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A Fashionable Fatality (A Lady and Lady's Maid Mystery #8)
by Alyssa MaxwellSet in the Downton Abbey era of post-WW1 England, this evocative historical series features Lady Phoebe Renshaw and her lady&’s maid, Eva Huntford, solving crimes among the gentry, in a well-crafted mystery that will appeal to fans of Deanna Raybourn and Victoria Thompson. A house party attended by fashion royalty becomes the backdrop for a murder that only Lady Phoebe Renshaw and her lady&’s maid, Eva Huntford, can untangle ... Amid the aftermath of the Great War and its hardships, it&’s no wonder that many wish to rediscover life&’s pleasures—parties, fashion, dancing. Still, Lady Phoebe and Eva are disconcerted when a small gathering at the home of Phoebe&’s sister, Julia, becomes a far larger and more glamorous affair . . . Julia has invited her favorite French fashion designer, Gabrielle &“Coco&” Chanel, and Coco&’s current beau, the Earl of Chesterhaven. Coco has brought an entourage of her own, including two models, and intends to use the gardens as a photographic setting for her latest creations. Madame Chanel is as outspoken as she is talented, offering a scathing critique of Phoebe&’s fashion sense. There is tense competition between the models as well. When one of the guests is found dead of smoke inhalation, it appears to be a tragic accident. But was a footman really to blame for mistakenly closing the fireplace flue, or is there a more sinister explanation? Phoebe is determined to find out, despite the protestations of her sweetheart, Owen Seabright. Both above and below stairs, Phoebe and Eva uncover myriad motives—career ambition, romantic rivalries, and even deeper betrayals. For despite the surface beauty, there are ugly secrets in the world of Maison Chanel, ones that a killer will risk anything to protect.
A Fashionable Indulgence
by K. J. CharlesIn the first novel of an explosive new series from K. J. Charles, a young gentleman and his elegant mentor fight for love in a world of wealth, power, and manipulation. When he learns that he could be the heir to an unexpected fortune, Harry Vane rejects his past as a Radical fighting for government reform and sets about wooing his lovely cousin. But his heart is captured instead by the most beautiful, chic man he's ever met: the dandy tasked with instructing him in the manners and style of the ton. Harry's new station demands conformity--and yet the one thing he desires is a taste of the wrong pair of lips. After witnessing firsthand the horrors of Waterloo, Julius Norreys sought refuge behind the luxurious facade of the upper crust. Now he concerns himself exclusively with the cut of his coat and the quality of his boots. And yet his protégé is so unblemished by cynicism that he inspires the first flare of genuine desire Julius has felt in years. He cannot protect Harry from the worst excesses of society. But together they can withstand the high price of passion.Advance praise for A Fashionable Indulgence "If one Regency rake isn't enough for you, check out A Fashionable Indulgence, a rollicking tale from the deft pen of K. J. Charles. I'll read anything she writes!"--New York Times bestselling author Kate Pearce Includes a special message from the editor, as well as an excerpt from another Loveswept title.
Fashionable Masculinities: Queers, Pimp Daddies, and Lumbersexuals
by Vicki Karaminas Justine Taylor Nigel Lezama Michael McMillan Vlad Strukov Jay McCauley Bowstead Jonathan Allan Adam Geczy Andrew Reilly Barry Judd Nikita Vanderbyl Pamela Church Gibson Shaun Cole Ben Barry Olga Vainshtein Victor Vey Anne Peirson-Smith Jennifer CraikFashionable Masculinities explores the expression of masculinities through constructions of fashion, identity, style and appearance as the third decade of the new millennium begins: a contradictory and precarious moment when masculinities are defined by protests and pandemics whilst being problematized across class, ethnicity, race, gender and sexuality. Whilst a majority of men might still define themselves as ‘traditional,’ post-millennials are now talking about how they envision a future without gender boundaries and borders. Rather than being defined as a gender, masculinity has now become a style that can be worn and performed as traditional and normative codes of masculinity are modulated and manipulated. This volume includes original essays on musical pop sensation Harry Styles, rapper and producer “Puff Daddy” Sean Combs, lumbersexuals, spornosexuals, sexy daddies, and aging cool black daddies. Bringing together contributions from leading scholars, this book interrogates and challenges the meaning of masculinities and the ways that they are experienced and lived.
Fashioning Authorship in the Long Eighteenth Century
by Gerald EganThis book examines a singular cultural formation of the long eighteenth century, the poetic genius who was also a lady or gentleman of fashion. It applies an innovative mix of approaches -- book history, Enlightenment and twentieth-century philosophy, visual studies, and material analyses of fashions in books and in dress -- to specific editions of Alexander Pope, Mary Robinson and Lord Byron. In its material analyses of these books, this study looks closely at bindings, letterforms, engravings, newspaper advertisements, correspondence, and other ephemera. In its theoretical approaches, it takes up the interventions of Locke and Kant in connection with the visual theories of Richardson, Hogarth, and Reynolds. These investigations point ultimately to a profound connection between Enlightenment formulations of subjectivity, genius, and fashion, a link that is relevant to the construction of celebrity in our own cultural moment.
Fashioning Masculinity: National Identity and Language in the Eighteenth Century
by Dr Michele Cohen Michele CohenThe fashioning of English gentlemen in the eighteenth century was modelled on French practices of sociability and conversation. Michele Cohen shows how at the same time, the English constructed their cultural relations with the French as relations of seduction and desire. She argues that this produced anxiety on the part of the English over the effect of French practices on English masculinity and the virtue of English women. By the end of the century, representing the French as an effeminate other was integral to the forging of English, masculine national identity. Michele Cohen examines the derogation of women and the French which accompanied the emergent 'masculine' English identity. While taciturnity became emblematic of the English gentleman's depth of mind and masculinity, sprightly conversation was seen as representing the shallow and inferior intellect of English women and the French of both sexes. Michele Cohen also demonstrates how visible evidence of girls' verbal and language learning skills served only to construe the female mind as inferior. She argues that this perception still has currency today.
Fashioning Society in Eighteenth-Century British Jamaica (Routledge Studies in the History of the Americas)
by Chloe NorthropWhite women who inhabited the West Indies in the eighteenth century fascinated metropolitan observers. In popular prints, novels, and serial publications, these women appeared to stray from "proper" British societal norms. Although many women who lived in the Caribbean island of Jamaica might have fit the model, extant writings from Ann Brodbelt, Sarah Dwarris, Margaret and Mary Cowper, Lady Maria Nugent, and Ann Appleton Storrow show a longing to remain connected with metropolitan society and their loved ones separated by the Atlantic. Sensibility and awareness of metropolitan material culture masked a lack of empathy towards subordinates and opened the white women in these islands to censure. Novels and popular publications portrayed white women in the Caribbean as prone to overconsumption, but these women seem to prize items not for their inherent value. They treasured items most when they came from beloved connections. This colonial interchange forged and preserved bonds with loved ones and comforted the women in the West Indies during their residence in these sugar plantation islands. This book seeks to complicate the stereotype of insensibility and overconsumption that characterized the perception of white women who inhabited the British West Indies in the long eighteenth century. This book will appeal to students and researchers alike who are interested in the social and cultural history of British Jamacia and the British West Indies more generally.
Fashioning Spaces
by Heidi Brevik-ZenderIn Fashioning Spaces, Heidi Brevik-Zender argues that in the years between 1870 and 1900 the chroniclers of Parisian modernity depicted the urban landscape not just in public settings such as boulevards and parks but also in "dislocations," spaces where the public and the intimate overlapped in provocative and subversive ways. Stairwells, theatre foyers, dressmakers' studios, and dressing rooms were in-between places that have long been overlooked but were actually marked as indisputably modern through their connections with high fashion. Fashioning Spaces engages with and thinks beyond the work of critics Charles Baudelaire and Walter Benjamin to arrive at new readings of the French capital.Examining literature by Zola, Maupassant, Rachilde, and others, as well as paintings, architecture, and the fashionable garments worn by both men and women, Brevik-Zender crafts a compelling and innovative account of how fashion was appropriated as a way of writing about the complexities of modernity in fin-de-siècle Paris.
Fashioning Spanish Cinema: Costume, Identity, and Stardom (Toronto Iberic)
by Jorge PérezCostume design is a crucial, but frequently overlooked, aspect of film that fosters an appreciation of the diverse ways in which film and fashion enrich each other. These influential industries offer representations of ideas, values, and beliefs that shape and construct cultural identities. In Fashioning Spanish Cinema, Jorge Pérez analyses the use of clothing and fashion as costumes within Spanish cinema, paying particular attention to the significance of those costumes in relation to the visual styles and the narratives of the films. The author examines the links between costume analysis and other fields and theoretical frameworks such as fashion studies, the history of dress, celebrity studies, and gender and feminist studies. Fashioning Spanish Cinema looks at instances in which costumes are essential to shaping the public image of stars, such as Conchita Montenegro, Sara Montiel, Victoria Abril, and Penélope Cruz. Focusing on examples in which costumes have discursive autonomy, it explores how costumes engage with broader issues of identity and, relatedly, how costumes impact everyday practices and fashion trends beyond cinema. Drawing on case studies from multiple periods, films by contemporary directors and genres, and red-carpet events such as the Oscars and Goya Awards, Fashioning Spanish Cinema contributes a pivotal Spanish perspective to expanding interdisciplinary work on the intersections between film and fashion.
Fashioning the Canadian Landscape: Essays on Travel Writing, Tourism, and National Identity in the Pre-Automobile Era
by John Irvine LittleInterpretations of Canada's emerging identity have been largely based on a relatively small corpus of literary writing and landscape paintings, overlooking the influence of the British and American travel writers who published hundreds of books and articles that did much to fix the image of Canada in the popular imagination. In his Fashioning the Canadian Landscape, J.I. Little examines how Canada, much like the United States, came to be identified with its natural landscape. Little argues that in contrast to the American identification with the wilderness sublime, however, Canada’s image was strongly influenced by the picturesque convention favoured by British travel writers. This amply illustrated volume includes chapters ranging from Labrador to British Columbia, some of which focus on such notable British authors as Rupert Brooke and Rudyard Kipling, and others on talented American writers such as Charles Dudley Warner. Based not only on the views of the landscape but on the racist descriptions of the Indigenous peoples and the romanticization of the Canadian ‘folk’, Little argues that the national image that emerged was colonialist as well as colonial in nature.
Fashioning the Feminine in the Greek Novel
by Katharine HaynesThe Greek novel occupies a special place in the debate on gender in antiquity, forcing us to ask why the female protagonists are such strong and positive characters. This book rejects the hypothesis of a largely female readership, and also sees a problem in ascribing this pattern to the reflection of a blanket improvement in the status of women. Katharine Haynes shows that the strong heroines are best understood not as an undistorted mirror on an improved social reality, but as a type of 'constructed feminine'.The book offers a wealth of fascinating insights into the kaleidoscopic world of male and female in the Greek novel, which will inform and illuminate the reader whatever the text being studied. The related issues of ethnicity and self-definition also explored will be of interest for all those working on ancient fiction or the culture of the Second Sophistic
Fashion's Big Night Out: A Met Gala Lookbook
by Kristen BatemanThe Met Gala or Met Ball is one of the world's biggest events for celebrity, fashion and pop culture. Founded by Eleanor Lambert, and organised by Vogue, it began in 1948 as an annual fundraising gala held for the benefit of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute in New York, raising more than $200 million to date. And Anna Wintour is in charge.An irresistible invitation to this annual stunning spectacle, Fashion's Big Night Out is the perfect gift for celebrity and fashion fans alike. Just as important as the costume exhibition is the star-studded red-carpet and the depth of global interest this generates. Alongside the costumes, couture story, and social/celebrity context, the book showcases all the extravagant and risk-taking fashion and celebrity moments that have graced this fabulous red carpet in the 21st century.
Fashion's Big Night Out: A Met Gala Lookbook
by Kristen BatemanThe Met Gala or Met Ball is one of the world's biggest events for celebrity, fashion and pop culture. Founded by Eleanor Lambert, and organised by Vogue, it began in 1948 as an annual fundraising gala held for the benefit of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute in New York, raising more than $200 million to date. And Anna Wintour is in charge.An irresistible invitation to this annual stunning spectacle, Fashion's Big Night Out is the perfect gift for celebrity and fashion fans alike. Just as important as the costume exhibition is the star-studded red-carpet and the depth of global interest this generates. Alongside the costumes, couture story, and social/celebrity context, the book showcases all the extravagant and risk-taking fashion and celebrity moments that have graced this fabulous red carpet in the 21st century.
Fassbinder Thousands of Mirrors (Semiotext(e) / Native Agents)
by Ian PenmanA kaleidoscopic study of Rainer Werner Fassbinder.Melodrama, biography, cold war thriller, drug memoir, essay in fragments, and mystery, Thousands of Mirrors is cult critic Ian Penman&’s long-awaited first full-length book: a kaleidoscopic study of Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Written over a short period "in the spirit" of RWF, who would often get films made in a matter of weeks or months, Thousands of Mirrors presents the filmmaker as Penman&’s equivalent of what Baudelaire was to Benjamin: an urban poet in the turbulent, seeds-sown, messy era just before everything changed. Beautifully written and extraordinarily compelling, echoing the fragmentary works of Roland Barthes and Emil Cioran, Eduardo Galeano and Alexander Kluge, this story has everything: sex, drugs, art, the city, cinema, and revolution.
Fast and Furious: Barack Obama's Bloodiest Scandal and Its Shameless Cover-up
by Katie PavlichA BLOODY SCANDAL AND ITS SHAMELESS COVER-UP. No scandal is more threatening to the Obama administration than Operation Fast and Furious. While other scandals involve money, Fast and Furious involves lives, including that of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, gunned down with a weapon that the federal government put in the hands of Mexico's narco-terrorists. As shocking as Operation Fast and Furious was--and this book explains, in chilling detail, just what this operation conducted by the ATF, under the supervision of the Justice Department, entailed--equally appalling is the blatant cover-up of wrongdoing by the Obama administration. No reporter has been more dogged in tracking down the facts about Fast and Furious than Katie Pavlich. In her stunning new book she reveals: » The documents that undermine the White House's claims of ignorance about Fast and Furious "How Eric Holder, President Obama's attorney general, has, under oath, repeatedly changed his testimony » The still mounting death toll from Fast and Furious "The retaliation against Fast and Furious whistleblowers "Why Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano might be charged with perjury » The Obama administration's continuing assault on Second Amendment rights » Why Fast and Furious could be a bigger scandal than Watergate Unraveling the mystery of what Fast and Furious was all about, Katie Pavlich delivers a stunning indictment of a radical administration willing to trample the Constitution and risk lives to achieve its ideological goals.
The Fast and the Frozen (Geronimo Stilton Cavemice #4)
by Geronimo StiltonIn this fun spin-off to the bestselling middle grade adventure series, the prehistoric ancestor to Geronimo Stilton investigates a Stone Age mystery.Geronimo Stilton’s ancient ancestor Geronimo Stiltonoot is back in another prehistoric adventure!A visiting rodent has arrived in Old Mouse City with astounding news. On his recent journey to a cold, distant land, he spotted a mountain . . . moving! Holey cheese! Geronimo Stiltonoot sets off on a trip to the ice and snow to find out what lies behind this mystery. It’s a fur-raising expedition!Praise for the Geronimo Stilton’s Cavemice series:“Fans of the other Geronimo Stilton books will definitely embrace the over-the-top silliness in this new spin-off.” —BooklistPraise for Geronimo Stilton’s books:“Lightning pace and full-color design will hook kids in a flash.” —Publishers Weekly
The Fast Carriers
by Clark ReynoldsThis classic study is considered essential reading for its analysis of fast aircraft carrier development in WWII. It provides a fascinating record not only of the U.S. Navy's metamorphosis from a battleship-oriented to a carrier-centered fleet, but also of the heated debates that took place over the changing naval strategy. With an insider's grasp of the famous individuals involved, award-winning naval historian Clark G. Reynolds takes readers from the war rooms of Washington to the flight decks of the Pacific. He vividly describes the battles over the concept of fast carriers between the air admirals and battleship admirals and offers little-known details gleaned from personal interviews and private diaries.
Fast Eddie, King of the Bees
by Robert ArellanoAn abandoned child hustles on the streets of a dystopic, near-future Boston in the aftermath of the Great Devaluation--squatters have turned the tunnel system into an underground hive known as Dig City. In an elaborate search for his unknown parents, Eddie narrates through several levels of deception: street performer, pickpocket, adoptee, casino employee, and finally commander of the subterranean revolution. Fast Eddie is a convoluted Oedipal adventure blending low-brow scenarios with high-art diction, reminiscent of Robert Coover, John Hawkes, and Edmund White.Cuban-American author Robert Arellano instructs fiction workshops at Brown University. He spends his breaks playing guitar for indie rock outfit Palace Brothers. Arellano's interactive novel, Sunshine '69, was published by SonicNet in 1996. He lives in Providence, Rhode Island.
Fast Facts: Explorers, Presidents, and Toilets (My Weird School )
by Dan Gutman Jim PaillotThink fast with A.J. and Andrea from My Weird School!Did you know that the word “independence” never appears in the Declaration of Independence? Did you know that soldiers in World War I collected thousands of glowworms in jars to help them see at night?!<P><P>Learn more weird-but-true U.S. history facts with A.J. and Andrea from Dan Gutman’s bestselling My Weird School series. This all-new series of nonfiction books features hundreds of hysterical facts, plus lots of photos and illustrations. <P>Whether you're a kid who wants to learn more about our country's history or simply someone who wants to know how many Americans are involved in toilet-related injuries each year, this is the book for you! <P>With more than 11 million books sold, the My Weird School series really gets kids reading!
Fast Forward: The Future(s) of the Cinematic Arts
by Holly WillisCinema, the primary vehicle for storytelling in the twentieth century, is being reconfigured y new media in the twenty-first. Terms such as "worldbuilding," "virtual reality," and "transmedia" introduce new methods for constructing a screenplay and experiencing and sharing a story. Similarly, 3D cinematography, hypercinema, and visual effects require different modes for composing an image, and virtual technology, motion capture, and previsualization completely rearrange the traditional flow of cinematic production. What does this mean for telling stories? Fast Forward answers this question by investigating a full range of contemporary creative practices dedicated to the future of mediated storytelling and by connecting with a new generation of filmmakers, screenwriters, technologists, media artists, and designers to discover how they work now, and toward what end. From Chris Milk and Aaron Koblin's exploration of VR spherical filmmaking to Rebeca Méndez's projection and installation work exploring climate change to the richly mediated interactive live performances of the collective Cloud Eye Control, this volume captures a moment of creative evolution and sets the stage for imagining the future of the cinematic arts.
Fast Forward: The Future(s) of the Cinematic Arts
by Holly WillisCinema, the primary vehicle for storytelling in the twentieth century, is being reconfigured by new media in the twenty-first. Terms such as "worldbuilding," "virtual reality," and "transmedia" introduce new methods for constructing a screenplay and experiencing and sharing a story. Similarly, 3D cinematography, hypercinema, and visual effects require different modes for composing an image, and virtual technology, motion capture, and previsualization completely rearrange the traditional flow of cinematic production. What does this mean for telling stories? Fast Forward answers this question by investigating a full range of contemporary creative practices dedicated to the future of mediated storytelling and by connecting with a new generation of filmmakers, screenwriters, technologists, media artists, and designers to discover how they work now, and toward what end. From Chris Milk and Aaron Koblin's exploration of VR spherical filmmaking to Rebeca Méndez's projection and installation work exploring climate change to the richly mediated interactive live performances of the collective Cloud Eye Control, this volume captures a moment of creative evolution and sets the stage for imagining the future of the cinematic arts.
Fast Girls: A Novel of the 1936 Women's Olympic Team
by Elise Hooper“Fast Girls is a compelling, thrilling look at what it takes to be a female Olympian in pre-war America...Brava to Elise Hooper for bringing these inspiring heroines to the wide audience they so richly deserve.”—Tara Conklin, New York Times bestselling author of The Last Romantics and The House Girl Acclaimed author Elise Hooper explores the gripping, real life history of female athletes, members of the first integrated women’s Olympic team, and their journeys to the 1936 summer games in Berlin, Nazi Germany. Perfect for readers who love untold stories of amazing women, such as The Only Woman in the Room, Hidden Figures, and The Lost Girls of Paris. In the 1928 Olympics, Chicago’s Betty Robinson competes as a member of the first-ever women’s delegation in track and field. Destined for further glory, she returns home feted as America’s Golden Girl until a nearly-fatal airplane crash threatens to end everything. Outside of Boston, Louise Stokes, one of the few black girls in her town, sees competing as an opportunity to overcome the limitations placed on her. Eager to prove that she has what it takes to be a champion, she risks everything to join the Olympic team. From Missouri, Helen Stephens, awkward, tomboyish, and poor, is considered an outcast by her schoolmates, but she dreams of escaping the hardships of her farm life through athletic success. Her aspirations appear impossible until a chance encounter changes her life. These three athletes will join with others to defy society’s expectations of what women can achieve. As tensions bring the United States and Europe closer and closer to the brink of war, Betty, Louise, and Helen must fight for the chance to compete as the fastest women in the world amidst the pomp and pageantry of the Nazi-sponsored 1936 Olympics in Berlin.
Fast Guns Out Of Texas
by Ralph CottonCray Dawson is en route to Black's Cut in Montana to stake his claim when he learns his old friend Fast Larry Shaw faked his death to escape his notoriety as a gunfighter. But Dawson discovers that his own prowess with firearms haunts him too.
Fast Jets to Spitfires: A Cold War Fighter Pilot's Story
by Ron LloydA memoir of RAF service in the postwar era and the golden age of British military aviation, including photos.How often have you glanced skyward at the sound of a passing aircraft and wondered what it would be like to fly one of those gleaming metal machines? Or admired the skill and daring of the fighter pilot swooping down upon his enemy in the awe-inspiring, unrivaled elegance of a Spitfire? Ron Lloyd has had the experience of flying the majestic propeller-driven aircraft of the Second World War as well as the roaring, sound-barrier-breaking jets of the Cold War—and in this exciting book, he places the reader in the cockpit, describing what it really feels like to be sitting at the controls of a fighter aircraft.Lloyd joined the RAF after World War II, and during his early service he was selected as one of the pilots to fly the wartime aircraft in the feature film The Battle of Britain, giving him the opportunity to fly a Spitfire and even a Messerschmitt Bf 109 during the six weeks of filming. His role with the RAF, on the other hand, saw him on the front line in the Cold War, piloting de Havilland Vampires, Hawker Hunters, Gloster Javelins, Lightnings, and Phantoms. He also served on exchange in the USA where he flew Convair F-102s, Convair F-106s, and Lockheed T-33s.Packed with unique photographs of the golden age of British military aviation, Fast Jets to Spitfires allows readers to experience, through Ron Lloyd’s graphic accounts, the pure joy of being airborne.
Fast Money Schemes: Hope and Deception in Papua New Guinea (Framing the Global)
by John CoxA history and anthropological analysis of one of Papua New Guinea’s worst Ponzi schemes in the late 1990s.In the late 1990s and early 2000s a wave of Ponzi schemes swept through Papua New Guinea, Australia, and the Solomon Islands. The most notorious scheme, U-Vistract, attracted many thousands of investors, enticing them with promises of one percent interest to be paid monthly. Its founder, Noah Musingku, was a charismatic leader who promoted the scheme as a form of Christian mission and as the basis for establishing an independent kingdom.Fast Money Schemes uses in-depth interviews with investors, newspaper accounts, and participant observation to understand the scheme’s appeal from the point of view of those who invested and lost, showing that organizers and investors alike understood the scheme as a way of accessing and participating in a global economy. John Cox delivers a “post-village” ethnography that gives insight into the lives of urban, middle-class Papua New Guineans, a group that is not familiar to US readers and that has seldom been a focus of anthropological interest. The book’s concern with understanding the interweaving of morality, finance, and aspirations shared by a global cosmopolitan middle class has wide resonance beyond studies of Papua New Guinea and anthropology.
The Fast Ride: Spectacular Bid and the Undoing of a Sure Thing
by Jack GildenIn an era of spectacular thoroughbreds, Spectacular Bid was perhaps the most exalted racehorse of them all. In 1979 he won the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness Stakes—and transcended his sport on a run of twelve consecutive stakes victories—but his quest for the Triple Crown was lost with a third-place finish in the Belmont Stakes due to a series of bizarre events that have never been accurately reported. In The Fast Ride, Jack Gilden tells the story of what really happened that day the Bid lost the biggest race of his life. Along the way, he introduces the reader to a cast of characters from the gilded age of late twentieth-century horse racing, from Bid&’s owners, the renowned Meyerhoff family, to Grover &“Buddy&” Delp, the fast-talking trainer, to teenage jockey Ronnie Franklin, whose meteoric rise to fame aboard Spectacular Bid came at the cost of his innocence and well-being. Also present are four of the era&’s magnificent Latino riders, Ángel Cordero Jr., Jacinto Vasquez, Georgie Velasquez, and Ruben Hernandez, who all felt the sting of rejection and bigotry during their long careers even as they found their way and raised the level of competition to a feverish pitch. Underlying Spectacular Bid&’s saga was a thin line between hard work and excess, including substance abuse, animal manipulation and doping, and race fixing. Hardly anyone in the horse&’s circle made it out unscathed or undamaged.The Fast Ride is the story of a great racehorse, unfulfilled dreams, the exhilaration and steep price of striving at all costs, and an American era in which getting everything you ever wanted could be the most empty and unfulfilling sensation of all.