Joyce Tenneson presents 80 portraits of women aged 65 to 100, who comment on their experiences of ageing.

    A biography of the Saudi Arabian king who ruled from 1964 until his assassination in 1975 and who became, during his reign, an important world leader through his control of his country's vast oil resources.

    After his death, the contents of his studio, including thousands of glass negatives, were sold off for five dollars. For years the fragile negatives sat forgotten and deteriorating in cardboard boxes in an open carport. How did it happen, then, that the most implausible of events took place? That Disfarmer’s haunting portraits were retrieved from oblivion, that today they sell for upwards of $12,000 each at posh New York art galleries; his photographs proclaimed works of art by prestigious critics and journals and exhibited around the world? The story of Disfarmer’s rise to fame is a colorful, improbable, and ultimately fascinating one that involves an unlikely assortment of individuals. Would any of this have happened if a young New York photographer hadn't been so in love with a pretty model that he was willing to give up his career for her; if a preacher’s son from Arkansas hadn't spent 30 years in the Army Corps of Engineers mapping the U.S. from an airplane; if a magazine editor hadn't felt a strange and powerful connection to the work? The cast of characters includes these, plus a restless and wealthy young Chicago aristocrat and even a grandson of FDR. It’s a compelling story which reveals how these diverse people were part of a chain of events whose far-reaching consequences none of them could have foreseen, least of all the strange and reclusive genius of Heber Springs. Until now, the whole story has not been told.

    Today's Formula One would be unthinkable without the presence of the Ferrari cars on the grid. Win or lose, Ferrari attract more fans than all the other teams combined. And the cars unique appeal - their mystique, their myth - has its origins in the story of one man with a dictator's will and the cunning of a Machiavelli. Going back to the origins of "The Old Man", tracing his remarkable rise to prominence, and using sources which have hitherto remained silent, Richard Williams tells the story of a man who was one of the key figures of sport in the twentieth century, and whose influence over his sport is undiminished today, more than a decade after his death.

    Dazzlingly beautiful and gravely intelligent, she fell in love with Archduke Maximilian of Austria, brother of Habsburg emperor Franz Josef. After their marriage they became viceroys of Lombardy-Venetia -- until Italian unification left them without a future. Meanwhile, Mexico's reformist president Benito Juarez had alienated Europe's rulers by suspending repayment of Mexico's debts. Napoleon III, with England and Spain's help, invaded Mexico to set up an empire, naming Maximilian emperor. In Rome to plead for aid from the pope, Charlotte suddenly went mad, while Maximilian was apprehended by Juarez and executed before a firing squad. Charlotte's life was part romance, part adventure, part mystery. What was her real relationship with Maximilian, and what explains this ambitious woman's sudden breakdown? Why did his family imprison her, after his death, in his fortress castle of Miramar? And what became of her immense fortune? Drawing on previously unpublished documents from the royal families' archives, Prince Michael of Greece answers some of these questions for the very first time. The result is a compelling, historically illuminating portrait of a remarkable woman. "More than a simple biography: this book is a real novel, rich, exciting, and filled with emotion." -- Elle

    The story will soon be immortalized in the upcoming film starring Salma Hayek.

    Every word and gesture made headlines and garnered controversy. Her serious gifts as an actor were sometimes eclipsed by her notoriety—and by the way the camera fell helplessly in love with her.Beyond the headlines—and the too-familiar stories of heartbreak and desolation—was a woman far more curious, searching, witty, and hopeful than the one the world got to know. Now, for the first time, readers can meet the private Marilyn and understand her in a way we never have before. Fragments is an unprecedented collection of written artifacts—notes to herself, letters, even poems—in Marilyn's own handwriting, never before published, along with rarely seen intimate photos.Jotted in notebooks, typed on paper, or written on hotel letterhead, these texts reveal a woman who loved deeply and strove to perfect her craft. They show a Marilyn Monroe unsparing in her analysis of her own life, but also playful, funny, and impossibly charming. The easy grace and deceptive lightness that made her performances indelible emerge on the page, as does the simmering tragedy that made her last appearances so affecting.

    This work reveals the growth of an artist who saw no artificial boundary between art and the paying job and who succeeded in putting her indelible stamp on the visual imagination.

    It consists of 143 paintings of small size, rarely larger than 20 x 30 inches, many of them now considered icons of 20th century art, most of them seIf-portraits. The reasons for this ostensible narcissism were closely bound up with Kahlo's biography, with the country and epoch in which she grew up, and with her decidedly eccentric character. It was no coincidence that the major enigmatic minds of the 16th century, namely Hieronymous Bosch and Pieter Bruegel the Elder, were among her favorite painters. For Frida Kahlo never displayed her wounds directly--be it the physical wounds caused by accidents and illness, or the psychological inner wounds. Hers is a subtly enciphered symbolic language, rich in metaphors drawn from almost all the world's cultures. Aztec myths of creation. Far Eastern and Classical Greek mythology, and popular Catholic beliefs all mingle in Kahlo's pictures with Mexican folklore and the stuff of quotidian life, with Marx and Freud. Andre Breton, one of her many admirers among the European avant-garde, once described Kahlo's art as a "colored ribbon round a bomb." Exotic and explosive, sensuous and fascinatingly vital in terms of artistic statement. Kahlo's paintings shed a complex and often frightening light on her soul, her "inner reality." as she called it. If the incessant commercial marketing of Kahlo's paintings over the past decade had obscured a clear view of her extraordinary oeuvre, this present monograph attempts to make amends "Frida Kahlo: The Painter and Her Work returns to the heart, to 42 select masterpieces, reproduced in full and in detail. The painterly quality, the beauty, and theimmense wealth of details in Kahlo's paintings is laid out before the reader's eyes, as is the abyss in which the artist found herself.

    This collection of profiles and interviews turns the spotlight on those unsung heroes, whose faces were often better known than their names. Maltin’s engaging conversations with such notables as Billy Gilbert, Gale Sondergaard, Hans Conried and Una Merkel evoke a bygone era as we see what life was like for these versatile players. Looking for anecdotes about W.C. Fields or Clark Gable? This book is for you. You’ll also learn about Bess Flowers, “the queen of the dress extras” and Rex Ingram, the black actor whose imposing presence eclipsed the stereotyping of the period. This well-illustrated e-book edition features a brand-new introduction by Leonard Maltin.

    Now legendary, these men have emerged as the most prominent figures of the famed Mexican mural movement, which lasted from the '20s through the early '70s and was hailed as the most significant achievement in public art of the 20th century. The dramatic story of the movement is told here in a fascinating history of the artists, accompanied by over 100 spectacular color reproductions of the murals. Showcasing popular as well as lesser-known works from around the US and Mexico, this is the first high-quality paperback to do justice to a subject that will captivate every lover of Mexican art and culture, Rivera fan, and art historian, as well as anyone who appreciates a beautiful, intelligent art book.

    Norma Jeane Baker’stransformation into one of the most emulated and iconic Hollywood stars is anepic American story—one that careens from a troubled childhood into the brightnational spotlight before descending into an irrevocable depression. In thisstunning, one-of-a-kind volume, David Wills offers a captivating photographicjourney through Monroe’s meteoric rise and tragic downfall. Featuring thehighest-quality images of Marilyn available anywhere in the world, from candids to film stills to modeling headshots, the images inMarilyn Monroe: Metamorphosis will reawaken casual fans and collectorsalike to Marilyn Monroe at her living best.

    There she met the legendary couple Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. Welcomed into their home, she immersed herself in their private lives and the cultural and artistic diversity of the country, taking hundreds of photographs. These powerful photographs, among the last taken before Kahlo’s death, bear poignant witness to Frida’s beauty and talent. Showcasing more than 100 of these rare images, many of which have never been published before, the book also includes previously unpublished commentary by Gisèle Freund about Frida Kahlo, texts by Kahlo’s biographer Gérard de Cortanze and art historian Lorraine Audric, as well as a link to a previously unreleased color film, shot by Freund, showing Diego Rivera at work.

    Their sound was inventive and tetchy, and front man Jello Biafra’s lyrics were incisive and often scathing. This chronicle—the first in-depth book written about Dead Kennedys—uses dozens of firsthand interviews, photos, and original artwork to offer a new perspective on a group that was mired in controversy almost from its inception. It examines and applauds the band’s key role in transforming punk rhetoric, both polemical and musical, into something genuinely threatening and enormously funny. Author Alex Ogg puts the local and global trajectory of punk into context and, while not flinching from the wildly differing takes the individual band members have on the evolution of the band, attempts to be celebratory—if not uncritical.

    Yet, as bestselling biographer Sarah Bradford reveals in this breathtaking new portrait, the truth is far more fascinating than the myth. Neither a vicious monster nor a seductive pawn, Lucrezia Borgia was a shrewd, determined woman who used her beauty and intelligence to secure a key role in the political struggles of her day.Drawing from a trove of contemporary documents and fascinating firsthand accounts, Bradford brings to life the art, the pageantry, and the dangerous politics of the Renaissance world Lucrezia Borgia helped to create.