' roll band, who'll throw it all away." So advised Noel Gallagher in 1995 and Michael Odell ignored him anyway.One of Britain's most fearless rock interrogators, Odell turns his merciless searchlight on himself in this wry, compelling odyssey into the heart of his own - and rock n roll's - madness. Larks with the legends are all here (Bowie, McCartney, Mick `n' Keef ... Michael Buble) but it's his inner life which illuminates, his psyche traumatically crumbling as he confronts his chaotic past. Hilarious, tragic and timely, this is high farce in high (and low) places, uncovering why rock's lost highway is littered with the bodies of the righteous dreamers. Could it be because "the music people are all mad?" (Clue: yes.)' -- Sylvia Patterson, author of I'm Not with the Band `Hilarious and disarmingly honest; a journey into the neurosis of rock fame, but through doors you don't expect.' -- Rachel Joyce, author of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry `Rock Bottom is one of the best music books ever written, because Michael Odell knows music isn't about the musicians - it's about what it does to the listener, even if what it does ends up being wholly disastrous. It's sad, funny, fascinating and wise. And everyone who ever claimed a record changed their life should read it, and then think again.' -- Michael Hann, former Guardian music editor

    True. Compulsively readable. This is his best book."-- Gregg Olsen, NY Times Best Selling Author*Book Excellence Award Finalist, True Crime. A narcissistic professional photographer lived a dangerous double life as a serial killer. He'd focus his rage on prostitutes mostly. He commonly brought these women home and nonchalantly explained away their presence to his wife. Sexual urges met, either via rape or after paying for kinky sex, the killer would strangle his victims and dump their bodies in places he knew the police would eventually find them. The evil murderer needed the world to know that he was smarter than the police and women meant nothing to him but a necessary sexual inconvenience. Then, by a stroke of chance and aggressive police work, the wheels of justice stumbled upon a lead. It was nothing more than a lined sheet of paper that read, "List of 10," but shortly after its discovery, a task force was created and a serial killer was nabbed. This book is about the victims he left behind, not the person who took their lives. I will never condone such actions, nor will I try to rationalize his behavior. He will go to the grave, hopefully sooner rather than later, knowing the identity of four women from his fabled List of 10. It's his sick way of showing people he's still in charge. His name is Joseph Naso, and this book will grip you from the beginning and won't let you go until the final word.