Book Description

Book Description

Fifty years after inventing the Good Life as no one else had dared, the Master Playboy of the Western World at last shares the secrets that have for generations made him the envy of all free-thinking men and women. Hef's Little Black Book conjures the legendary lifestyle of Hugh M. Hefner as never before, a treasure trove of urbane lore, wry advice, and time-honored wisdom spanning the realms of romance, hedonism, ambition, business, dreams, and, of course, sex. From the pursuit of Love to the politics of the Bedroom, from the inspiration of a single idea to the emergence of a sprawling international corporation built on self-belief, Hef provides an invaluable guide to anyone who has ever thought big.

Accompanied by tantalizing, never-before-seen photographs, the gateway to Hugh Hefner's Dream World of Cool awaits you. If you don't swing, don't ring.

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You'd think there wouldn't be much left to say about a living icon like Muhammad Ali, yet David Remnick imbues King of the World with all the freshness and vitality this legendary fighter displayed in his prime. Beginning with the pre-Ali days of boxing and its two archetypes, Floyd Patterson (the good black heavyweight) and Sonny Liston (the bad black heavyweight), Remnick deftly sets the stage for the emergence of a heavyweight champion the likes of which the world had never seen: a three-dimensional, Technicolor showman, fighter and minister of Islam, a man who talked almost as well as he fought. But mostly Remnick's portrait is of a man who could not be confined to any existing stereotypes, inside the ring or out.

In extraordinary detail, Remnick depicts Ali as a creation of his own imagination as we follow the willful and mercurial young Cassius Clay from his boyhood and watch him hone and shape himself to a figure who would eventually command center stage in one of the most volatile decades in our history. To Remnick it seems clear that Ali's greatest accomplishment is to prove beyond a doubt that not only is it possible to challenge the implacable forces of the establishment (the noir-ish, gangster-ridden fight game and the ethos of a whole country) but, with the right combination of conviction and talent, to triumph over these forces. --Fred Haefele

Book Description
Nancy Cartwright is the ultimate Simpsons insider. Her raspy, childlike voice is immediately recognizable as none other than Bart Simpsonthe most precocious, irreverent, and intriguing ten-year-old ever to enter the North American consciousness. In this behind-the-scenes story Nancy Cartwright tells of the Simpsons early days, when the cast was given a closet-sized space to record commercial bumpers for The Tracey Ullman Show. She traces the Simpsons rapid rise to wild popularity, offers hilarious anecdotes about cast members and guest starsincluding Ron Howard, Mel Gibson, Meryl Streep, and Elizabeth Taylorand explains what goes into making the half-hour animated series. And she reveals what its like to be at the center of an American institution, one that reinvented the sitcom, rocked the networks to the core, and changed forever the face of North American television. Packed with more information than has ever been revealed about the longest-running animated show, here is the perfect book for the millions of Simpsons fans who cant get enough of North Americas favourite dysfunctional family.

Book Description
In W&N's large illustrated format, this is a fully illustrated, affectionate celebration of Rowon Atkinson's career. He first came to prominence in the late 1970's in the classic comedy serires Not The Nine O'Clock News. His ability to strange mannerisms with a natural acting abiltiy set him up to achieve great success as the darstadly Blackadder. In the 1980's he created Mr Bean, now an international success; in August 1997, a major movie "Bean" will be released. This book trces his career and celebrates the talents and life of a true comic original.

Book Description
An intimate, eye-opening look inside the life of one of the most unique and adored performers of contemporary rock music

From her critically acclaimed 1992 debut, Little Earthquakes, to the recent hit, Scarlet’s Walk, Tori Amos has been a formidable force in contemporary music, with one of the most dedicated fan bases in the industry. In Tori Amos: Piece by Piece, the singer herself takes readers beyond the mere facts, explaining the specifics of her creative process—how her songs go from ideas and melodies to recordings and passionately performed concert pieces.

Written with acclaimed music journalist Ann Powers, Tori Amos: Piece by Piece is a firsthand account of the most intricate and intimate details of Amos’s life as both a private individual and a very public performing musician. In passionate and informative prose, Amos explains how her songs come to her and how she records and then performs them for audiences everywhere, all the while connecting with listeners across the world and maintaining her own family life (which includes raising a young daughter). But it is also much more, a verbal collage made by two strong female voices—and the voices of those closest to Amos—that calls upon genealogy, myth, and folklore to express Amos’s unique and fascinating personal history. In short, we see the pieces that make up—as Amos herself puts it—“the woman we call Tori.”

With photos taken especially for this book by the photographer Loren Haynes, Tori Amos: Piece by Piece is a rare treat for both Tori listeners and newcomers alike, a look into the heart and mind of an extraordinary musician.


I choose to fight my battles through my music . . . I was born a feminist. And then at age five, when my strict Christian grandmother punished me, I realized, I’m not penetrating here. I’m just pissing people off. So I had to find another way to penetrate. I had to redefine what that word means. That word now is really about an opening, an entering into a separate space. And after the first phase of my life, I realized that it was okay to enter that space without having to be invaded . . . I like the idea of just being able to be inside. Not using penetration as a violent word. The idea of being able to find keys . . . music, using keys to get into a space that we couldn’t before . . .

Now, backstage at an undisclosed arena where the sweat of athletes is still perfuming my makeshift dressing room, my many conversations with Ann Powers have begun . . .

“You come from the journalist side. I come from the artist side. It can become offensive. I’m sure from your side as well as from mine.”

“Well, it’s true everyone expects us to be enemies. And in some ways we are. My job is interpretation. Yours is art, which often benefits from mystery . . .”

Ann and I decided to strip our roles back to basics. We are both women born feminists in the 1960s. We are both married. We are both mothers. We are both in the music industry. Traditionally we are enemies. But for this project to be effective, I had to allow Ann to expose Tori Amos. And Tori Amos’s inner circle. And me.”

– from the Introduction

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