He lands an enviable gig writing about shopping and fashion for the city’s major newspaper, but an ill-fated promotional junket gets Albo into hot water. He becomes a gossip item and finds himself caught in an acrimonious war between Old and New Media. Here's a gimlet-eyed account of the back-biting media scene, a glimpse into the inner workings of the fashion crowd, and a candid portrait of what it takes to survive as a writer in today’s chattering and watchful New York City."I was perilously close to exposing a secret underground economy of promotion: favors and junkets and banquets and gifts that keeps the city in motion, and keeps underpaid writers at work. Basically, I became the Silkwood of Swag."

    From The Wire: "Matthew Ingram, aka Woebot, has published a book titled 100 Lost Rock Albums From The 1970s. The book takes in strands of metal, glam rock, French artists, punk and pub rock, and is released digitally as a self-published eBook via Amazon. Ingram says: 'Last year I started writing an article on the 100 Lost Rock Albums From The 1970s but it ballooned out of all proportions and I decided to turn it into an eBook.''Over time we have lost touch with the original character of the 70s. Using 'lost' records I've attempted to re-examinine the decade and redress what I see as imbalance. Beyond small reviews of a meticulously-selected 100 albums there's quite a lot of contemporary history, much theorising and lots of gags.'"

    This is the story of how, with the odd misstep along the way, the owners of the Bond franchise, Eon Productions, have contrived to keep James Bond abreast of the zeitgeist and at the top of the charts for 45 years, through 21 films featuring six Bonds, three M’s, two Q’s and three Moneypennies. Thanks to the films, Fleming’s original creation has been transformed from a black sheep of the post-war English upper classes into a figure with universal appeal, constantly evolving to keep pace with changing social and political circumstances. Having interviewed people concerned with all aspects of the films, Sinclair McKay is ideally placed to describe how the Bond ‘brand’ has been managed over the years as well as to give us the inside stories of the supporting cast of Bond girls, Bond villains, Bond cars and Bond gadgetry. Sinclair McKay, formerly assistant features editor of the Daily Telegraph, works as a freelance writer and journalist. He is also the author of A Thing of Unspeakable Horror: The History of Hammer Films, which the Guardian called ‘A splendid history’ and the Independent on Sunday described as ‘Brisk, cheerful and enthusiastic.’

    President Nixon and Secretary of State Kissinger began their diplomacy with China in an attempt to find a way out of Vietnam. The remaining Cold War presidents saw China as an ally against the Soviet Union and looked askance at its violations of international principles. With the end of communism and China's continued human rights abuses, the U.S has failed to forge a genuinely new relationship with China. This is the essential story of contemporary U.S./China policy.

    In this delightful collection, the longtime United States senator shares his favorite anecdotes, witticisms, and reminiscences. From the campaign trail to the Oval Office, from smoke-filled rooms to the chambers of the Capitol, Bob Dole surveys a century of political wit.  There are bon mots from Calvin Coolidge, Winston Churchill, Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy, and a host of other political figures. Bob Dole introduces each section with mirthful moments from his own experience, displaying the gift for wry humor that has made him a favorite guest on late-night talk shows.A jovial--and completely bipartisan--compendium, Great Political Wit is a connoisseur's selection of political repartee at its best.

    Many of our most hotly debate topics are shaped by Davos power brokers, woke college professors, TV talking heads, social media activists and feckless Washington swamp monsters who want you to only follow their narrative. Your teachers, your politicians, and your local paper are not likely to ever tell you: Racial minorities fare far better in the absence of race-based affirmative action policies. Latinos make up a little more than 50% of the Border Patrol, according to 2016 data. The U.S. settled more refugees in 2017 than any other nation. Between 2011 and 2016, the IRS documented 1.3 million identity thefts by Illegal aliens. Half of federal arrests are immigration-related. Welfare recipients in 34 states earn more than a person making minimum wage. Taxpayers doled out $2.6 billion in food stamps to dead people in less than two years. 1,700 private jets flew to Davos to discuss the impact of global warming. Google could swing an election by secretly adjusting its search algorithm, and we would have no way of knowing. Once you’re done reading 50 Things They Don’t Want You to Know, you’ll never trust the powers that be to give you the whole truth again.

    In its pages V. S. Naipaul trains his relentless moral intelligence on societies from India to the United States and sees how each deals with the challenges of modernity and the seductions of both the real and mythical past.Whether he is writing about a string of racial murders in Trinidad; the mad, corrupt reign of Mobutu in Zaire; Argentina under the generals; or Dallas during the 1984 Republican Convention, Naipaul combines intellectual playfulness with sorrow, indignation, and analysis so far-reaching that it approaches prophecy. The Writer and the World reminds us that he is in a class by himself.

    A gallery of unforgettable portraits--of Virginia Woolf and Zelda Fitzgerald, Dorothy Wordsworth and Jane Carlyle--as well as a provocative reading of such works as Wuthering Heights, Hedda Gabler, and the poems of Sylvia Plath, Seduction and Betrayal is a virtuoso performance, a major writer's reckoning with the relations between men and women, women and writing, writing and life.

    In Savage's funniest, most biting book yet, the nation's fiercest independent thinker invites you to take a riotous tour through The Political Zoo--an outrageous look at today's most prominent politicos and pundits as the reptiles, rats, and birds of prey they most resemble.Animal by animal and cage by cage, Savage brandishes his irreverent wit to keep these beasts in check. Serving as resident biologist and zookeeper, Dr. Savage asks that you watch your step when approaching the widemouth copperhead Ted Turner (also known as Mouthus desouthus), do not feed the ego of stuffed turkey Alec Baldwin (Notalentus anti-americanus), and please keep your children with you at all times around wolf boy Bill Clinton (Fondlem undgropeum)."The world of politics is filled with uncivilized, snarling, rapacious beasts that, like untrained mutts, raise their legs and urinate on everything we hold dear," says Savage. And this sensational book is your guide for navigating the jungle of today's animal-political kingdom.

    The Weird and the Eerie are closely related but distinct modes, each possessing its own distinct properties. Both have often been associated with Horror, yet this emphasis overlooks the aching fascination that such texts can exercise. The Weird and the Eerie both fundamentally concern the outside and the unknown, which are not intrinsically horrifying, even if they are always unsettling. Perhaps a proper understanding of the human condition requires examination of liminal concepts such as the weird and the eerie. These two modes will be analysed with reference to the work of authors such as H.P. Lovecraft, H.G. Wells, M.R. James, Christopher Priest, Joan Lindsay, Nigel Kneale, Daphne Du Maurier, Alan Garner and Margaret Atwood, and films by Stanley Kubrick, Jonathan Glazer and Christoper Nolan.

    The book is an analysis of physical suffering and its relation to the numerous vocabularies and cultural forces--literary, political, philosophical, medical, religious--that confront it. Elaine Scarry bases her study on a wide range of sources: literature and art, medical case histories, documents on torture compiled by Amnesty International, legal transcripts of personal injury trials, and military and strategic writings by such figures as Clausewitz, Churchill, Liddell Hart, and Kissinger, She weaves these into her discussion with an eloquence, humanity, and insight that recall the writings of Hannah Arendt and Jean-Paul Sartre. Scarry begins with the fact of pain's inexpressibility. Not only is physical pain enormously difficult to describe in words--confronted with it, Virginia Woolf once noted, "language runs dry"--it also actively destroys language, reducing sufferers in the most extreme instances to an inarticulate state of cries and moans. Scarry analyzes the political ramifications of deliberately inflicted pain, specifically in the cases of torture and warfare, and shows how to be fictive. From these actions of "unmaking" Scarry turns finally to the actions of "making"--the examples of artistic and cultural creation that work against pain and the debased uses that are made of it. Challenging and inventive, The Body in Pain is landmark work that promises to spark widespread debate.

    Each standalone book presents the author's original vision of a singular aspect of the future which inspires in them hope or reticence, optimism or fear. Read individually, these essays will inform, entertain and challenge. Together, they form a picture of what might lie ahead, and ask the reader to imagine how we might make the transition from here to there, from now to then.In The Future of British Politics, comedian Frankie Boyle takes a characteristically acerbic look at some of the forces that will be key in coming years, from Scottish independence and post-colonial entitlement to big tech surveillance and the looming climate catastrophe. Despite his fears that 'soon the only red tape in this country will be across the finish line of the compulsory Food Bank Olympics', he manages to locate some hopeful signs amid the gloom, reminding us that 'despair is a moment that pretends to be permanent'.

     Free BONUS Inside! Until surprisingly recently, most history books noted that America was discovered in 1492 by Christopher Columbus. The truth was that by the time that Columbus arrived in America, people had been living there for more than 12,000 years. During this time, the indigenous people of North America lived without contact with other continents. Different groups developed separate and distinct ways of life, cultures, and societies but all shared one common characteristic: they relied on the land to provide them with food, and they developed a series of religions that, while separate, shared a respect for nature and imbued many animals and natural features with spiritual characteristics. These beliefs, combined with the fact that most of these societies were relatively primitive compared to those emerging in other parts of the world, meant that the Native Americans were able to live in harmony with the natural world. These people had sophisticated and complex belief systems, but they built no cities, no wheeled vehicles, and developed nothing beyond the most basic written language. Although many millions of people lived in North America, their impact on the landscape and the natural systems was minimal. Then, abruptly, white settlers arrived, bringing with them new technologies and weapons, new religions, and an indifference towards nature. They also brought with them diseases to which the Native Americans had never before been exposed. Within two hundred years, the Native American population dwindled to a fraction of what it had been; the survivors were herded onto reservations on which they could not follow their traditional ways of life and where they were denied the most basic human rights. Only in the twentieth century did the population of Native American people begin to recover, and only then did the general population of America begin to regard these cultured and sophisticated people as anything but savages. This is the story of the gradual rise, sudden destruction, and slow recovery of the native people of North America. Discover a plethora of topics such as The Emergence of Native American Peoples and Cultures Life before the White Men European Settlers Arrive Early Wars in America American Expansion Ghost Dancing and the Wounded Knee Massacre And much more! So if you want a concise and informative book on Native American History, simply scroll up and click the "Buy now" button for instant access!

    In 'Gore Vidal: History of the National Security State' & 'Vidal on America', TRNN Senior Editor Paul Jay and the acclaimed essayist, screenwriter and novelist Gore Vidal discuss the historical events that led to the establishment of the massive military-industrial-security complex and the political culture that gave us the “Imperial Presidency.”

    The turbulent political weather of the twenty-first century generates anxiety and makes it difficult to know how to react. Olivia Laing makes a brilliant, inspiring case for why art matters more than ever, as a force of both resistance and repair. Art, she argues, changes how we see the world. It gives us X-ray vision. It reveals inequalities and offers fertile new ways of living.Funny Weather brings together a career’s worth of Laing’s writing about art and culture, and their role in our political and emotional lives. She profiles Jean-Michel Basquiat and Georgia O’Keeffe, interviews Hilary Mantel and Ali Smith, writes love letters to David Bowie and Wolfgang Tillmans, and explores loneliness and technology, women and alcohol, sex and the body. With characteristic originality and compassion, Funny Weather celebrates art as an antidote to a terrifying political moment.