Book picks similar to
Will Rogers: The Man and His Times by Richard M. Ketchum
biography
history
hardback
no-cover-photo
Tarantino: A Retrospective
Tom Shone - 2017
The script for his first movie took him four years to complete: My Best Friend’s Birthday, a seventy-minute film in which he both acted and directed. The script for his second film, Reservoir Dogs (1992), took him just under four weeks to complete. When it debuted, he was immediately hailed as one of the most exciting new directors in the industry. Known for his highly cinematic visual style, out-of-sequence storytelling, and grandiose violence, Tarantino’s films have provoked both praise and criticism over the course of his career. They’ve also won him a host of awards—including Oscars, Golden Globes, and BAFTA awards—usually for his original screenplays. His oeuvre includes the cult classic Pulp Fiction, bloody revenge saga Kill Bill Vol. 1 and Vol. 2, and historical epics Inglorious Basterds, Django Unchained, and The Hateful Eight . This stunning retrospective catalogs each of Quentin Tarantino’s movies in detail, from My Best Friend’s Birthday to The Hateful Eight. The book is a tribute to a unique directing and writing talent, celebrating an uncompromising, passionate director’s enthralling career at the heart of cult filmmaking.
Me, Alice: The Autobiography of Alice Cooper
Alice Cooper - 1976
It has been out of print since at least 1977 and was never published outside the USA.
Society's Queen
Anne de Courcy - 1993
Her husband served in the Ulster cabinet and was Air Minister in the National Government of 1934-5. Edith founded the Women's Legion during the First World War and was also an early campaigner for women's suffrage. She created the renowned Mount Stewart Gardens in County Down that are now owned by the National Trust.All her life, Edith remained at the heart of politics both in Westminster and Ireland. She is perhaps best known for her role as 'society's queen' - a hostess to the rich and famous. Her close circle of friends included Winston Churchill, Lady Astor, Neville Chamberlain and Harold Macmillan who congregated in her salon, known as 'The Ark'. Other members included artists and writers such as John Buchan, Sean O'Casey. Britain's first Labour prime minister, Ramsey MacDonald, became romantically obsessed by her.
Lou Reed: The Last Interview and Other Conversations
Lou Reed - 2015
In conversation with legendary rock critics and authors he respected, Reed’s interviews are as pithy and brilliant as the man himself.
Margaret Thatcher, A Life
New Word City - 2011
She deregulated industry, brought the unions to their knees, privatized state-owned enterprises, waged war to defend the Falkland Islands, and teamed up with Ronald Reagan to win the Cold War. Her courage was remarkable and her character larger than life. She was a woman who brooked no fools, and her tongue could be rapier sharp. Here is the inspiring story of Britain's first and only woman prime minister.
Without a Doubt
Marcia Clark - 1997
It's a book about a woman. Marcia Clark takes us inside her head and her heart. Her voice is raw, incisive, disarming, unmistakable. Her story is both sweeping and deeply personal. How did she do it, day after day? What was it like, orchestrating the most controversial case of her career in the face of the media's relentless klieg lights? How did she fight her personal battles - those of a working mother balancing a crushing workload and a painful, very public divorce? When did she know that her case was lost? Who stood by her, and who abandoned her? And how did she cope with the outcome? As Clark shares the secrets of her own life, we understand for the first time why she identified so strongly with Nicole, in a way no man ever could. No one is spared in this unflinching account - least of all Clark herself, who candidly admits what she wishes she'd done differently - and, for the first time, we understand why the outcome was inevitable.
Buck Em: The Autobiography of Buck Owens
Randy Poe - 2013
Born in Texas and raised in Arizona, Buck eventually found his way to Bakersfield, California. Unlike the vast majority of country singers, songwriters, and musicians who made their fortunes working and living in Nashville, the often rebellious and always independent Owens chose to create his own brand of country music some 2 000 miles away from Music City - racking up a remarkable twenty-one number one hits along the way. In the process he helped give birth to a new country sound and did more than any other individual to establish Bakersfield as a country music center. In the latter half of the 1990s, Buck began working on his autobiography. Over the next few years, he talked into the microphone of a cassette tape machine for nearly one hundred hours, recording the story of his life. With his near-photographic memory, Buck recalled everything from his early days wearing hand-me-down clothes in Texas to his glory years as the biggest country star of the 1960s; from his legendary Carnegie Hall concert to his multiple failed marriages; from his hilarious exploits on the road to the tragic loss of his musical partner and best friend, Don Rich; from his days as the host of a local TV show in Tacoma, Washington, to his co-hosting the network television show Hee Haw; and from his comeback hit, "Streets of Bakersfield " to his induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame. In these pages, Buck also shows his astute business acumen, having been among the first country artists to create his own music publishing company. He also tells of negotiating the return of all of his Capitol master recordings, his acquisition of numerous radio stations, and of his conceiving and building the Crystal Palace, one of the most venerated musical venues in the country. Buck 'Em! is the fascinating story of the life of country superstar Buck Owens - from the back roads of Texas to the streets of Bakersfield. Click here to watch a video extra on YouTube for Buck 'Em.
Alexander the Great
Charles Mercer - 1962
Here, from award-winning historian and journalist Charles Mercer, is the story of the military genius who became a king at twenty told with all the color and drama characteristic of Alexander's time.
I Promised My Dad
Cheryl Landon Wilson - 1992
At his death, Cheryl promised that she would honor and protect his name; this book is a result of that promise--a story full of love, truth, and honesty. 32-page insert.
Prison Days: True Diary Entries by a Maximum Security Prison Officer, June 2018
Simon King - 2018
These are the true-life diary entries of a prison officer, working in one of the country’s worst correctional facility. The daily stabbings, rapes and murders are just the beginning of a nightmare ride into the darkness of life behind bars. It’s a raw and ruthless look behind the walls in all its brutal honesty. This is maximum-security.
Carny Folk: The World's Weirdest Sideshow Acts
Francine Hornberger - 2005
From P.T. Barnum's albinos and "Siamese" twins, to the traveling oddity museums linked to circuses and carnivals, to a whole new generation of "carny kids," Carny Folk reveals the strange, fantastic, and misunderstood world of the side show attraction. This captivating anthology pulls back the curtain on fifty of the most famous side show celebrities of all time, revealing the astounding, the curious, and the little-known facts behind such subjects as: - Joseph Carey Merrick: "The Elephant Man" claimed that his deformities were caused by the shock his pregnant mother experienced when she was crushed under the feet of an elephant.- Melvin Burkhart: The "father" of "human blockhead" acts, he could actually drive a spike or an ice pick into his head without flinching.- Bettie Lou Williams: Born with two bodies--one head, four legs, and three arms--she made her debut in Robert Ripley's first "Believe-It-Or-Not" Odditorium at the 1934 World's Fair in Chicago.- Tom Thumb: Discovered by P.T. Barnum in 1842, the singing, dancing sensation stood 25 inches tall and weighed a mere 15 pounds.
I Was Wrong: The Untold Story of the Shocking Journey from PTL Power to Prison and Beyond
Jim Bakker - 1997
In prison, he was to lose even more - his freedom, his sanity, his dignity, his confidence in his faith, and eventually even his wife. Inmate 07407-058, one-time confidant to presidents, had hit bottom. Jim Bakker was wrong about many things. Exactly what they were and how he came to confess them will surprise and inspire you. This is his story.
Inside Inside
James Lipton - 2007
Now, with Inside Inside, James Lipton, the 2007 recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Emmy, is handing every one of us a backstage pass. You will witness in unprecedented close-up the wit, wisdom and candor of a galaxy of stars, from Paul Newman to Barbra Streisand, Al Pacino, Steven Spielberg, Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, Sean Penn, Clint Eastwood, Johnny Depp, Angelina Jolie, Anthony Hopkins, Ellen Burstyn, Tom Cruise, Harrison Ford, Martin Scorsese, Sharon Stone and many, many more, and marvel at the comic inventions of Billy Crystal, Robin Williams, Mike Myers, Chris Rock, Dave Chappelle – and Will Ferrell as James Lipton on the Inside stage. With the same candor he demands of his guests, James Lipton reveals a life that began under the tutelage of a poet, his father, and a teacher, his mother; continued in the orbit of three theatrical giants, Stella Adler, Harold Clurman and Robert Lewis; and, as writer and producer, took him to the White House with two presidents, the Great Wall of China with Bob Hope, and a wild flight at the controls of an Alaskan bush plane, on his journey to Inside the Actors Studio.
The Sphinx: The Life of Gladys Deacon – Duchess of Marlborough
Hugo Vickers - 1980
Born in Paris to American parents in 1881, she suffered a traumatic childhood after her father shot her mother's lover dead. Educated in America, she returned to Europe, where she captivated and inspired some of the greatest literary and artistic names of the Belle Époque. Marcel Proust wrote of her 'I never saw a girl with such beauty, such magnificent intelligence, such goodness and charm.' Berenson considered marrying her, Rodin and Monet befriended her, Boldini painted her and Epstein sculpted her. She inspired love from diverse Dukes and Princes, and the interest of women such as Comtesse Greffulhe and Gertrude Stein.It wasn't until she was 40 that she achieved the wish she had held since the age of 14 to marry the 9th Duke of Marlborough. Divorced from fellow American Consuelo Vanderbilt in 1921 she became his second wife. Now her circle included Lady Ottoline Morrell, Lytton Strachey and Winston Churchill, who described her as 'a strange, glittering being'. But life at Blenheim was not a success. When the Duke evicted her in 1933, the only remaining signs of Gladys were two sphinxes bearing her features on the west terraces and mysterious blue eyes in the grand portico.Gladys became a recluse. The wax injections she'd had to straighten her nose when she was 22 had by now ravaged her beauty. She was to spend her last 15 years in the psycho-geriatric ward of a mental hospital. There she was discovered by a young Hugo Vickers, who visited her for two years - intrigued and compelled to unmask the truth of her mysterious life.In his fascinating and revealing biography, drawing on Gladys's personal archive and his own research all over Europe and America, Hugo Vickers uncovers a beguiling, clever, independent woman who was the brightest star of her age. He once asked her, 'Where is Gladys Deacon?' She answered him slowly: 'Gladys Deacon? ... She never existed.'
John Prine: In Spite of Himself
Eddie Huffman - 2015
Across five decades, Prine has created critically acclaimed albums--John Prine (one of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time), Bruised Orange, and The Missing Years--and earned many honors, including two Grammy Awards, a Lifetime Achievement Award for Songwriting from the Americana Music Association, and induction into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. His songs have been covered by scores of artists, from Johnny Cash and Miranda Lambert to Bette Midler and 10,000 Maniacs, and have influenced everyone from Roger McGuinn to Kacey Musgraves. Hailed in his early years as the "new Dylan," Prine still counts Bob Dylan among his most enthusiastic fans. In John Prine, Eddie Huffman traces the long arc of Prine's musical career, beginning with his early, seemingly effortless successes, which led paradoxically not to stardom but to a rich and varied career writing songs that other people have made famous. He recounts the stories, many of them humorous, behind Prine's best-known songs and discusses all of Prine's albums as he explores the brilliant records and the ill-advised side trips, the underappreciated gems and the hard-earned comebacks that led Prine to found his own successful record label, Oh Boy Records. This thorough, entertaining treatment gives John Prine his due as one of the most influential songwriters of his generation.