The Culture Industry


Theodor W. Adorno - 1944
    It is out of this background that the great critic Theodor Adorno emerged. His finest essays are collected here, offering the reader unparalleled insights into Adorno's thoughts on culture. He argued that the culture industry commodified and standardized all art. In turn this suffocated individuality and destroyed critical thinking. At the time, Adorno was accused of everything from overreaction to deranged hysteria by his many detractors. In today's world, where even the least cynical of consumers is aware of the influence of the media, Adorno's work takes on a more immediate significance. The Culture Industry is an unrivalled indictment of the banality of mass culture.

A Man To Be Proud Of


Leah Atwood - 2014
    With no family and no marriage prospects, she answers an advertisement for a mail-order bride. She travels to Wyoming Territory with every intention to marry Slade Holcolmb. But there is something about Slade that he didn't mention in his letter. Sarah is shocked and dismayed to discover the truth of her soon-to-be husband. So shocked, that she is uncertain if she can still marry him. He gives her one week to decide. She makes her decision and as she adapts to a new life, the feared Wright Gang makes an appearance. Will a band of outlaws be the catalyst to cause Slade and Sarah to admit their love? Dear Reader: Please note this is a novelette of 40 pages.

Griffin: Three Complete Novels


W.E.B. Griffin - 1996
    Three gritty and suspenseful novels from the Badge of Honor series--Men in Blue, Special Operations, and The Victim--appear in an unabridged omnibus edition.

City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles


Mike Davis - 1990
    Mike Davis shows us where the city's money comes from and who controls it while also exposing the brutal ongoing struggle between L.A.'s haves and have-nots.

The Filmmaker Says: Quotes, Quips, and Words of Wisdom


Jamie Thompson Stern - 2013
    But the drama they project on screen is only half the picture. Stretching back from its earliest days of two-reel silent films to the latest 3-D digital blockbusters, film history provides a cast of characters ready to spill witty bon mots, outrageous pronouncements, and heartfelt reflections. The Filmmaker Says is a colorful compendium of quotations from more than one hundred of history's most influential and opinionated creators of filmed entertainment. Paired like guests at the ultimate filmgeek dinner party—a celebrated filmmaker of today might sit next to a giant from the silent era—the members of this raucous crew puts on a show arguing, complimenting, and disagreeing with each other about every step of the moviemaking process. A perfect gift for working filmmakers, aspiring auteurs, and avid moviegoers, The Filmmaker Says will delight anyone who has dreamed of yelling "action" or just can't wait for the lights to go down and the curtain to go up.

How to Read a Film: Movies, Media, Multimedia


James Monaco - 1977
    Now, James Monaco offers a revised and rewritten third edition incorporating every major aspect of this dynamic medium right up to the present.Looking at film from many vantage points, How to Read a Film: Movies, Media, Multimedia explores the medium as both art and craft, sensibility and science, tradition and technology. After examining film's close relation to such other narrative media as the novel, painting, photography, television, and even music, Monaco discusses those elements necessary to understand how films convey meaning and, more importantly, how we can best discern all that a film is attempting to communicate.In a key departure from the book's previous editions, the new and still-evolving digital context of film is now emphasized throughout How to Read a Film. A new chapter on multimedia brings media criticism into the twenty-first century with a thorough discussion of topics like virtual reality, cyberspace, and the proximity of both to film. Monaco has likewise doubled the size and scope of his Film and Media: A Chronology appendix. The book also features a new introduction, an expanded bibliography, and hundreds of illustrative black-and-white film stills and diagrams. It is a must for all film students, media buffs, and movie fans.

The Fountainhead : A Fiftieth Anniversary Celebration


David Kelley - 1993
    Stephen Cox, professor of literatureat the University of California at San Diego, spoke on "The LiteraryAchievement of The Fountainhead" and David Kelley, executive director of TheObjectivist Center, discussed "The Code of the Creator." This commemorativemonograph contains the text of both lectures and other material about AynRand's classic novel.

Monty Python's Flying Circus: Complete and Annotated - All the Bits


Luke Dempsey - 2012
    Python's influence on comedy has been compared to the Beatles' influence on music. This landmark work collects the complete scripts for every one of the 45 episodes of "Flying Circus" every silly setup, every clever conceit, every snide insult, and ever saucy aside from these classic skits, including "The Ministry of Silly Walks," "The Dead Parrot," "Banter in the Cheese Shop," "Spam, the Funniest Joke in the World," "The Spanish Inquisition," "The Argument Clinic," "The Fish-Slapping Dance," "The Lumberjack Song," and all the rest.Every script is thoroughly annotated with notes that cover the plethora of cultural, historical, and topical references touched upon in each sketch. Sidebars and commentary throughout include profiles of the principles -- Graham Chapman, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin, Terry Gilliam, and John Cleese -- and interviews with the cast and crew; fascinating facts about technical concerns, set design, and shooting locations; insider stores from on and off the set, including arguments, accidents, and practical jokes; goofs and gaffes; and much more. Also included are thousands of stills and artwork from the shows.

A Theory of Adaptation


Linda Hutcheon - 2006
    Adaptation, Hutcheon argues, has always been a central mode of the story-telling imagination and deserves to be studied in all its breadth and range as both a process (of creation and reception) and a product unto its own.Persuasive and illuminating, A Theory of Adaptation is a bold rethinking of how adaptation works across all media and genres that may put an end to the age-old question of whether the book was better than the movie, or the opera, or the theme park.

In the Blink of an Eye: A Perspective on Film Editing


Walter Murch - 1995
    

Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Lacan (But Were Afraid to Ask Hitchcock)


Slavoj ŽižekAlenka Zupančič - 1988
    Starting from the premise that ‘everything has meaning’, the films’ ostensible narrative content and formal procedures are analysed to reveal a rich proliferation of ideological and psychical mechanisms at work. But Hitchcock is here to lure the reader into ‘serious’ Marxist and Lacanian considerations on the construction of meaning. Timely, provocative and original, this is sure to become a landmark of Hitchcock studies.

Movie-Made America: A Cultural History of American Movies


Robert Sklar - 1975
    80 black-and-white photos.

Blade Runner


Scott Bukatman - 1997
    The film is situated in terms of the debates about postmodernism which have informed the large body of criticism devoted to it.

Peter Cushing: The Complete Memoirs


Peter Cushing - 2013
    Cushing was widely known as ‘the gentleman of horror’, his kind and sensitive nature a sharp contrast with the Hammer Horror roles that dominated his work from the 1950s onwards. This is Cushing’s own account of his remarkable career, and the devastating sense of loss he suffered following the death of his wife. It offers unparalleled insight to the meticulous professionalism and private torment of a legendary film star.

The Tao of Poo: Legend of Li Chang


Dirk McFergus - 2011
    This outrageous and inventive short story is not just focused solely on crap itself, but the spirituality of crap. This parody of the Tao Te Ching begs the question: Is everything crap? McFergus translates Li Chang's master work from an ancient roll of toilet paper, a minor Chinese national treasure purchased on eBay, to uncover the lost legend of Li Chang.DISCLAIMER: There is no Winnie the Pooh bear in this story. There is no piglet. The only honey pot in this story has crap in it. THIS IS NOT THE TAO OF POOH.