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The Godfather of Tabloid: Generoso Pope Jr. and the National Enquirer
by Jack Vitek“An original American story of a tough, embattled media player with uncanny gifts for giving the public what they want.” —Publishers WeeklyIn The Godfather of Tabloid, Jack Vitek explores the life and remarkable career of Generoso Pope Jr. and the founding of the most famous tabloid of all—the National Enquirer. Upon graduating from MIT, Pope worked briefly for the CIA until he purchased the New York Enquirer with dubious financial help from mob boss Frank Costello. Working tirelessly and cultivating a mix of American journalists (some of whom, surprisingly, were Pulitzer Prize winners) and buccaneering Brits from Fleet Street who would do anything to get a story, Pope changed the name, format, and content of the modest weekly newspaper until it resembled nothing America had ever seen before.Pope was a man of contradictions: he would fire someone for merely disagreeing with him in a meeting (once firing an editor in the middle of his birthday party), and yet he spent upwards of a million dollars a year to bring the world’s tallest Christmas tree to the Enquirer offices in Lantana, Florida, for the enjoyment of the local citizens. Driven, tyrannical, and ruthless in his pursuit of creating an empire, Pope changed the look and content of supermarket tabloid media, and the industry still bears his stamp. Grounded in interviews with many of Pope’s supporters, detractors, and associates, The Godfather of Tabloid is the first comprehensive biography of the man who created a genre and changed the world of publishing forever.“An engaging saga of one man’s obsessive devotion to creating an entertaining alternative universe.” —The Wall Street Journal
Godfather of the Music Business: Morris Levy (American Made Music Series)
by Richard CarlinAssociation of Recorded Sound Collections Awards for ExcellenceBest Historical Research in Record Labels – Best History (2017)This biography tells the story of one of the most notorious figures in the history of popular music, Morris Levy (1927-1990). At age nineteen, he cofounded the nightclub Birdland in Hell's Kitchen, which became the home for a new musical style, bebop. Levy operated one of the first integrated clubs on Broadway and helped build the careers of Dizzy Gillespie and Bud Powell and most notably aided the reemergence of Count Basie. In 1957, he founded a record label, Roulette Records. Roulette featured many of the significant jazz artists who played Birdland but also scored top pop hits with acts like Buddy Knox, Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, Joey Dee and the Starliters, and, in the mid-1960s, Tommy James.Stories abound of Levy threatening artists, songwriters, and producers, sometimes just for the sport, other times so he could continue to build his empire. Along the way, Levy attracted "investors" with ties to the Mafia, including Dominic Ciaffone (a.k.a. "Swats" Mulligan), Tommy Eboli, and the most notorious of them all, Vincent Gigante. Gigante allegedly owned large pieces of Levy's recording and retail businesses.Starting in the late 1950s, the FBI and IRS investigated Levy but could not make anything stick until the early 1980s, when Levy foolishly got involved in a deal to sell remaindered records to a small-time reseller, John LaMonte. With partners in the mob, Levy tried to force LaMonte to pay for four million remaindered records. When the FBI secretly wiretapped LaMonte in an unrelated investigation and agents learned about the deal, investigators successfully prosecuted Levy in the extortion scheme. Convicted in 1988, Levy did not live to serve prison time. Stricken with cancer, he died just as his last appeals were exhausted. However, even if he had lived, Levy's brand of storied high life was effectively bust. Corporate ownership of record labels doomed most independents in the business, ending the days when a savvy if ruthless hustler could blaze a path to the top.
Godfather of the Revolution: The Life of Philippe Égalité, Duc D'Orléans
by Tom AmbroseWhile there are a great many books on Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette and the rest of the French Royal Family, the crucial role of the Duc d'Orleans--the man who bankrolled the French Revolution--has been inexplicably overlooked, and this is the first biography to appear in English for many years. This is despite the fact that he was the only member of a royal house ever to join a revolution against its monarchy and to vote for the judicial murder of the king. As well as bringing vividly to life the famous heroes and villains of the French Revolution, Tom Ambrose introduces the reader to a host of colorful and truly unforgettable characters, including Philippe's friend the Chevalier de Saint-George ("the Black Mozart") with whom he cofounded the first French anti-slavery society, the Duc's mistress Madame de Genlis, femme fatale and leading intellectual of the age, and--most significantly--Philippe himself, a towering figure in one of the most significant periods of European history.
The Godfather Papers and Other Confessions
by Mario PuzoThe autobiography of Mario Puzo, writer of The Godfather.
The Godfather’s Daughter: An Unlikely Story Of Love, Healing, And Redemption
by Rita GiganteRita Gigante grew up in a world swirling with secrets, lies, and multiple sins.Her father, notorious Mafia boss Vincent "the Chin" Gigante, was the leader of the Genovese crime clan and the head of all five New York crime families for decades. But until she was 16, she was kept in the dark about his underworld activities. She unknowingly hung out at mob headquarters and witnessed her dad's whispered meetings around the dinner table, but only knew what she was told by her mother and siblings about his odd behavior: Dad's sick. Keep your mouth shut. Don't talk about the family.Living with the family secret-and other shocking betrayals she was to uncover, then instructed to conceal-plunged Rita into emotional and physical turmoil for years. And then there was the blockbuster secret she herself kept hidden away: As the youngest girl in an old-fashioned, devout Catholic family, how could she confess to the unforgiving Godfather that she was a lesbian? They were all going to hell, she figured . . . unless she could find a way to embrace the truth and find redemption.In The Godfather's Daughter, Rita details her spiritual journey as she unravels the mysteries of her family and herself, and learns what it means to live in the truth she finds. It's a real-life father-daughter tale of betrayal and faith, violence and love-and how a young woman escaped from a spiraling darkness to reach the light.And in the end, with his daughter's healing help, even the Godfather finally learns to live in the light and atone for his sins.
Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America's Leading Atheists
by Dan BarkerBarker describes the intellectual and psychological path he followed in moving from fundamentalism to free thought. The four sections in Godless include chapters on bible problems, unbelievable resurrection and much more.
God'll Cut You Down
by John SafranAn unlikely journalist, a murder case in Mississippi, and a fascinating literary true crime story in the style of Jon Ronson.A notorious white supremacist named Richard Barrett was brutally murdered in Mississippi in 2010 by a young black man named Vincent McGee. At first the murder seemed a twist on old Deep South race crimes. But then new revelations and complications came to light. Maybe it was a dispute over money rather than race--or, maybe and intriguingly, over sex.John Safran, a young white Jewish Australian documentarian, had been in Mississippi and interviewed Barrett for a film on race. When he learned of Barrett's murder, he returned to find out what happened and became caught up in the twists and turns of the case. During his time in Mississippi, Safran got deeper and deeper into this gothic southern world, becoming entwined in the lives of those connected with the murder--white separatist frenemies, black lawyers, police investigators, oddball neighbors, the stunned families, even the killer himself. And the more he talked with them, the less simple the crime--and the people involved--seemed to be. In the end, he discovered how profoundly and indelibly complex the truth about someone's life--and death--can be.This is a brilliant, haunting, hilarious, unsettling story about race, money, sex, and power in the modern American South from an outsider's point of view.
A Godly Hero: The Life of William Jennings Bryan
by Michael KazinIn American populist Bryan (1860-1925), Kazin (history, Georgetown U. ) finds a hero and leader of the Christian left. Though remembered today mostly as the voice of fundamentalism in the 1925 Scopes trial about teaching evolution, he says Bryan was the most popular speaker of his time, and gained a huge following among both rural and urban Americans to whom he combined the righteousness of a pastor with the practical vision of a reform politician. Annotation ©2006 Book News, Inc. , Portland, OR (booknews. com)
A Godly Humanism: Clarifying the Hope That Lies Within
by Francis E. George OMIIs the Catholic Church a movement built around ideas, or a communion built around relationships? In A Godly Humanism, Francis Cardinal George shares his understanding of the Church in lively, compelling prose, presenting a way to understand and appreciate the relationships of God to human beings and of human beings to one another. These loving relationships are continually made available to us in and through the Church, from the time of Jesus&’s first disciples down to our own day. We are introduced to how the spiritual and intellectual life of Christians, aided in every generation by the Holy Spirit working through the Apostles and their successors, resist the danger of splitting apart from one another. Though they take different outward forms at different times, both wisdom and holiness are made possible for every Christian in any station of life. Sign-posting his conversation by the milestones of his own spiritual and intellectual journey, Cardinal George invites us to view the Church and her history in ways that go beyond the categories of politics—through which we find merely human initiative, contrivance, and adjustment—and rather to see the initiative as God&’s first and foremost. God is the non-stop giver, we are non-stop recipients of his gifts, and the recent popes, no less than the Father of the Church, have made every effort to make us aware of the graces—that is, of the unearned benefits—that God confers on us as Catholics, as Christians, as believers, and simply as human beings. Pope Francis, he reminds us, contrasts human planning with God&’s providence, and this book is at once an exposition of that providence and a personal response of gratitude for the way it has operated in one man&’s life.
Godmersham Park: A Novel of the Austen Family
by Gill HornbyA richly imagined novel inspired by the true story of Anne Sharp, a governess who became very close with Jane Austen and her family by the #1 International bestselling-author of Miss Austen.On January 21, 1804, Anne Sharpe arrives at Godmersham Park in Kent to take up the position of governess. At thirty-one years old, she has no previous experience of either teaching or fine country houses. Her mother has died, and she has nowhere else to go. Anne is left with no choice. For her new charge—twelve-year-old Fanny Austen—Anne's arrival is all novelty and excitement. The governess role is a uniquely awkward one. Anne is neither one of the servants, nor one of the family, and to balance a position between the "upstairs" and "downstairs" members of the household is a diplomatic chess game. One wrong move may result in instant dismissal. Anne knows that she must never let down her guard. When Mr. Edward Austen's family comes to stay, Anne forms an immediate attachment to Jane. They write plays together, and enjoy long discussions. However, in the process, Anne reveals herself as not merely pretty, charming, and competent; she is clever too. Even her sleepy, complacent, mistress can hardly fail to notice. Meanwhile Jane's brother, Henry, begins to take an unusually strong interest in the lovely young governess. And from now on, Anne's days at Godmersham Park are numbered.
The Godmother: Murder, Vengeance and the Bloody Struggle of Mafia Women
by Barbie Latza NadeauThe untold stories of the women who have risen to prominence and notoriety in Italy's mafia—many more ruthless than the fathers and husbands they replaced—and the octogenarian murderer who decades ago blazed a bloody trail for them to follow.In 1955 in a public market outside Naples, Italy, a pregnant teenage widow named Assunta &“Pupetta&” Maresca encounters the man she believes to be her husband's killer. Minutes later, police find the man dead, riddled with an astonishing 29 bullets. Pupetta is arrested and convicted for his death. "I killed for love," she declares in court, "and I'd do it again!" It is the middle of the twentieth century. Italy is impoverished after the war. Criminal organization are springing up where governments fail their citizens. Women are considered adjunct to the growth of the criminal class; they are mothers who train sons in the primacy of blood feuds, or they are daughters and sisters who deliver messages for imprisoned male relatives. But Pupetta changes that. She is heralded "Lady Camorra," and in prison she takes on legendary stature, with films and TV shows produced to capitalize on her outlaw image. The crime and even the killing does not stop there for Pupetta, and though she is arguably the first mafia godmother, she is not the worst. Some of the women who follow in her footsteps will meet terrible fates; others will lead their clans. But if CNN correspondent and Daily Beast Rome bureau chief makes one thing clear in The Godmother, it's that as women seize ever more control of Italy's criminal underworld, they are proving themselves more vicious, cunning and cutthroat than the men they replace.
God's Adventurer
by Phyllis ThompsonHuson Taylor was still a teenager when God told him to go to China. Alone, broke and even critically ill, he hung on to that goal, and to God who was sending him. But would God be enough? In inland China, Hudson had lots of chances to find out! There is plenty of danger, adventure and action in this true story of a man who dared to risk all on God.
Gods and Kings: The Rise and Fall of Alexander McQueen and John Galliano
by Dana ThomasMore than two decades ago, John Galliano and Alexander McQueen arrived on the fashions scene when the business was in an artistic and economic rut. Both wanted to revolutionize fashion in a way no one had in decades. They shook the establishment out of its bourgeois, minimalist stupor with daring, sexy designs. They turned out landmark collections in mesmerizing, theatrical shows that retailers and critics still gush about and designers continue to reference.<P><P> Their approach to fashion was wildly different—Galliano began as an illustrator, McQueen as a Savile Row tailor. Galliano led the way with his sensual bias-cut gowns and his voluptuous hourglass tailoring, which he presented in romantic storybook-like settings. McQueen, though nearly ten years younger than Galliano, was a brilliant technician and a visionary artist who brought a new reality to fashion, as well as an otherworldly beauty. For his first official collection at the tender age of twenty-three, McQueen did what few in fashion ever achieve: he invented a new silhouette, the Bumster.<P> They had similar backgrounds: sensitive, shy gay men raised in tough London neighborhoods, their love of fashion nurtured by their doting mothers. Both struggled to get their businesses off the ground, despite early critical success. But by 1997, each had landed a job as creative director for couture houses owned by French tycoon Bernard Arnault, chairman of LVMH.<P> Galliano’s and McQueen’s work for Dior and Givenchy and beyond not only influenced fashion; their distinct styles were also reflected across the media landscape. With their help, luxury fashion evolved from a clutch of small, family-owned businesses into a $280 billion-a-year global corporate industry. Executives pushed the designers to meet increasingly rapid deadlines. For both Galliano and McQueen, the pace was unsustainable. In 2010, McQueen took his own life three weeks before his womens' wear show.<P> The same week that Galliano was fired, Forbes named Arnault the fourth richest man in the world. Two months later, Kate Middleton wore a McQueen wedding gown, instantly making the house the world’s most famous fashion brand, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art opened a wildly successful McQueen retrospective, cosponsored by the corporate owners of the McQueen brand. The corporations had won and the artists had lost.<P> In her groundbreaking work Gods and Kings, acclaimed journalist Dana Thomas tells the true story of McQueen and Galliano. In so doing, she reveals the revolution in high fashion in the last two decades—and the price it demanded of the very ones who saved it.
God's Choice: Pope Benedict XVI and the Future of the Catholic Church
by George WeigelWeigel introduces us to Pope Benedict XVI. What was this man thinking when he knew that he might be elected? How did the process work? What is the historical significance for the Catholic Church? What is John Paul II's legacy? Although rich with detail, this book is a lucid and fascinating consideration of the monumental events of 2005.
God's Cold Warrior: The Life and Faith of John Foster Dulles (Library of Religious Biography (LRB))
by John D. WilseyWhen John Foster Dulles died in 1959, he was given the largest American state funeral since Franklin Delano Roosevelt&’s in 1945. President Eisenhower called Dulles—his longtime secretary of state—&“one of the truly great men of our time,&” and a few years later the new commercial airport outside Washington, DC, was christened the Dulles International Airport in his honor. His star has fallen significantly since that time, but his influence remains indelible—most especially regarding his role in bringing the worldview of American exceptionalism to the forefront of US foreign policy during the Cold War era, a worldview that has long outlived him. God&’s Cold Warrior recounts how Dulles&’s faith commitments from his Presbyterian upbringing found fertile soil in the anti-communist crusades of the mid-twentieth century. After attending the Oxford Ecumenical Church Conference in 1937, he wrote about his realization that &“the spirit of Christianity, of which I learned as a boy, was really that of which the world now stood in very great need, not merely to save souls, but to solve the practical problems of international affairs.&” Dulles believed that America was chosen by God to defend the freedom of all those vulnerable to the godless tyranny of communism, and he carried out this religious vision in every aspect of his diplomatic and political work. He was conspicuous among those US officials in the twentieth century that prominently combined their religious convictions and public service, making his life and faith key to understanding the interconnectedness of God and country in US foreign affairs.
God's Fool: The Life of Francis of Assisi
by Julien Green Peter HeineggThis warm, richly detailed biography brings the beloved saint alive in all his human and profoundly spiritual dimensions.
God's Fool: A Novel (Vintage Contemporaries Ser.)
by Mark SloukaIf you can read [God’s Fool] without being astonished and touched, then you’d better check to see if your heart is made of stone…simply brilliant. A book of the year. Born attached at the chest, Chang and Eng were considered a marvel, an act of God. By any standard, theirs is a history of epic variety and drama. Mark Slouka recounts their tumultuous story, from the docks of Vietnam to American fame, with intimacy and compassion. A Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, and Dallas Morning News Best Book of the Year.
God's Hotel
by Victoria SweetA medical "page-turner" that traces one doctor's "remarkable journey to the essence of medicine" (The San Francisco Chronicle). San Francisco's Laguna Honda Hospital is the last almshouse in the country, a descendant of the Hôtel-Dieu (God's hotel) that cared for the sick in the Middle Ages. Ballet dancers and rock musicians, professors and thieves--"anyone who had fallen, or, often, leapt, onto hard times" and needed extended medical care--ended up here. So did Victoria Sweet, who came for two months and stayed for twenty years. Laguna Honda, relatively low-tech but human-paced, gave Sweet the opportunity to practice a kind of attentive medicine that has almost vanished. Gradually, the place transformed the way she understood her work. Alongside the modern view of the body as a machine to be fixed, her extraordinary patients evoked an older idea, of the body as a garden to be tended. God's Hotel tells their story and the story of the hospital itself, which, as efficiency experts, politicians, and architects descended, determined to turn it into a modern "health care facility," revealed its own surprising truths about the essence, cost, and value of caring for the body and the soul.
Gods in Shackles: What Elephants Can Teach Us About Empathy, Resilience, and Freedom
by Sangita IyerWith a foreword by Jane Goodall, this moving memoir follows a successful journalist and filmmaker who felt like something was missing in her life as she finds her purpose in advocacy for the Asian elephants in her childhood home town of Kerala, India."The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated." - Mahatma GandhiElephants are self-aware, conscious beings. They can feel and grieve the loss of both elephants and humans. But despite all empathy that elephants shower on humans, we continue to inflict pain and suffering on these caring, sentient beings.In 2013 Sangita Iyer visited her childhood home of Kerala, India. Over 700 Asian elephants live in Kerala, owned by individuals and temples that force them to perform in lengthy, crowded, noisy festivals, abusing and shackling these animals they claim to revere for tourists and money.When Sangita found herself in the presence of these divine creatures and witnessed their suffering first hand, she felt a deep connection to their pain. She too had been shackled and broken for too long-to her patriarchal upbringing in India, to the many "me too" moments in her work life that were swept under the rug, to the silence. Now she would speak out for the elephants and for herself. And she would heal alongside them.This sparked the creation of her award winning documentary of the same name and a new purpose in this life for both Sangita and the elephants.
God's Middle Finger: Into the Lawless Heart of the Sierra Madre
by Richard GrantFrom the acclaimed author of Dispatches From Pluto and Deepest South of All, a harrowing travelogue into Mexico&’s lawless Sierra Madre mountains.Twenty miles south of the Arizona-Mexico border, the rugged, beautiful Sierra Madre mountains begin their dramatic ascent. Almost 900 miles long, the range climbs to nearly 11,000 feet and boasts several canyons deeper than the Grand Canyon. The rules of law and society have never taken hold in the Sierra Madre, which is home to bandits, drug smugglers, Mormons, cave-dwelling Tarahumara Indians, opium farmers, cowboys, and other assorted outcasts. Outsiders are not welcome; drugs are the primary source of income; murder is all but a regional pastime. The Mexican army occasionally goes in to burn marijuana and opium crops—the modern treasure of the Sierra Madre—but otherwise the government stays away. In its stead are the drug lords, who have made it one of the biggest drug-producing areas in the world.Fifteen years ago, journalist Richard Grant developed what he calls "an unfortunate fascination" with this lawless place. Locals warned that he would meet his death there, but he didn't believe them—until his last trip. During his travels Grant visited a folk healer for his insomnia and was prescribed rattlesnake pills, attended bizarre religious rituals, consorted with cocaine-snorting policemen, taught English to Guarijio Indians, and dug for buried treasure. On his last visit, his reckless adventure spiraled into his own personal heart of darkness when cocaine-fueled Mexican hillbillies hunted him through the woods all night, bent on killing him for sport.With gorgeous detail, fascinating insight, and an undercurrent of dark humor, God's Middle Finger brings to vivid life a truly unique and uncharted world.
God's Most Precious Jewels are Crystallized Tears: True Stories of Women Who Turned Their Misery into Ministry
by Barbara JohnsonThe Queen of Encouragement has brought a dozen amazing friends to inspire and encourage you!Barbara Johnson's heart-touching, laughter-laced story has given hope to millions of readers worldwide. Now she brings together twelve courageous women who have triumphed over challenges and endured heart-rending losses. With Christlike serventhood, they have reached beyond their own anguish to extend a helping hand to others in need, turning their tears of heartache into jewels of blessing. In their awe-inspiring stories, you will meet women who have faced:a husband's brutal murderthe death of a young childpoverty and bigotryeating disordersan adult child's homosexualitythe death of two sons due to AIDSabusive marriagesheartbreaking divorcefamily members' estrangementclinical depressionphysical disabilitya husband's struggle with homosexualityToday these women, like Barbara, spread hope and joy wherever they go. To celebrate their ministry of encouragement, each of their stories concludes with Barbara's trademark collection of wit and laughter. Open this book and find a pathway out of sorrow and into the sunlight of a life warmed by love and filled with meaning. Read these stories and learn how to turn misery into ministry.
Gods of Noonday: A White Girl's African Life
by Elaine Neil OrrOrr (contemporary literature, women's studies, North Carolina State U.) sensitively depicts growing up in pre-independence Nigeria as the child of American medical missionary parents. Returning to Africa helps restore her health and sense of identity. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
Gods of Noonday: A White Girl's African Life
by Elaine Neil OrrThe daughter of medical missionaries, Elaine Neil Orr was born in Nigeria in 1954, in the midst of the national movement that would lead to independence from Great Britain. But as she tells it in her captivating new memoir, Orr did not grow up as a stranger abroad; she was a girl at home--only half American, the other half Nigerian. When she was sent alone to the United States for high school, she didn't realize how much leaving Africa would cost her.It was only in her forties, in the crisis of kidney failure, that she began to recover her African life. In writing Gods of Noonday she came to understand her double-rootedness: in the Christian church and the Yoruba shrine, the piano and the talking drum. Memory took her back from Duke Medical Center in North Carolina to the shores of West Africa and her hometown of Ogbomosho in the land of the Yoruba people. Hers was not the dysfunctional American family whose tensions are brought into high relief by the equatorial sun, but a mission girlhood is haunted nonetheless--by spiritual atmospheres and the limits of good intentions.Orr's father, Lloyd Neil, formerly a high school athlete and World War II pilot, and her mother, Anne, found in Nigeria the adventure that would have escaped them in 1950s America. Elaine identified with her strong, fun-loving father more than her reserved mother, but she herself was as introspective and solitary as her sister Becky was pretty and social. Lloyd acquired a Chevrolet station wagon which carried Elaine and her friends to the Ethiope River, where they swam much as they might have in the United States. But at night the roads were becoming dangerous, and soon the days were clouded by smoke from the coming Biafran War.Interweaving the lush mission compounds with Nigerian culture, furloughs in the American South with boarding school in Nigeria, and eventually Orr's failing health, the narrative builds in intensity as she recognizes that only through recovering her homeland can she find the strength to survive. Taking its place with classics such as Out of Africa and more recent works like The Poisonwood Bible and Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight, Gods of Noonday is a deeply felt, courageous portrait of a woman's life.
Gods of the Hammer: The Teenage Head Story (Exploded Views)
by Geoff Pevere'Teenage Head changed the face of music in this country. I would not be who I am today without their first record ... In 1979 they were the only band that mattered.' - Hugh Dillon In the late 1970s and early 1980s, no Canadian band rocked harder, louder or to more hardcore fans than Hamilton, Ontario's own Teenage Head. Although usually lumped in the dubiously inevitable 'punk rock' category of the day, this high--energy quartet --consisting of four guys who'd known each other since high school --were really only punk by association. In essence they were a full--on, balls--to--the--wall, three--chord, kick--out--the--jams band that obliterated categories and labels with the sheer force of their sonic assault, and everywhere they played they converted the merely curious to the insanely devoted. And they almost became world famous. Almost. This is their story, told in full and for the first time, and by those who lived to tell the tale. Praise for Gods of the Hammer: 'A riot of a good read on Teenage Head ... the writing is fast-paced and lively, told from the laudatory perspective of a frustrated fan trying to explain why such a great band never got its due.' - The Hamilton Spectator 'I loved it! Wanted it to last forever! Geoff Pevere has done an ace portrait of all that is great and dirty in rock and roll.' - Bruce McDonald 'Pevere's is an on-the-ground fan's account of how the band enamoured a country and how if just that one last, special piece fell into place -- if they were managed better, if an American record deal came sooner, if guitarist Gord Lewis hadn't been laid up for half a year at their very peak by a back-breaking car accident -- songs like "Picture My Face" and "Let's Shake" would be played before face-offs and stocked in jukeboxes from St. John's to San Francisco. The Head were always just a centimetre away from super-stardom. To a generation of hip music fans, they're as classic as The Cars, but instead of ubiquity, their story is a distinctly Canadian Almost Famous.' - Chart Attack Praise for Geoff Pevere: 'After almost 30 years of writing about the movies, Geoff Pevere's anti-establishment views are just as strong as ever, but now he wears them as comfortably as an old leather jacket. He has always been more interested in broadening people's interests than in trying to narrow them. In an age with almost unlimited access to film, just one stream in an onrushing tide of media, this is daring. For the boy who once had to wait months to see Citizen Kane, however, it's simply a gesture of generosity.' -- Toronto Screen Shot
Gods of Tin: The Flying Years
by James SalterA singular life often circles around a singular moment, an occasion when one's life in the world is defined forever and the emotional vocabulary set. For the extraordinary writer James Salter, this moment was contained in the fighter planes over Korea where, during his young manhood, he flew more than one hundred missions.James Salter is considered one of America's greatest prose stylists. The Arm of Flesh (later revised and retitled Cassada) and his first novel, The Hunters, are legendary in military circles for their descriptions of flying and aerial combat. A former Air Force pilot who flew F–86 fighters in Korea, Salter writes with matchless insight about the terror and exhilaration of the pilot's life.