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Norman Granz: The Man Who Used Jazz for Justice
by Tad Hershorn"Any book on my life would start with my basic philosophy of fighting racial prejudice. I loved jazz, and jazz was my way of doing that," Norman Granz told Tad Hershorn during the final interviews given for this book. Granz, who died in 2001, was iconoclastic, independent, immensely influential, often thoroughly unpleasant--and one of jazz's true giants. Granz played an essential part in bringing jazz to audiences around the world, defying racial and social prejudice as he did so, and demanding that African-American performers be treated equally everywhere they toured. In this definitive biography, Hershorn recounts Granz's story: creator of the legendary jam session concerts known as Jazz at the Philharmonic; founder of the Verve record label; pioneer of live recordings and worldwide jazz concert tours; manager and recording producer for numerous stars, including Ella Fitzgerald and Oscar Peterson.
Norman Mailer: A Double Life
by J. Michael LennonFrom the biographer who knew Norman Mailer for decades comes the definitive, authorized portrait of the eminent novelist, journalist, and controversial public figure, based on extensive interviews and unpublished letters.Norman Mailer was the one of the most famous writers of his generation, a figure as notorious for his stormy romances and quarrels with other writers as he was respected for his numerous bestsellers and literary accolades. In this candid biography, J. Michael Lennon brings a wealth of research informed by his years of personal acquaintance with Mailer, as well as the cooperation of Mailer's family, to reveal the life and work of an American legend. In a career that produced eleven bestsellers, Mailer lived through every great postwar event of the twentieth century and commented on many of them. From his initial success with his World War II novel The Naked and the Dead, through his observations on the convulsive 1960s in the Pulitzer Prize-winning Armies of the Night, to his own quixotic run for mayor of New York City, his life was a reflection of the turbulent times in which he lived. A man of sharp complexities, he was loved and loathed, the most prominent public intellectual of his time, at once an outspoken critic of the Vietnam War and the bête noir of the women's rights movement. Lennon explores Mailer's dualities: journalist and activist, devoted family man (he was married six times and was the father of nine children) and notorious philanderer, intellectual and fighter, writer and public figure, all of them evolving through Mailer's self-conscious effort to create a distinctive identity for himself. Capturing this protean life as never before, Norman Mailer: A Double Life gives us the man in full--a remarkable and unique figure, a giant in the context of his time.
North Carolina String Music Masters: Old-Time and Bluegrass Legends
by Elizabeth A. Carlson Former Npr BrownThe roots of American music are deeply grounded in North Carolina's music history. North Carolina musicians pioneered and mastered the genres of old-time and bluegrass music. Doc Watson played mountain fiddle tunes on guitar. He emerged as the father of flatpicking and forever changed the role of the guitar in American music. Charlie Poole created techniques that eventually defined bluegrass, and folks around the state heard his banjo on some of the most important old-time recordings. Rising star Rhiannon Giddens keeps the music alive today through new interpretations of classic old-time and bluegrass songs. Elizabeth Carlson profiles these and other masters of string music in this fascinating record of North Carolina's musical past, present and future.
North Dallas Forty
by Peter GentFiction about a pro football player who is addicted to pain killers. Losely based on author's own experience playing the sport.
North Korea Journal
by Michael PalinIn this beautifully illustrated journal based on a TV documentary, writer, comedian and world traveller Michael Palin journeys to North Korea, offering a glimpse of life inside the world's most secretive country, uncovering surprises and making friends along the way.In May 2018, former Monty Python stalwart and intrepid globetrotter Michael Palin ventured into the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, camera crew in tow, to gain a glimpse of life in the most notoriously secretive and cut-off nation on earth. His resulting two-part documentary for Channel 5 fascinated millions and won universal plaudits.Now he shares the journal he meticulously kept during his trip, in which he describes his experiences in a country wholly unlike any other he has ever visited: a country where you will find the Tallest Unoccupied Building in the World; where the residents of Pyongyang awake every morning to the strains of 'Where Are You, Dear General?', broadcast from speakers across the city; and where there are fifteen approved styles of haircut. He chronicles a journey of stark contrasts that takes in a gleamingly modern capital complete with triumphal statues and arches one day, and a countryside that has barely changed in decades on another. He travels to the heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone, to a centuries-old Confucian academy, and to the heart of North Korea's exquisitely beautiful mountains and lakes. He recounts conversations with official guides, teachers, propaganda artists, farmers and soldiers in which mutual incomprehension and shared humanity are constantly intermingled. And he muses on what makes people tick under a regime that to outsiders seems so utterly alien and so grimly authoritarian. Written with Palin's trademark warmth and wit, and illustrated with beautiful colour photographs throughout, Palin's journal offers a rare insight into the North Korea behind the headlines.
Northern Getaway: Film, Tourism, and the Canadian Vacation
by Dominique Brégent-HealdFor more than a century, posters, advertisements, and brochures have characterized Canada as a desirable tourist destination offering spectacular scenery, wild animals, outdoor recreation, and state-of-the-art accommodations. However, these explicitly commercial displays are not the only marketing tools at the country’s disposal; beginning in the 1890s, film also played a role in selling Canada.In Northern Getaway Dominique Brégent-Heald investigates the connections between film and tourism during the first half of the twentieth century, exploring the economic, pedagogical, geopolitical, and socio-cultural contexts and aspirations of tourism films. From the first moving images of the 1890s through the end of the 1950s, a complex web of public and private stakeholders in Canadian tourism experimented, sometimes in collaboration with Hollywood, with a variety of film forms – 16 mm or 35 mm, feature or short films, fiction or nonfiction, professional or amateur filmmakers – to promote Canada. Spectators, particularly Americans, saw Canada as a tourist destination on screens in motion picture theatres, schools, and fairgrounds. Rooted in settler colonial representations that celebrate the nation’s unspoiled but welcoming wilderness landscapes, these films also characterize Canada as a technologically and industrially advanced settler country.Using evidence from a wide range of archival sources and drawing from current scholarship in film history and tourism studies, Northern Getaway demonstrates how Canada was an innovator in using film to shape and project a recognizable destination brand.
Northern Soul: An Illustrated History
by Elaine Constantine Gareth SweeneyThe story of Northern Soul is one of practically total immersion, dedication and devotion, where the plain concept of the ‘night out’ was elevated to sacramental dimensions. Where devotees pushed their bodies, their finances and sometimes their minds to brutal and unforgiving extremes. For those who went through that involvement every test of faith or endurance was worth bearing.- From Northern Soul: An Illustrated History.‘It was a drugs scene, it was a clothes scene. It was about dancing. It came out of this thing. It was about pills that made you go fast. To go fast to make the scene happen.’ - Chris BrickIn the late 1960s, a form of dance music took a feverish hold on the UK, finding its heart in the north of England. The music of 1960s-70s black American soul singers combined with distinctive dance styles and plenty of amphetamines to create what became known as Northern Soul – a scene based around all night, alcohol-free club nights, arranged by the fans themselves – setting the blueprint for future club culture. Northern Soul tapped into a yearning for individual expression in northern teenagers, and exploded into a cultural phenomenon that influenced a generation of DJs, songwriters and designers for decades to come. Acclaimed photographer and director Elaine Constantine has brought the movement to life in her film Northern Soul – and that film was the starting point for this book, Northern Soul: An Illustrated History.However, what started out as a project largely comprising of Constantine’s stunning on-set photography, featuring her young, talented cast and highly authentic production, has turned into a unique illustrated history of Northern Soul. In its final form, the beautiful new photography holds the book together thematically, but its real depth lies in the material from the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s that Elaine and Gareth have researched and pulled together. Of course, no book can claim to represent everything about a culture. But Northern Soul: An Illustrated History concentrates on individuals’ personal stories from that heady era, as well as being crammed full of truly atmospheric contemporaneous photography – not from press photographers, but from the kids themselves. Be it snaps of soul fans in car parks, hitching a lift or mucking around in photo booths, the combination of real people plus real (and often very dramatic) stories – not to mention the complete absence of label scans and DJ’s top tens – means that the book stands out as a very different proposition from anything yet published on Northern Soul. We would like to think that above all, this book attempts to give you a feel for what it was really like to be there at the time.
Norton Anthology of Western Music: Ancient to Baroque
by J. Peter Burkholder Claude V. PaliscaThe ideal companion toA History of Western Music, Seventh Edition, the two-volumeNorton Anthology of Western Music, Fifth Edition, includes 172 historically significant scores, 71 of them new to this edition, with a strengthened emphasis on twentieth-century music. Revised and enlivened commentaries closely examine the scores to clarify their historical significance, and professional recordings of all works in the anthology are included on CDs, many in dynamic new performances.
Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (Devil's Advocates)
by Cristina MassaccesiNosferatu: A Symphony of Horror, directed by German director Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau in 1922, is not only regarded as one of the most intriguing and disquieting films to have been produced during the years of Weimar cinema but is also a key step in establishing the vampire as a cinematic figure and in shaping its connection with our subconscious fears and desires. In her analysis of this hugely influential film, Cristina Massaccesi unravels the never-ending fascination exercised by the film over generations of viewers and filmmakers whilst at the same time providing the reader with a clear guide about the film's contexts, cinematography, and possible interpretations, covering the political and social context of the Weimar Republic and its film industry, the German Expressionist movement, the film's production, reception and difficult initial release. The book also includes the results of a lengthy interview between the author and E. Elias Merhige, director of the Nosferatu homage, Shadow of the Vampire (2000).
Not According to Plan: Filmmaking under Stalin
by Maria BelodubrovskayaIn Not According to Plan, Maria Belodubrovskaya reveals the limits on the power of even the most repressive totalitarian regimes to create and control propaganda. Belodubrovskaya's revisionist account of Soviet filmmaking between 1930 and 1953 highlights the extent to which the Soviet film industry remained stubbornly artisanal in its methods, especially in contrast to the more industrial approach of the Hollywood studio system. Not According to Plan shows that even though Josef Stalin recognized cinema as a "mighty instrument of mass agitation and propaganda" and strove to harness the Soviet film industry to serve the state, directors such as Eisenstein, Alexandrov, and Pudovkin had far more creative control than did party-appointed executives and censors.
Not Afraid: The Evolution of Eminem
by Anthony BozzaThe sequel to the New York Times bestseller Whatever You Say I Am, chronicling the last 20 years of rapper Eminem's life, based on exclusive interviews with the artist, his friends, and associatesIn 1999, a former dishwasher from Detroit named Marshall Bruce Mathers III became the most controversial and polarizing musical artist in the world. He was an outlier, a white artist creating viable art in a black medium, telling stories with such verbal dexterity, nimble wit, and shocking honesty that his music and persona resonated universally. In short, Eminem changed the landscape of pop culture as we knew it.In 2006, at the height of his fame and one of the biggest-selling artists in music history, Eminem all but disappeared. Beset by nonstop controversy, bewildering international fame, a debilitating drug problem, and personal tragedy, he became reclusive, withdrawing to his Detroit-area compound. He struggled with weight gain and an addiction to prescription pills that nearly took his life. Over the next five years, Eminem got sober, relapsed, then finally got and stayed clean with the help of his unlikely friend and supporter, Elton John. He then triumphantly returned to a very different landscape, yet continued his streak of number one albums and multiplatinum singles.Not Afraid picks up where rock journalist Anthony Bozza's bestselling Whatever You Say I Am left off. Capturing Eminem's toughest years in his own words, as well the insights of his closest friends and creative collaborators, this book chronicles the musical, personal, and spiritual growth of one of hip hop's most enduring and enigmatic figures.
Not All Diamonds and Rosé: The Inside Story of The Real Housewives from the People Who Lived It
by Dave QuinnTHE INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! <p><p> Dave Quinn's Not All Diamonds and Rosé is the definitive oral history of the hit television franchise, from its unlikely start in the gated communities of Orange County to the pop culture behemoth it has become—spanning nine cities, hundreds of cast members, and millions of fans. <p><p> What is it really like to be a housewife? We all want to know, but only the women we love to watch and the people who make the show have the whole story. Well, listen in close, because they’re about to tell all. <p><p> Nearly all the wives, producers, and network executives, as well as Andy Cohen himself, are on the record, unfiltered and unvarnished about what it really takes to have a tagline. This is your VIP pass to the lives behind the glam squads, testimonials, and tabloid feuds. <p><p> Life’s not all diamonds and rosé, but the truth is so much better, isn’t it?
Not All Superheroes Wear Capes
by Quentin KenihanQuentin Kenihan is living proof that superheroes don't need capes, just the right attitude. FOREWORD BY RAY MARTINWhen he was a kid, Quentin Kenihan loved Superman. Ironic, really. Quentin didn't need kryptonite to reveal his weakness - born with a rare bone disorder, osteogenesis imperfecta, his bones broke all on their own.When Quentin was seven, Mike Willesee made a documentary about him. Australians fell in love with his wit, and never-say-die attitude. Over the years he grew up before our eyes. But there was a dark side to his life. The true story was never told ... until now. A story of abandonment, drug addiction, dark days and thoughts of suicide. Battling through it all, Quentin's resilience is inspiring.Quentin is now determined to live life the best he can. Just turned 41, he is a filmmaker, stand-up comedian, radio host, actor and film critic; he's hung out with Angelina, accidentally ripped Jennifer Lopez's dress, talked sex with Jean-Claude Van Damme, appeared in MAD MAX and interviewed Julia Gillard, all the while showing that living in a wheelchair doesn't mean staying still.This is an unforgettable, brutally honest, at times heartbreaking memoir. Quentin Kenihan is living proof that superheroes don't need capes, just the right attitude!'Quentin is a hero of mine. Probably the toughest man I have ever met. Read this book and reconsider how hard you think your life is. It is a liberating experience to face life through his eyes.' - RUSSELL CROWE
Not Another Love Song
by Olivia WildensteinPerfect for fans of Lynn Painter and K. L. Walther, this timeless, compelling YA romance centers on a teen desperate to make it in the music industry - but at what cost? I really wish you could make it easier for me to dislike you.Angie Conrad has always known she wanted to be a musician, growing up in Nashville it’s all she’s ever dreamed of. Now a high school senior, she has the opportunity to kick-start her dreams via a songwriting competition for her idol, Mona Stone. Driven to succeed, she begins working on the perfect song to submit, but there are more than just a few obstacles in her way—her crippling stage fright and her mother’s disapproval to name a few. When Angie meets Reedwood High’s newest transfer student, Ten Dylan, things get complicated. With his endless collection of graphic tees, his surly attitude, and smoldering good looks, Ten toys with the rhythm of Angie’s heart. There’s just one mind boggling problem: he absolutely hates music, especially Mona Stone.She’s never desired anything but success until Ten entered her life. Now she wants to be with him and to be a songwriter for Mona Stone.But picking one means losing the other.Charming and full of heart, Not Another Love Song is perfect for readers looking for: - Contemporary YA romance - Enemies-to-lovers - Dating You Would Ruin Everything (But They Do It Anyway) - Music-filled stories about aspiring singer-songwriters (total Swiftie vibes!) - Lynn Painter Fans - K. L. Walther fans
Not Funny: Essays on Life, Comedy, Culture, Et Cetera
by Jena FriedmanNATIONAL BESTSELLER &“In fact very funny.&” —Cosmopolitan &“[A] hilarious and much-needed book.&” —Samantha Bee, Emmy Award–winning comedian, author, and host of Full Frontal with Samantha Bee For fans of the perceptive comedy of Hannah Gadsby, Lindy West, and Sarah Silverman, Academy Award–nominated and acclaimed stand-up comedian Jena Friedman presents a witty and insightful collection of essays on the cultural flashpoints of today.Growing up, Jena Friedman didn&’t care about being likable. And she never wanted to be a comedian, either. A child of the 90s, she wouldn&’t discover her knack for the funny business until research for her college thesis led her to take an improv class in Chicago. That anthropology paper, written on race, class, and gender in the city&’s comedy scene, was, in Jena&’s own words, &“just as funny as it sounds.&” But it did lay the groundwork for a career that has seen her write and produce for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, the Late Show with David Letterman, and the Oscar nominated Borat Subsequent Moviefilm. Friedman&’s debut collection, Not Funny, takes on the third rails of modern life in Jena&’s bold and subversive style, with essays that explore cancel culture, sexism, work, celebrity worship, and…dead baby jokes. In a moment where women&’s rights are being rolled back, fascism is on the rise, and so many of us could use a breather as we struggle to get by, Jena applies her unique gifts to pull a laugh from things deemed too raw, too precious, and too scary to joke about. She shares her stories of taking on those who told her she was too brash, too edgy, and too &“unlikable&” to make it. She deftly dissects how we get coerced into silence on the issues that matter most, until they&’ve gone too far afield to be turned back around again. And she shares her struggles to make it (-ish) in a world that, more often than not, would rather tune out than listen to a woman confronting the indignities we&’ve been told to bear.
Not Hollywood: Independent Film at the Twilight of the American Dream
by Ortner Sherry B.The pioneering anthropologist Sherry B. Ortner combines her trademark ethnographic expertise with critical film interpretation to explore the independent film scene in New York and Los Angeles since the late 1980s. Not Hollywood is both a study of the lived experience of that scene and a critical examination of America as seen through the lenses of independent filmmakers. Based on interviews with scores of directors and producers, Ortner reveals the culture and practices of indie filmmaking, including the conviction of those involved that their films, unlike Hollywood movies, are "telling the truth" about American life. These films often illuminate the dark side of American society through narratives about the family, the economy, and politics in today's neoliberal era. Offering insightful interpretations of many of these films, Ortner argues that during the past three decades independent American cinema has functioned as a vital form of cultural critique.
Not My Father's Son: A Memoir
by Alan CummingDark, painful memories can be like a cage. Or, in the case of Alan Cumming, they can be packed away in a box, stuck in the attic to be forgotten. Until one day the box explodes and all the memories flood back in horrible detail. Alan Cumming grew up in the grip of a man who held his family hostage, someone who meted out violence with a frightening ease, who waged a silent war with himself that sometimes spilled over onto everyone around him. That man was Alex Cumming, Alan's father.When television producers approached Alan to appear on a popular celebrity genealogy show in 2010, he enthusiastically agreed. He hoped to solve a mystery that had long cast a shadow over his family. His maternal grandfather, Tommy Darling, had disappeared into the Far East after WWII. Alan's mother knew very little about him--he had been a courier, carrying information between battalions on his motorbike. The last time she saw her father, Alan's mother was eight years old. When she was thirteen, the family was informed that he had died by his own hand, an accidental shooting.But this was not the only mystery laid before Alan's feet. His father, whom Alan had not seen or spoken to for more than a decade, reconnected just before filming for Who Do You Think You Are? began. He had a secret he had to share, one that would shock his son to his very core and set into motion a journey that would change Alan's life forever.With ribald humor, wit, and incredible insight, Alan seamlessly moves back and forth in time, integrating stories from his childhood in Scotland and his experiences today as the celebrated actor of film, television, and stage. At times suspenseful, at times deeply moving, but always incredibly brave and honest, Not My Father's Son is a powerful story of embracing the best aspects of the past and triumphantly pushing the darkness aside.
Not Quite Snow White
by Ashley FranklinA picture book for magical yet imperfect children everywhere, written by debut author Ashley Franklin and perfect for fans of such titles as Matthew A. Cherry's Hair Love, Grace Byers's I Am Enough, and Lupita Nyong'o's Sulwe.Tameika is a girl who belongs on the stage. She loves to act, sing, and dance—and she’s pretty good at it, too. So when her school announces their Snow White musical, Tameika auditions for the lead princess role.But the other kids think she’s “not quite” right to play the role. They whisper, they snicker, and they glare.Will Tameika let their harsh words be her final curtain call?Not Quite Snow White is a delightful and inspiring picture book that highlights the importance of self-confidence while taking an earnest look at what happens when that confidence is shaken or lost. Tameika encourages us all to let our magic shine.
Not Since Carrie: Forty Years of Broadway Musical Flops
by Ken MandelbaumIf you love Broadway musicals, this book is for you. While Broadway has had its share of musical triumphs, it has also seen hundreds of musicals that had brief runs, lost millions of dollars, and broke the hearts of their creators and performers. For every hit musical, there are roughly five others that are quick flops, and even the most celebrated names in show business are not immune to them. Ken Mandelbaum offers the behind-the-scenes story of the development of almost two hundred musical flops that played Broadway between 1950 and 1990, along with a reevaluative and often revisionist study of their quality. Here they all are, from such legendary catastrophes as Carrie, Kelly, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and Legs Diamond, to flops that starred Lucille Ball and Bette Davis, to the failures of Rodgers and Hammerstein, Jule Styne, Jerry Herman, Alan Jay Lerner, Gower Champion, and many others. Not Since Carrie makes a case for the strengths of certain unsuccessful works, points out some that might be worthy of revival, and allows the reader to relive some of Broadway’s most infamous moments. A reexamination of neglected, forgotten, and often catastrophic musicals, Not Since Carrie will remain the definitive volume on a colorful and vital segment of "lost” theatre history. Ken Mandelbaum has written on musical theatre for The New York Times, Playbill, Stagebill, Billboard, Show Music, and Sony/Columbia Records. He is currently the musical theatre critic for Theater Week magazine. In 1989, he won acclaim for his first book, A Chorus Line and the Musicals of Michael Bennett (St. Martin’s Press). He lives in New York City, and his favorite song is "I Wish It So” from the flop Juno. If you subscribe to a music service like Amazon or Spotify, you can listen to many of the songs described. At the end of the book there is a Shows Index and a Names Index.
Not So Normal Norbert
by James Patterson Joey Green Hatem AlyJames Patterson's rollicking new middle grade novel is a hilarious adventure into a futuristic world, where different is dangerous, imagination is insanity, and creativity is crazy!Norbert Riddle lives in the United State of Earth, where normal means following the rules, never standing out, and being exactly the same as everyone else, down to the plain gray jumpsuits he wears everyday. He's been normal his whole life--until a moment of temporary hilarity when he does a funny impression of their dictator, Loving Leader...and gets caught!Now, Norbert's been arrested and banished to planet Zorquat 3 in the Orion Nebula, where kids who defy the rules roam free in the Astronuts camp. Norbert has been taught his whole life that different is wrong, but everyone at Astronuts is crazy, creative, and insane! Norbert wants nothing more than to go back to earth where things are awful but at least they're familiar. But he soon realizes that being different could be better--and maybe the crazy farm is exactly where he belongs after all.
Not Starring Zadie Louise
by Joy McCulloughIn this &“entertaining and moving&” (Kirkus Reviews) middle grade novel that&’s perfect for fans of Tim Federle and Gordon Korman, Zadie is determined to spend the summer helping at the community theater—but things go hilariously awry!Zadie loves Tae Kwon Do, comic books, and outer space. She also loves visiting the community theater that her mom runs, especially the lighting grid over the stage and the stage manager&’s booth, which is filled with levers and buttons like a spaceship control panel. So when the family&’s finances suffer a blow and Zadie has to give up her usual activities to spend the summer at the theater, she doesn&’t mind too much. After all, she&’s always wanted to tech a show. She knows she&’d be great at it, but her mom and the new stage manager are totally opposed to the idea of having a kid do tech. Instead, Zadie&’s stuck handing out snacks and folding flyers. But the future of the theater rides on this show, and Zadie is determined to help. She&’s going to make Spinderella the hit of the season—unless she accidentally turns it into a disaster.
Not Taco Bell Material
by Adam CarollaIn his second book, Adam Carolla--author of New York Times bestseller In Fifty Years We'll All Be Chicks and chart-topping podcaster--reveals all the stories behind how he came to be the angry middle-aged man he is today. Funnyman Adam Carolla is known for two things: hilarious rants about things that drive him crazy and personal stories about everything from his hardscrabble childhood to his slacker friends to the hypocrisy of Hollywood. He tackled rants in his first book, and now he tells his best stories and debuts some never-before-heard tales as well. Organized by the myriad "dumps" Carolla called home--through the flophouse apartments he rented in his twenties, up to the homes he personally renovated after achieving success in Hollywood--the anecdotes here follow Adam's journey and the hilarious pitfalls along the way. Adam Carolla started broke and blue collar and has now been on the Hollywood scene for over fifteen years, yet he never lost his underdog demeanor. He's still connected to the working class guy he once was, and delivers a raw and edgy, fish-out-of-water take on the world he lives in (but mostly disagrees with), telling all the stories, no matter who he offends--family, friends or the famous.
Not That Kind of Girl
by Lena DunhamFor readers of Nora Ephron, Tina Fey, and David Sedaris, this hilarious, wise, and fiercely candid collection of personal essays establishes Lena Dunham--the acclaimed creator, producer, and star of HBO's Girls--as one of the most original young talents writing today. In Not That Kind of Girl, Dunham illuminates the experiences that are part of making one's way in the world: falling in love, feeling alone, being ten pounds overweight despite eating only health food, having to prove yourself in a room full of men twice your age, finding true love, and most of all, having the guts to believe that your story is one that deserves to be told. "Take My Virginity (No Really, Take It)" is the account of Dunham's first time, and how her expectations of sex didn't quite live up to the actual event ("No floodgate had been opened, no vault of true womanhood unlocked"); "Girls & Jerks" explores her former attraction to less-than-nice guys--guys who had perfected the "dynamic of disrespect" she found so intriguing; "Is This Even Real?" is a meditation on her lifelong obsession with death and dying--what she calls her "genetically predestined morbidity." And in "I Didn't F*** Them, but They Yelled at Me," she imagines the tell-all she will write when she is eighty and past caring, able to reflect honestly on the sexism and condescension she has encountered in Hollywood, where women are "treated like the paper thingies that protect glasses in hotel bathrooms--necessary but infinitely disposable." Exuberant, moving, and keenly observed, Not That Kind of Girl is a series of dispatches from the frontlines of the struggle that is growing up. "I'm already predicting my future shame at thinking I had anything to offer you," Dunham writes. "But if I can take what I've learned and make one menial job easier for you, or prevent you from having the kind of sex where you feel you must keep your sneakers on in case you want to run away during the act, then every misstep of mine will have been worthwhile."Praise for Not That Kind of Girl "It's not Lena Dunham's candor that makes me gasp. Rather, it's her writing--which is full of surprises where you least expect them. A fine, subversive book."--David Sedaris "Always funny, sometimes wrenching, these essays are a testament to the creative wonder that is Lena Dunham."--Judy Blume "Dunham's writing is just as smart, honest, sophisticated, dangerous, and charming as her work on Girls. Its essential quality is a kind of joyful super-awareness: of herself, the world, the human. Reading her makes you glad to be in the world, and glad that she's in it with you."--George Saunders "Very few women have become famous for being who they actually are, nuanced and imperfect. When honesty happens, it's usually couched in self-ridicule or self-help. Dunham doesn't apologize like that--she simply tells her story as if it might be interesting. Not That Kind of Girl is hilarious, artful, and staggeringly intimate; I read it shivering with recognition."--Miranda July "This book should be required reading for anyone who thinks they understand the experience of being a young woman in our culture. I thought I knew the author rather well, and I found many (not altogether welcome) surprises."--Carroll DunhamFrom the Hardcover edition.
Not Young, Still Restless: A Memoir
by Lindsay Harrison Jeanne CooperThe New York Times–bestselling memoir from one of daytime television’s most beloved actresses.Jeanne Cooper, the Emmy Award–winning American actress best known for her portrayal of Katherine Chancellor on the daytime soap opera The Young and the Restless, recounts the steps and missteps of her six-decade career in Not Young, Still Restless. Exploring a career that began with the birth of a phenomenon called television, Cooper’s life story co-stars a cast of characters that reads like a who’s-who of Hollywood’s Golden Age: Frank Sinatra, Tony Curtis, Henry Fonda, and Shelley Winters, to name just a few. Intimate, honest, and inspiring, Not Young, Still Restless is a fascinating memoir of a life in daytime drama—and proof positive that that growing older doesn’t have to mean giving up.
Not Your Average Jo
by Grace K. ShimFrom the author of THE NOH FAMILY, a second standalone YA novel that follows a Korean American teen as she navigates the treacherous world of nepo babies and cultural appropriation that is the Los Angeles music scene. Perfect for fans of Mary H. K. Choi, Maurene Goo, and Emiko Jean.Riley Jo is a teenager who knows what she wants. Born and raised in Bentonville, Arkansas, this Korean American girl has her sights set on being a musician. So when her parents are surprisingly cool about her attending the prestigious Los Angeles–based arts-focused boarding school her senior year of high school, she jumps at the chance. This is her moment to make her indie rock dreams a reality! Things at Carlmont Academy start out strong: She joins a band, and they set out to make plans to perform at the annual spring concert—with a chance to land a record contract. Another student, Xander, decides his school project will be a documentary about the band leading up to their first show. But not everything goes how Riley Jo imagined. She is soon sidelined when her other bandmates feel she is "too Asian" to be their lead singer, and they choose her classmate Bodhi Collins for the role instead.Bodhi is rock music royalty, with a dad who is a famous music exec. And he's got the "all-American rock star look." Her classmates suggest she try making K-pop, but her heart is in indie rock. Riley Jo decides to take matters into her own hands and writes an original song to showcase her talent. But Bodhi takes the credit . . . and given his connections, the band lets him.Xander captures all of this in his film, which he leaks in order to show the truth behind the band. Riley Jo decides to sign up for the spring concert and perform on her own . . . but will she finally be able to take center stage?