The History of the NME: High Times and Low Lives at the World's Most Famous Music Magazine


Pat Long - 2012
    The fights, the bands, the brawls, the haircuts, the egos, and much more—the definitive book about the infamous music magazine. For 60 years, since it was founded in 1952, the New Musical Express has played a central part in the British love affair with pop music—and has been essential for American connoisseurs to remain in-the-know as well. This authoritative history is an insider's account of the high times and low lives of one of the world's most influential music magazines. It explains the stories behind the stories that kept readers coming back week after week—the office brawls, the former staffers who launched their careers there (Tony Parsons, Julie Burchill, Nick Kent, Mick Farren, Steve Lamacq, and Stuart Maconie), and the bands who owe their success to the magazine. Snotty, confrontational, enthusiastic, and sarcastic: the new issue of the NME was the high point of any music fan's week, whether they were listening to The Beatles, Bowie, or Blur.

Mail Men: The Story of the Daily Mail – the Paper that Divided and Conquered Britain


Adrian Addison - 2015
    Charting the controversy that has always dogged the publication — from its flirtation with fascism in the 1930s to its fractious relationship with celebrities today, Addison explains how the divisive paper has shaped British journalism and, indeed, Britain itself.With colorful portraits of rambunctious life behind the masthead (discover why one corridor is dubbed "scary" by staffers), Mail Men includes fascinating biographical details of key figures in the history of the paper — including idiosyncratic boss Paul Dacre, unrivaled moral arbiter for Middle England and the highest paid newspaper editor in the U.K.Drawing on interviews with over 100 of the paper’s journalists, past and present — as well as fans, victims, and critics — this is the uncut story of the Mail Men who created and ran the paper, and the underlings who were expected to give their lives to this peculiarly British institution.

Champions Way: Football, Florida, and the Lost Soul of College Sports


Mike McIntire - 2017
    In Champions Way, New York Times investigative reporter Mike McIntire chronicles the rise of this growing scandal through the experience of the Florida State Seminoles, one of the most successful teams in NCAA history.A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for his Times investigation of college sports, McIntire breaks new ground here, uncovering the workings of a system that enables athletes to violate academic standards and avoid criminal prosecution for actions ranging from shoplifting to drunk driving. At the heart of Champions Way is the untold story of a whistle-blower, Christie Suggs, and her wrenching struggle to hold a corrupt system to account. Together with shocking new details about prominent sports figures, including NFL quarterback Jameis Winston and former FSU coach Bobby Bowden, Champions Way shines a light on the ethical, moral, and legal compromises inherent in the making of a championship sports program.Beyond the story of Florida State, McIntire takes readers on a journey through the history of college football, from its origins as a roughneck pastime coached by nineteenth-century professors to its current incarnation as a gold-plated behemoth that long ago outgrew its scholastic environs. Illuminated in rich and disturbing detail is the hidden financial ecosystem that nourishes hundred-million-dollar teams, from the hustlers who recruit players for schools and the athletic departments controlled by rich boosters to the universities whose academic mission and moral authority have been undermined. More than pointing out flaws, McIntire examines their causes and offers hope to those who would reform college sports.

The Descent of Air India


Jitender Bhargava - 2013
    The Descent of Air India elucidates how the airline failed to adapt and change with the times but preferred, instead, to bask in its past glory. Impractical expansion plans and thoughtless use of the airline's resources contributed to the company's financial collapse. Candidly written by Intender Bhargava, who spent more than two decades in the company, The Descent of Air India is the tragic tale of how one of the country's finest public-sector undertakings was brought down and the people and events that were responsible for its descent.

Sweet Chaos: The Grateful Dead's American Adventure


Carol Brightman - 1998
    Without radio play and virtually unnoticed by the press, the Dead forged a vast underground following whose loyalty survives to the present day. National Book Critics Circle Award-winning author Carol Brightman returns to the band's roots—to Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, the acid tests and the heady days of Haight-Ashbury, the free concerts in Golden Gate Park and the formative shows of New York's Fillmore East—to uncover the secrets of the band's longevity. Drawing on exclusive interviews With band members, staff and crew, Deadheads, other musicians, journalists—and her own experience as a '60s activist—Brightman shows us how, amid the turbulent Free Speech Movement and antiwar rallies, the Grateful Dead's abandonment to music, drugs, and dance offered the faithful a shelter in the storm. Her riveting, in-depth portrait of Jerry Garcia, the "nonleader leader" who held to a vision of the Grateful Dead's destiny even as he recoiled from the juggernaut it became, shows us how it was that a Dead concert become something halfway between a revival meeting and a family reunion. An absorbing and exhilarating exploration, Sweet Chaos offers, at last, a complete understanding of the Dead phenomenon and its place in American culture.

Now, Let Me Tell You What I Really Think


Chris Matthews - 2001
    From his first political run-in in the first grade to his years working as presidential speechwriter for Jimmy Carter and top aide to Tip O'Neill, Matthews grew up loving his country and dreaming of his chance to protect it. As one of the most honest, brash, and in-your-face journalists on TV, he has finally gotten the chance. The host of television's Hardball and bestselling author of such classics as Hardball and Kennedy & Nixon, Matthews is a political cop who insists on the truth and nothing but. In this latest work, Now, Let Me Tell You What I Really Think, Chris Matthews is at his brilliant, blunt, bulldogged best. From the Cold War to the Clinton years, Matthews gives the straight-up account of what it means to be an American. Matthews tells us about his "God and Country" Catholic school education in Philadelphia complete with Cold War air-raid drills and his early enthusiasm for politics. He shares with us his life's adventures: two years in Africa with the Peace Corps, the challenge of running for Congress in his twenties, and his three decades deep in the "belly of the beast" of American politics. Matthews has made his name as a razor-sharp journalist who cross-examines the politicians in Washington and takes on the Los Angeles and New York elite who view America's heartland as "fly-over country." In Now, Let Me Tell You What I Really Think, Matthews rallies those who "work hard and play by the rules" and celebrates the wisdom learned from a U.S. Capitol policeman more than twenty years ago, "The little man loves his country, because it's all he's got." A hard-to-categorize maverick with an uncool love for his country, Matthews gives an irreverent look at who we are and whom we trust to lead us.

Cane Mutiny: How the Miami Hurricanes Overturned the Football Establishment


Bruce Feldman - 2004
    Feldman has penned the inside story of the Miami Hurricanes--the college football dynasty they call the Miami Vice.

Acid Tests


Ken Kesey - 1965
    Seventy-four minutes of reading, poetry, music and mayhem from the archives of Ken Kesey and Ken Babbs. Acid Test Vol 1 document their attempt to enact an acid test within the recording studio environment. After its release as a 1000-copy limited-edition LP, it was repeatedly boot-legged. This CD also features 'Vietnam Day 1966' a previously unreleased musical reconstruction (recorded in 1967) of the Pranksters' famous meeting with the Hell's Angels which subsequently launched the career of visiting Prankster, Hunter S. Thompson.

Best Music Writing 2011


Alex Ross - 2011
    Celebrating the year in music writing by gathering a rich array of essays, missives, and musings on every style of music from rock to hip-hop to R&B to jazz to pop to blues, it is essential reading for anyone who loves great music and accomplished writing. Scribes of every imaginable sort—novelists, poets, journalists, musicians— are gathered to create a multi-voiced snapshot of the year in music writing that, like the music it illuminates, is every bit as thrilling as it is riveting.

Leaving Home


Art Buchwald
    . . I guarantee 254 pages of pure pleasure." -- Ann Landers"Strikingly honest . . . [Buchwald] grew up in orphanages and foster homes and never knew his mother who, shortly after he was born, entered a mental hospital and spent the rest of her life there . . . . But instead of becoming a sociopath, Buchwald became a professional funnyman and a national figure whose columns skewer pretense and politicians . . . . Score one for humor as a means of survival." -- The Washington Post Book World"

Lines in the Sand: Collected Journalism


A.A. Gill - 2017
    Lines in the Sand

The Panic in Needle Park


James Mills - 1966
    

Decoding the Ethics Code: A Practical Guide for Psychologists


Celia B. Fisher - 2003
    The book helps psychologists apply the Ethics Code to the constantly changing scientific, professional, and legal realities of the discipline. Author Celia B. Fisher addresses the revised format, choice of wording, aspirational rationale, and enforceability of the code and puts these changes into practical perspective for psychologists. The book provides in-depth discussions of the foundation and application of each ethical standard to the broad spectrum of scientific, teaching, and professional roles of psychologists. This unique guide helps psychologists effectively use ethical principles and standards to morally conduct their work activities, avoid ethical violations, and, most importantly, preserve and protect the fundamental rights and welfare of those whom they serve.

A Pitcher's Story: Innings with David Cone


Roger Angell - 2002
     There is no big league pitcher who is more respected for his skill than David Cone. In his stellar career Cone has won multiple championships andcountless professional accolades. Along the way, the perennial all-star has had to adjust to five different ballclubs, recover from a career-threatening arm aneurysm, cope with the lofty expectations that are standard for the games highest paid players, and overcome a humbling three-month, eight-game losing streak in the summer of 2000. Cone granted exclusive and unlimited access to baseballs most respected writer Roger Angell of the New Yorker. The result is just what baseball fans everywhere would expect from Angell: an extraordinary inside account of a superstar.

How to Fool All of the People, All of the Time


John Connolly - 2016
    Donald Trump is not just some cartoon character, a guy with a comb-over and a press agent and a board game named after him; he is and always has been a real and fairly treacherous human being.In this feat of investigative journalism, John Connolly dives into Donald Trump’s financial records and finds that the real estate mogul’s most—if not only—valuable commodity is his knack for delivering scrutiny-resistant statements that blend finance, fact and fiction.How to Fool All of the People, All of the Time was originally published in Spy, April, 1991.Cover design by Adil Dara.