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Titles Found: 49
A Futile and Stupid Gesture
A Futile and Stupid Gesture (5 Formats) ›
By Josh Karp
Cloth Price 24.95

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Published Sep 2006

The ultimate biography of National Lampoon and its cofounder Doug Kenney, this book offers the first complete history of the immensely popular magazine and its brilliant and eccentric characters. With wonderful stories of the comedy scene in New York City in the 1970s and National Lampoon’s place at the center of it, this chronicle shares how the magazine spawned a popular radio show and two long-running theatrical productions that helped launch the careers of John Belushi, Bill Murray, Chevy Chase, and Gilda Radner and went on to inspire Saturday Night Live. More than 130 interviews were conducted with people connected to Kenney and the magazine, including Chevy Chase, John Hughes, P. J. O’Rourke, Tony Hendra, Sean Kelly, Chris Miller, and Bruce McCall. These interviews and behind-the-scenes stories about the making of both Animal House and Caddyshack help to capture the nostalgia, humor, and popular culture that National Lampoon inspires.

Advise & Dissent
Advise & Dissent (3 Formats) ›
By James Abourezk
PDF Price 9.99

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Published Sep 1989

The life story of the founder of ADC, from his parents' farm in South Dakota to the halls of the Senate, where he refused to compromise his principles.
All of Me
All of Me (4 Formats) ›
By Kim Noble
Trade Paper Price 24.99

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Published Oct 2012

Taking the reader through an extraordinary world where the very nature of reality is different, this personal narrative tells the story of one woman’s terrifying battle to understand her own mind. From the desperate struggle to win back the child she loves to the courage and commitment needed to make sense of her life, this account recalls Kim Noble's many years in and out of mental institutions and various diagnoses until finally being appropriately diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder (DID). Described as a creative way some minds cope with unbearable pain, DID causes Kim's body to play host to more than 20 different personalities—from a little boy who speaks only Latin and an elective mute to a gay man and an anorexic teenager. Sometimes funny and ultimately uplifting, this brave illumination of the links and intersections between memory, mental illness, and creativity offers a glimpse into the mind of someone with DID and helps readers understand the confusion, frustration, and everyday difficulties in living with this disorder.

Assata
Assata (4 Formats) ›
By Assata Shakur, Foreword by Angela Davis
Trade Paper Price 18.95

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Published Nov 1999

This presents the life story of African American revolutionary Shakur, previously known as JoAnne Chesimard.
Blasphemy
Blasphemy (4 Formats) ›
By Asia Bibi, By Anne-Isabelle Tollet
Trade Paper Price 16.95

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Published Aug 2013

In June 2009 a Pakistani mother of five, Asia Bibi, was out picking fruit in the fields. At midday she went to the nearest well, picked up a cup, and took a drink of cool water, and then offered it to another woman. Suddenly, one of her fellow workers cried out that the water belonged to Muslim women and that Bibi—who is Christian—had contaminated it. “Blasphemy!” someone shouted, a crime punishable by death in Pakistan. In that instant, with one word, Bibi’s fate was sealed. First attacked by a mob, Bibi was then thrown into prison and sentenced to be hanged.

Since that day, Asia Bibi has been held in appalling conditions, her family members have had to flee their village under threat from vengeful extremists, and the two brave public figures who came to Bibi’s defense—the Muslim governor of the Punjab and Pakistan’s Christian Minister for Minorities—have been brutally murdered. In Blasphemy, Asia Bibi, who has become a symbol for everyone concerned with ending an unjust law that allows people to settle personal scores and that kills Christians and Muslims alike indiscriminately, bravely tells her shocking and inspiring story and makes a last cry for help from her prison cell.

Proceeds from the sale of this book support Asia Bibi’s family, which has been forced into hiding.

Citizen Lane
Citizen Lane (4 Formats) ›
By Mark Lane, Foreword by Martin Sheen
Cloth Price 26.95

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Published Jun 2012

Freedom Rider, friend of Eleanor Roosevelt, Dick Gregory’s vice-presidential running mate, legal defense at Wounded Knee, survivor of the Jonestown Massacre—Mark Lane has been inspiring social consciousness, influencing history makers, and inciting controversy for more than six decades. In Citizen Lane he tells the story of his remarkable life, demonstrating how a single dedicated individual can fight for the underdog, provoke the establishment, and trigger change. From the streets to the courtroom, he has been on the front lines in the events that shaped a generation in opposition to government excesses and war. Icons of the American political and social landscape appear throughout his narrative as Lane's cohorts and companions and as his vicious opponents. Radical leaders embraced him; the FBI and CIA tried to destroy him. No one who dealt with him had a neutral reaction to his forceful, opinionated, larger-than-life persona. Entertaining and enlightening, this autobiography confirms that one person can make a difference and change the lives of millions by holding to his principles regardless of the consequences.

Deep in a Dream
Deep in a Dream (4 Formats) ›
By James Gavin
Trade Paper Price 18.95

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Published Jul 2011

From his emergence in the 1950s as an uncannily beautiful young Oklahoman who became the prince of “cool” jazz seemingly overnight to his violent, drug-related death in Amsterdam in 1988, Chet Baker lived a life that has become an American myth. Drawing on hundreds of interviews and previously untapped sources, this first major biography of one of the most romanticized icons in jazz gives a thrilling account of the trumpeter’s dark journey. Author James Gavin delves deeply into Baker’s tormented childhood, the origins of his melancholic trumpet playing, and even reveals the long-unsolved riddle of Baker’s demise. Baker’s otherworldly personal aura struck a note of menace and mystery that catapulted him to fame in the staid 1950s but as time wore on, his romance with drugs became highly publicized. Gavin narrates the harrowing spiral of dependency down which Baker tumbled and illustrates how those who dared to get close were dragged down with him. This is the portrait of a musician whose singular artistry and mystique has never lost the power to enchant and seduce.

Die Nigger Die!
Die Nigger Die! (4 Formats) ›
By H. Rap Brown (Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin)
Trade Paper Price 14.95

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Published Apr 2002

More than any other black leader, H. Rap Brown, chairman of the radical Black Power organization Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), came to symbolize the ideology of black revolution. This autobiography—which was first published in 1969, went through seven printings and has long been unavailable—chronicles the making of a revolutionary. It is much more than a personal history, however; it is a call to arms, an urgent message to the black community to be the vanguard force in the struggle of oppressed people. Forthright, sardonic, and shocking, this book is not only illuminating and dynamic but also a vitally important document that is essential to understanding the upheavals of the late 1960s. University of Massachusetts professor Ekwueme Michael Thelwell has updated this edition, covering Brown’s decades of harassment by law enforcement agencies, his extraordinary transformation into an important Muslim leader, and his sensational trial.
Gil Evans: Out of the Cool
Gil Evans: Out of the Cool (4 Formats) ›
By Stephanie Crease
Trade Paper Price 21.99

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Published May 2003

Upon Gil Evans’s death in 1988, Gary Giddins wrote, “Many considered him the greatest living American composer, period.” After his early years in California, Evans settled in New York City in 1946, where his apartment became a meeting ground for the greatest jazz innovators. The result was the “Birth of the Cool” scores, Evans’s four-decade-long collaboration with Miles Davis, and a host of brilliant records, both with Davis and with his own ensembles. Written with the cooperation of Evans’s friends, colleagues, and family, Gil Evans: Out of the Cool is an authoritative portrait.
Golden
Golden (5 Formats) ›
By Jeff Coen, By John Chase
Cloth Price 27.95

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Published Sep 2012

Revealing previously unreleased information from the Rod Blagojevich investigation, this narrative—written by two Chicago Tribune reporters who spent years sifting through evidence, compiling documents, and conducting more than 100 interviews with those who have known the former governor—is the most complete telling of the Blagojevich story. Beginning on the streets of Chicago and wending its way into the highest reaches of government, the Blagojevich tale brushes up against some of the nation’s most powerful politicians. Detailing the mechanics of the corruption that brought him down and profiling a fascinating and frustrating character who embodies many of the problems found in modern politics, this account dispenses with the sensationalism that surrounded the case to present the facts about one of the nation’s most notorious politicians. Sentenced to 14 years in prison in December 2011, this is the final word on who the governor was, how he was elected, how he got himself into trouble, and how the feds took him down.

Half Man, Half Bike
Half Man, Half Bike (4 Formats) ›
By William Fotheringham
Trade Paper Price 19.99

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Published Apr 2013

Leading cycling writer William Fotheringham presents the biography of the greatest cyclist in history, Eddy Merckx—the extraordinary man who is to cycling what Muhammad Ali is to boxing. This definitive history chronicles his life, examining both the ups and the downs. Throughout his professional career Merckx amassed an astonishing 445 victories and exhibited a remorseless sense of domination that created his legend. But his triumphs only tell half of a story that includes horrific injury, a doping controversy, and tragedy. To discover the background of the Belgian cyclist’s former invincibility, the author spoke with those who were there at the time and those who knew Merckx best. This is the singular tale of a man whose fear of failure would drive him to reach the highest pinnacles before ultimately destroying himself.

Here Comes Everybody
Here Comes Everybody (4 Formats) ›
By James Fearnley
Trade Paper Price 22.99

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Published May 2014

The Pogues injected the fury of punk into Irish folk music and gave the world the troubled, iconic, darkly romantic songwriter Shane MacGowan. Here Comes Everybody is a memoir written by founding member and accordion player James Fearnley, drawn from his personal experiences and the series of journals and correspondence he kept throughout the band’s career. Fearnley describes the coalescence of a disparate collection of vagabonds living in the squats of London’s Kings Cross, with, at its center, the charismatic MacGowan and his idea of turning Irish traditional music on its head. With beauty, lyricism, and great candor, Fearnley tells the story of how the band watched helplessly as their singer descended into a dark and isolated world of drugs and alcohol, and sets forth the increasingly desperate measures they were forced to take.

Honky Tonk Angel
Honky Tonk Angel (4 Formats) ›
By Ellis Nassour, Foreword by Dottie West
Trade Paper Price 24.99

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Published Jun 2008

Earthy, sexy, and vivacious, the life of beloved country singer, Patsy Cline, who soared from obscurity to international fame to tragic death in just thirty short years, is explored in colorful and poignant detail. An innovator—and even a hell-raiser—Cline broke all the boys’ club barriers of Nashville’s music business in the 1950s and brought a new Nashville sound to the nation with her pop hits and torch ballads like “Walking After Midnight,” “I Fall to Pieces“ and "Crazy.” She is the subject of a major Hollywood movie and countless articles, and her albums are still selling 45 years after her death. Ellis Nassour was the very first to write about Cline and did so with the cooperation of the stars who knew and loved her—including Jimmy Dean, Jan Howard, Brenda Lee, Loretta Lynn, Roger Miller, Dottie West, and Faron Young. He was the only writer to interview Cline's mother and husbands. This updated edition features not only a complete discography and a host of never-before-published photographs, but includes an afterword that details controversial claims about her birth, the battle between Cline's siblings for her possessions, the amazing influence Cline had on a new generation of singers and, in Cline’s own words from letters to a devoted friend, her excitement as her career soared to new heights and her marriage descended to new depths.

I Stooged to Conquer
I Stooged to Conquer (4 Formats) ›
By Moe Howard
Trade Paper Price 21.99

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Published Jul 2013

Telling the full story of the head Stooge, this work reveals the life-long career of a legendary funnyman. Born into a working-class family in Brooklyn, Moe Howard transformed his real-life experiences of getting into mischief with his brother Shemp into the plots that would have millions rolling in the aisles. From childhood, Moe’s ambition was to perform—whether it was plucking a ukulele on the beach, or playing a halfwit on a Mississippi showboat. But he only found success when he joined with Shemp and Larry Fine to play, as the New York Times put it, “three of the frowziest numskulls ever assembled.” As the brains behind the Three Stooges, he went on to act in hundreds of their movies, introducing his little brother Curly into the act when Shemp departed, and, after Curly’s death, partnering with Joe Besser and finally Joe de Rita. This is Moe Howard’s self-penned, no-holds-barred story of the ups and downs of his life, ranging from personal family tragedies to tidbits about career mishaps and triumphs. It overflows with the easygoing charm, generosity, and inspired lunacy of the “wise guy” behind America’s most successful comedy trio.

I'd Rather Be the Devil
I'd Rather Be the Devil (4 Formats) ›
By Stephen Calt
Trade Paper Price 22.99

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Published Apr 2008

Providing a clear look into the life of one of the greatest Mississippi bluesmen, this is the first biography of the late Skip James, perhaps the most creative and idiosyncratic of all blues musicians. His 1931 performances of "Devil Got My Woman," "I'm So Glad," and "22-20 Blues" are masterpieces that transcend the genre. Drawing largely on hundreds of hours of conversations with James himself, it paints a dark and unforgettable portrait of a man untroubled by his own murderous inclinations, a man who achieved one moment of transcendent greatness in a life haunted by failure. In doing so, it offers new insights into the nature of the blues, the world in which it thrived, and its fate when that world vanished.