Book picks similar to
Steve McQueen by William Claxton


photography
biography
non-fiction
biographies

Watchmen: Portraits


Clay Enos - 2009
    With its wealth of exclusive photographs, this stunning book is a unique look into the world of the film.

Becoming A Son


David Labrava - 2015
    David writes from life experience as he has lived more lives than most people ever will, and he did it all over the globe. David is an accomplished Glass artist, Tattoo artist, Five Diploma Harley Davidson Motorcycle Mechanic, Producer, Director and an award winning Writer and Actor. David is a member of the most famous and notorious motorcycle club in the world. David was the Technical Advisor on the hit TV series Sons of Anarchy from the inception to the completion of the series. David was also a series regular on the show, reaching that position after being hired as the technical advisor, then becoming a day player actor, then a recurring character then moving to series regular. All of these things had to be earned, as they were not for sale at any price. Becoming A Son is not about them. It’s about David getting to those spots. It’s about overcoming great odds and coming out alive. David left home at fifteen years old and hit the streets. This is David’s journey of discovery and redemption spanning a course of forty years. From the beaches of Hawaii and California, to the forest of the great Northwest, to years in Amsterdam, San Francisco, New York City, Miami then back to California. David hit some highs and survived severe lows, living years on the streets, in and out of jail only to take his life back, and then squeeze every bit out of it that life has to offer. Becoming A Son is a journey of epic proportion. It’s about realizing your dreams and then against the odds achieving them. Adventuring across the globe David learned many lessons by reaching out and trying everything, making many mistakes and paying the price for it and living through it. Now he wrote about it. David has been writing and getting published for over 14 years. He wrote for the Motorcycle magazine ‘The Horse’ then had his own column in the National Hot Rod Magazine ‘Ol Skool Rodz’ for eight years. He co-wrote Episode ten in season four of SOA which Time magazine awarded an honorable mention to as best of the season. David also won the 2013 Readers Choice Buzz focus award for Best Wildcard Actor. Like great authors before him Labrava takes the reader into some dark places most people would never dare to go. Becoming A Son is a modern day story of living on the street and redemption, it is one man’s journey into the darkness of himself crossing the planet and transcending all levels and then coming back again full circle. It is an inspiration for anyone who is chasing their dreams and making them their reality. Becoming A Son will come to be known as an instant classic.

Out of the Woods But Not Over the Hill


Gervase Phinn - 2010
    As this sparkling collection of his very best humorous writing shows, he may be 'out of the woods' but he is certainly not 'over the hill'.

Diane von Furstenberg: A Life Unwrapped


Gioia Diliberto - 2015
    Embraced by millions of American women of all ages, sizes, and shapes, the dress became a cult object and symbol of women’s liberation, tied inexorably to the image of youth, independence, and sex Diane herself projected.In this masterful biography, Gioia Diliberto brings Diane’s extraordinary life into focus, from her post-World-War-II childhood in Belgium, through her rise to the top of the fashion world during the decadent seventies and glamorous go-go eighties, to her humiliating failures both professional and personal, and her remarkable comeback in the nineties. Like Coco Chanel, Diane has always been her own best advertisement. Morphing from a frizzy brunette outsider in a sea of sleek blondes to a stunning pop cultural icon, she embodied the brand she created—“the DVF woman,” a model of self-sufficiency, sensuality, and confidence.Dilberto’s captivating, balanced portrait, based on scores of interviews with Diane’s family, friends, lovers, employees, and the designer herself, explores von Furstenberg’s relationships with her husbands and lovers, and illuminates fashion’s evolution from rare luxury to marketing monster and the development of a uniquely American style. Lively and insightful, the book also explores the larger world of the nation’s elite, where fashion, culture, society, politics, and Hollywood collide. Diane von Furstenberg is a modern fable of self-invention, fame, wealth, failure, and success that mirrors late-twentieth century America itself.

The Rose That Grew from Concrete


Tupac Shakur - 1999
    This collection of more than 100 poems that honestly and artfully confront topics ranging from poverty and motherhood to Van Gogh and Mandela is presented in Tupac Shakur's own handwriting on one side of the page, with a typed version on the opposite side.

The Private Lives of the Impressionists


Sue Roe - 2006
    Though they were often ridiculed or ignored by their contemporaries, today astonishing sums are paid for the works of these artists, whose paintings are celebrated for their ability to capture the moment, not only in the fleeting lights of a landscape but in scenes of daily life. Their dazzling pictures are familiar—but how well does the world know the Impressionists as people? The Private Lives of the Impressionists tells their story. It is the first book to offer an intimate and lively biography of the world's most popular group of artists.In a vivid and moving narrative, biographer Sue Roe shows the Impressionists in the studios of Paris, rural lanes of Montmartre and rowdy riverside bars as Paris underwent Baron Haussmann's spectacular transformation. For more than twenty years they lived and worked together as a group, struggling to rebuild their lives after the Franco-Prussian War and supporting one another through shocked public reactions to unfamiliar canvases depicting laundresses, dancers, spring blossoms and boating scenes.This intimate, colorful, superbly researched account takes us into their homes and studios, and describes their unconventional, volatile and precarious lives, as well as the stories behind the paintings.

With Nails: The Film Diaries of Richard E. Grant


Richard E. Grant - 1996
    He knows he's an insider when Carrie Fisher reminds him, "You're no longer a tourist, you’re one of the attractions." This heady mixture of eating spaghetti with the Coppolas, window-shopping with Sharon Stone, and working with and learning from the best actors and directors in Tinseltown will be irresistible to anyone who loves movies or aspires to be a Hollywood player.

Wear Your Dreams: My Life in Tattoos


Ed Hardy - 2013
    From LA to Japan, his colorful cross-and-bones designs and ribbon-banners have become internationally ubiquitous. But long before the fashion world discovered his iconic designs, the man behind the eponymous brand spearheaded nothing less than a cultural revolution.In Wear Your Dreams, Ed Hardy recounts his genesis as a tattoo artist and leader in the movement to recognize tattooing as a valid and rich art form, through to the ultimate transformation of his career into a multi-billion dollar branding empire. From giving colored pencil tattoos to neighborhood kids at age ten to working with legendary artists like Sailor Jerry to learning at the feet of the masters in Japan, the book explains how this Godfather of Tattoos fomented the explosion of tattoo art and how his influence can be witnessed on everyone, from countless celebs to ink-adorned rockers to butterfly-branded, stroller-pushing moms. With over fifty different product categories, the Ed Hardy brand generates over $700 million in retail sales annually.Vividly packaged with original Ed Hardy artwork and ideal for ink devotees and Ed Hardy aficionados alike, Wear Your Dreams is a never-before-seen look at the tattoo artist who rocked the art world and has left a permanent mark on fashion history.

Colin Firth: The Biography


Alison Maloney - 2011
    Darcy to a mantelpiece groaning with awards from The King's Speech—the first biography of one of our greatest actors From the moment Colin Firth took on the role of Mr. Darcy in the 1995 BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, emerging from the lake in "that scene," he was set on a path from sex symbol to Hollywood star. This first-ever biography discusses each role in that trajectory, ranging from Hugh Grant's love rival in Bridget Jones, to an Oscar-nominated turn in A Single Man, to a portrayal of George VI in The King's Speech that has elevated him to Hollywood royalty. It also traces the inside story of his rift with Rupert Everett, his playful rivalry with Hugh Grant, his escape to Canada with Meg Tilly, the birth of their first son and his heartbreak as the relationship floundered, the passionate affair with Pride and Prejudice costar Jennifer Ehle, and his whirlwind romance with his Italian wife, Livia. Fascinating, revelatory, and suffused with Firth's own dry wit, this is a must-read book on a fascinating artist.

Get in the Van: On the Road With Black Flag


Henry Rollins - 1994
    Rollins's observations range from the wry to the raucous in this blistering account of a six-year career with the band - a time marked by crazed fans, vicious cops, near-starvation, substance abuse, and mind numbing all-night drives. Rollins decided to revise this edition by adding a wealth of new photographs, a new foreword, and an afterword to include some "where-are-they-now" information on the people featured in the book. This new edition includes 40 previously unpublished black-and-white photographs from Rollins's private collection and show flyers by artist Raymond Pettibon. Called "a soul-frying experience not to be undertaken by lightweights" by Wired magazine, Get in the Van perfectly embodies what one critic called the "secular gospel" of one of punk and post-punk's most respected and controversial figures.

Howard Stern Comes Again


Howard Stern - 2019
    Comedy legends and A-list actors. Supermodels and centerfolds. Moguls and mobsters. A president.Over his unrivaled four-decade career in radio, Howard Stern has interviewed thousands of personalities—discussing sex, relationships, money, fame, spirituality, and success with the boldest of bold-faced names. But which interviews are his favorites? It’s one of the questions he gets asked most frequently. Howard Stern Comes Again delivers his answer.This book is a feast of conversation and more, as between the lines Stern offers his definitive autobiography—a magnum opus of confession and personal exploration. Tracy Morgan opens up about his near-fatal car crash. Lady Gaga divulges her history with cocaine. Madonna reminisces on her relationship with Tupac Shakur. Bill Murray waxes philosophical on the purpose of life. Jerry Seinfeld offers a master class on comedy. Harvey Weinstein denies the existence of the so-called casting couch. An impressive array of creative visionaries weigh in on what Stern calls “the climb”—the stories of how they struggled and eventually prevailed. As he writes in the introduction, “If you’re having trouble finding motivation in life and you’re looking for that extra kick in the ass, you will find it in these pages.”Interspersed throughout are rare selections from the Howard Stern Show archives with Donald Trump that depict his own climb: transforming from Manhattan tabloid fixture to reality TV star to president of the United States. Stern also tells of his Moby Dick-like quest to land an interview with Hillary Clinton in the run-up to the 2016 election—one of many newly written revelations from the author. He speaks with extraordinary candor about a variety of subjects, including his overwhelming insecurity early in his career, his revolutionary move from terrestrial radio to SiriusXM, and his belief in the power of psychotherapy.As Stern insightfully notes in the introduction: “The interviews collected here represent my best work and show my personal evolution. But they don’t just show my evolution. Gathered together like this, they show the evolution of popular culture over the past quarter century.”

Bal Thackeray & The Rise of The Shiv Sena


Vaibhav Purandare - 2012
    It examines Thackeray the person and his intriguing political personality, his party’s militaristic methods of operation, its controversial role at major junctures, the fight between Thackeray’s nephew Raj and son Uddhav, the end of an era in Maharashtra politics after his death in November 2012 and the future of the Shiv Sena without his imposing presence. A must-read for an understanding of contemporary Indian politics and the rise of the Hindu nationalist phenomenon.

Hollywood Frame by Frame: The Unseen Silver Screen in Contact Sheets, 1951-1997


Karina Longworth - 2014
    You look directly through the photographer s eyes as each photo gets closer to that perfect shot. And yet, it s often the photos not chosen that best capture the true spirit of their subjects and the life they lead after the director yells cut. This was never truer than in the classic Hollywood era, where behind-the-scenes photos were carefully vetted for marketing purposes and unapproved shots were never expected to be seen again. Hollywood Frame by Frame presents hundreds of never-before-published photos from the sets of some of the greatest films of the twentieth century. Hollywood s biggest stars are caught with their guard down behind the scenes of movie classics from Some Like It Hot and Breakfast at Tiffany's to Taxi Driver and The Silence of the Lambs. A treasure trove for any fan of Hollywood s Golden Age, this rare glimpse of the unseen silver screen will intrigue even movie buffs who think they ve seen everything. First book of movie contact sheets, features never-before-seen photos of screen legends at work, including Elizabeth Taylor, James Dean, Audrey Hepburn, Frank Sinatra, Robert De Niro, and Alfred Hitchcock Provides insight into the art of moviemaking, the science of movie marketing, and the nature of stardom Karina Longworth is an author, film critic, and journalist based in Los Angeles and Paris. She has contributed to numerous publications, including the Guardian, LA Weekly, Village Voice, Slate,and many more.

Driver #8


Dale Earnhardt Jr. - 2002
    shares the victory and joy, tragedy and heartbreak in his first Winston Cup season. Here are the crowds, the endless travel, and the behind-the-scenes action while Dale Jr. tries to carve out his own identity and win the respect of his peers. He shows you how races are won or lost, the bonds between a driver and his team-and the weight of racing against a man who is not only your father but also your boss, your toughest competitor, and a NASCAR legend. From the crush of the media to split-second, life-and-death decisions behind the wheel, Driver #8 is one helluva ride.

Masters of Cinema: David Lynch


Thierry Jousse - 2010
    1946) is perhaps the best known of all cult directors, whose Mulholland Drive marks cinema's arrival to the 21st century. His career began more than 30 years ago, with the groundbreaking, mystifying "Eraserhead" (1977). With "Blue Velvet" (1986), "Wild at Heart" (1990) and "Lost Highway" (1997) Lynch breathed new life into the sensory experiences of film audiences and disrupted narrative logic to mysterious and mystifying effect. In the early 1990s, he invented a new TV series genre with "Twin Peaks". Although he is a Hollywood director, Lynch works at the edges of the studio system, exploring the many facets of his artistic talent, whose creations, including photography, painting and music, are now making their way into museums and galleries.