Download or read book Difficult Men written by Brett Martin and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2014-07-29 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 10th anniversary edition, now with a new preface by the author "A wonderfully smart, lively, and culturally astute survey." - The New York Times Book Review "Grand entertainment...fascinating for anyone curious about the perplexing miracles of how great television comes to be." - The Wall Street Journal "I love this book...It's the kind of thing I wish I'd been able to read in film school, back before such books existed." - Vince Gilligan, creator of Breaking Bad and co-creator of Better Call Saul In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the landscape of television began an unprecedented transformation. While the networks continued to chase the lowest common denominator, a wave of new shows on cable channels dramatically stretched television’s narrative inventiveness, emotional resonance, and creative ambition. Combining deep reportage with critical analysis and historical context, Brett Martin recounts the rise and inner workings of this artistic watershed - a golden age of TV that continues to transform America's cultural landscape. Difficult Men features extensive interviews with all the major players - including David Chase (The Sopranos), David Simon and Ed Burns (The Wire), David Milch (NYPD Blue, Deadwood), Alan Ball (Six Feet Under), and Vince Gilligan (Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul) - and reveals how television became a truly significant and influential part of our culture.

Download or read book Fierce with Age written by Carol Orsborn and published by Turner Publishing Company. This book was released on 2013-05-07 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In her breakthrough generational memoir, Boomer expert Carol Orsborn relates the ups and downs of a tumultuous year spent facing, busting, and ultimately triumphing over the stereotypes of growing old. Along the way, she nurtures a love-starved friend through a doomed affair with a younger man, wrestles with the meaning of an exploding fish, and regains her passion for life at the side of her squirrel-crazed dog, Lucky. The message is as deep as it is engaging. In Carol’s own words, “Plummet into aging, stare mortality in the eye, surrender everything and what else is there left to fear? The way is perilous, danger on all sides. But we can be part of a generation no longer afraid of age. We are becoming, instead, a generation fierce with age.”

Download or read book Magicians Impossible written by Brad Abraham and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2017-09-12 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Harry Potter meets James Bond in this story of a twenty-something slacker who discovers that he is descended from a line of magical spies and is thrust into the middle of a secret and epic battle. “Magicians Impossible is a mind-bending page-turner! A brilliant and unique mash-up of spells, myth and mayhem, once it got its claws in me I couldn't put it down. Like a veteran stage magician, Brad Abraham has created a hip thriller that turns convention on its ear with misdirection and mayhem. A must read for enthusiasts of edgy and extreme fiction.” —Don Coscarelli, director of John Dies At The End Twenty-something bartender Jason Bishop’s world is shattered when his estranged father commits suicide, but the greater shock comes when he learns his father was a secret agent in the employ of the Invisible Hand; an ancient society of spies wielding magic in a centuries-spanning war. Now the Golden Dawn—the shadowy cabal of witches and warlocks responsible for Daniel Bishop’s murder, and the death of Jason’s mother years before—have Jason in their sights. His survival will depend on mastering his own dormant magic abilities; provided he makes it through the training. From New York, to Paris, to worlds between worlds, Jason's journey through the realm of magic will be fraught with peril. But with enemies and allies on both sides of this war, whom can he trust? The Invisible Hand, who’ve been more of a family than his own family ever was? The Golden Dawn, who may know the secrets behind his mysterious lineage? For Jason Bishop, only one thing is for certain; the magic he has slowly been mastering is telling him not to trust anybody.

Download or read book Old Age written by Michael Kinsley and published by Crown. This book was released on 2016-04-26 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Vanity Fair columnist Michael Kinsley escorts his fellow Boomers through the door marked "Exit." The notorious baby boomers—the largest age cohort in history—are approaching the end and starting to plan their final moves in the game of life. Now they are asking: What was that all about? Was it about acquiring things or changing the world? Was it about keeping all your marbles? Or is the only thing that counts after you’re gone the reputation you leave behind? In this series of essays, Michael Kinsley uses his own battle with Parkinson’s disease to unearth answers to questions we are all at some time forced to confront. “Sometimes,” he writes, “I feel like a scout from my generation, sent out ahead to experience in my fifties what even the healthiest Boomers are going to experience in their sixties, seventies, or eighties.” This surprisingly cheerful book is at once a fresh assessment of a generation and a frequently funny account of one man’s journey toward the finish line. “The least misfortune can do to make up for itself is to be interesting,” he writes. “Parkinson’s disease has fulfilled that obligation.”

Download or read book This Is 18 written by Jessica Bennett and published by Abrams. This book was released on 2019-11-12 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A stunning celebration of girlhood around the world, from the New York Times Featuring and photographed by young women, This Is 18 is an immersive look at what it means to be on the cusp of adulthood around the world and across cultures. Twenty-two empowering and uniquely personal profiles, expanded from the New York Times interactive feature and curated by Gender Editor Jessica Bennett, with Sandra Stevenson, Anya Strzemien, and Sharon Attia, give teen readers a rare glimpse at the realities and interests of their contemporaries. With stunning photography and a gifty design, This Is 18 is a perfect tribute to girlhood for readers of all ages.

Download or read book Literature and the Conservative Ideal written by Mark Zunac and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Responding in part to the postmodernist turn in literary study, Literature and the Conservative Ideal examines the ways in which conservatism has been depicted in literature, as well as how its tendencies might restore literature's potential as an artistic reflection of the universal human condition.

Download or read book Sounds Like Titanic A Memoir written by Jessica Chiccehitto Hindman and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2019-02-12 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Finalist for the 2019 National Book Critics Circle Award in Autobiography "Deliciously bizarre and utterly American.…[A] Coen brothers movie come to life.…I couldn't put it down." —Caitlin Doughty, best-selling author of Smoke Gets in Your Eyes and Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? Sounds Like Titanic tells the unforgettable story of how Jessica Chiccehitto Hindman became a fake violinist. Struggling to pay her college tuition, Hindman accepts a dream position in an award-winning ensemble that brings ready money. But the ensemble is a sham. When the group performs, the microphones are off while the music—which sounds suspiciously like the soundtrack to the movie Titanic—blares from a hidden CD player. Hindman, who toured with the ensemble and its peculiar Composer for four years, writes with unflinching candor and humor about her surreal and quietly devastating odyssey. Sounds Like Titanic is at once a singular coming-of-age memoir about the lengths to which one woman goes to make ends meet and an incisive articulation of modern anxieties about gender, class, and ambition.

Download or read book Salt Sugar Fat written by Michael Moss and published by Signal. This book was released on 2013-02-26 with total page 461 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter at The New York Times comes the troubling story of the rise of the processed food industry -- and how it used salt, sugar, and fat to addict us. Salt Sugar Fat is a journey into the highly secretive world of the processed food giants, and the story of how they have deployed these three essential ingredients, over the past five decades, to dominate the North American diet. This is an eye-opening book that demonstrates how the makers of these foods have chosen, time and again, to double down on their efforts to increase consumption and profits, gambling that consumers and regulators would never figure them out. With meticulous original reporting, access to confidential files and memos, and numerous sources from deep inside the industry, it shows how these companies have pushed ahead, despite their own misgivings (never aired publicly). Salt Sugar Fat is the story of how we got here, and it will hold the food giants accountable for the social costs that keep climbing even as some of the industry's own say, "Enough already."

Download or read book Feminist Fight Club written by Jessica Bennett and published by Portfolio. This book was released on 2017-09-21 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Engaging, hilarious and practical - I will proudly proclaim myself a card-carrying member of the FFC' - Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook and bestselling author of Lean In This is a call to arms. Are you aged zero to infinity? Finished with the sexist status quo? Ready to kick ass and take names? Welcome to the Feminist Fight Club. You have lifetime membership. Feminist Fight Club provides an arsenal of weapons for surviving in an unequal world. You will learn how to fight micro-aggressions, correct unconscious bias, deal with male colleagues who can't stop 'manterrupting' or 'bro-propriating' your ideas - and how to lean in without falling the f*ck over. Every woman needs this book - and they needed it yesterday. This is not a drill.

Download or read book Employing Generation Why written by Eric Chester and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Don t Unplug written by Chris Dancy and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2018-09-18 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chris Dancy, the world's most connected person, inspires readers with practical advice to live a happier and healthier life using technology In 2002, Chris Dancy was overweight, unemployed, and addicted to technology. He chain-smoked cigarettes, popped pills, and was angry and depressed. But when he discovered that his mother kept a record of almost every detail of his childhood, an idea began to form. Could knowing the status of every aspect of his body and how his lifestyle affected his health help him learn to take care of himself? By harnessing the story of his life, could he learn to harness his own bad habits? With a little tech know-how combined with a healthy dose of reality, every app, sensor, and data point in Dancy's life was turned upside down and examined. Now he's sharing what he knows. That knowledge includes the fact that changing the color of his credit card helps him to use it less often, and that nostalgia is a trigger for gratitude for him. A modern-day story of rebirth and redemption, Chris' wisdom and insight will show readers how to improve their lives by paying attention to the relationship between how we move, what we eat, who we spend time with, and how it all makes us feel. But Chris has done all the hard work: Don't Unplug shows us how we too can transform our lives.

Download or read book Songs in the Key of Z written by Irwin Chusid and published by Chicago Review Press. This book was released on 2000-04-01 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Outsider musicians can be the product of damaged DNA, alien abduction, drug fry, demonic possession, or simply sheer obliviousness. This book profiles dozens of outsider musicians, both prominent and obscure—figures such as The Shaggs, Syd Barrett, Tiny Tim, Jandek, Captain Beefheart, Daniel Johnston, Harry Partch, and The Legendary Stardust Cowboy—and presents their strange life stories along with photographs, interviews, cartoons, and discographies. About the only things these self-taught artists have in common are an utter lack of conventional tunefulness and an overabundance of earnestness and passion. But, believe it or not, they're worth listening to, often outmatching all contenders for inventiveness and originality. A CD featuring songs by artists profiled in the book is also available.

Download or read book Zuleika Dobson written by Max Beerbohm and published by LA CASE Books. This book was released on 2014-05-10 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Zuleika Dobson, or, an Oxford love story, is the only novel by English essayist Max Beerbohm, a satire of undergraduate life at Oxford published in 1911. It includes the famous line "Death cancels all engagements" and presents a corrosive view of Edwardian Oxford. The all-male campus of Oxford—Beerbohm’s alma mater—is a place where aesthetics holds sway above all else, and where witty intellectuals reign. Things haven’t changed for its privileged student body for years . . . until the beguiling music-hall prestidigitator Zuleika Dobson shows up. The book’s marvelous prose dances along the line between reality and the absurd as students and dons alike fall at Zuleika’s feet, and she cuts a wide swath across the campus—until she encounters one young aristocrat for whom she is astonished to find she has feelings. As Zuleika, and her creator, zero in on their targets, the book takes some surprising and dark twists on its way to a truly startling ending—an ending so striking that readers will understand why Virginia Woolf said that “Mr. Beerbohm in his way is perfect.” In 1998, the Modern Library ranked Zuleika Dobson 59th on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century.

Download or read book The Language of Humor written by Don L. F. Nilsen and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-11-01 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Much of today's communication is carried out through various kinds of humor, and we therefore need to be able to understand its many aspects. Here, two of the world's leading pioneers in humor studies, Alleen and Don Nilsen, explore how humor can be explained across the numerous sub-disciplines of linguistics. Drawing on examples from language play and jokes in a range of real-life contexts, such as art, business, marketing, comedy, creative writing, science, journalism and politics, the authors use their own theory of 'Features, functions and subjects of Humor' to analyze humor across all disciplines. Each highly accessible chapter uses a rich array of examples to stimulate discussion and interaction even in large classes. Supplemental PowerPoints to accompany each of the 25 chapters are available online, taking many of the insights from the chapters for further interactional discussions with students.

Download or read book Mothers Other Monsters written by Maureen F. McHugh and published by Small Beer Press. This book was released on 2006-06-01 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Gorgeously crafted stories." —Nancy Pearl (Book Lust) on Morning Edition, "Books for a Rainy Day" "My favorite thing about her is the wry, uncanny tenderness of her stories. She has the astonishing ability to put her finger on the sweet spot right between comedy and tragedy, that pinpoint that makes you catch your breath. You're not sure whether to laugh out loud or cry, and you end up doing both at once." —Dan Chaon "When I first read China Mountain Zhang many years ago, Maureen McHugh instantly became, as she has remained, one of my favorite writers. This collection is a welcome reminder of her power—they are resonant, wise, generous, sharp, transporting, and deeply, deeply moving. McHugh is enormously gifted; each of these stories is a gift." —Karen Joy Fowler "Wonderfully unpredictable stories, from the very funny to the very grim, by one of our best and bravest imaginative writers." —Ursula K. Le Guin "Enchanting, funny and fierce by turns —a wonderful collection!" —Mary Doria Russell * Story Prize finalist. * A Book Sense Notable Book. In her luminous, long-awaited debut collection, award-winning novelist Maureen F. McHugh wryly and delicately examines the impacts of social and technological shifts on families. Using beautiful, deceptively simple prose, she illuminates the relationship between parents and children and the expected and unexpected chasms that open between generations. — A woman introduces her new lover to her late brother. — A teenager is interviewed about her peer group's attitudes toward sex and baby boomers. — A missing stepson sets a marriage on edge. — Anthropologists visiting an isolated outpost mission are threatened by nomadic raiders. McHugh's characters—her Alzheimers-afflicted parents or her smart and rebellious teenagers—are always recognizable: stubborn, human, and heartbreakingly real. This new trade paperback edition has added material for book clubs and reading groups, including an interview with the author, book club questions and suggestions, and a reprint of Maureen's fabulous essay, "The Evil Stepmother." Maureen F. McHugh has spent most of her life in Ohio, but has lived in New York City and, for a year, in Shijiazhuang, China. She is the author of four novels. Her first novel, China Mountain Zhang, won the Tiptree Award, and Nekropolis, was a Book Sense 76 pick and New York Times Editor's Choice.

Download or read book Market led Strategic Change written by Nigel Piercy and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2002 with total page 780 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The third edition of Market-Led Strategic Change builds on the massive success of the previous two editions, popular with lecturers and students alike, presenting an innovative approach to solving an old problem: making marketing happen! In his witty and direct style, Nigel Piercy has radically updated this seminal text, popular with managers, students, and lecturers alike, to take into account the most recent developments in the field. With a central focus on customer value and creative strategic thinking, he fully evaluates the impact of electronic business on marketing and sales strategy, and stresses the goal of totally integrated marketing to deliver superior customer value. "Reality Checks" throughout the text challenge the reader to be realistic and pragmatic. The book confronts the critical issues now faced in strategic marketing: · escalating customer demands driving the imperative for superior value · totally integrated marketing to deliver customer value · the profound impact of electronic business on customer relationships · managing processes like planning and budgeting to achieve effective implementation At once pragmatic, cutting-edge and thought-provoking, Market-Led Strategic Change is essential reading for all managers, students and lecturers seeking a definitive guide to the demands and challenges of strategic marketing in the 21st century. Hugely successful previous editions Thoroughly updated with and new cases 'Reality Checks' in each chapter to encourage pragmatic mindset

Download or read book Buyology written by Martin Lindstrom and published by Currency. This book was released on 2010-02-02 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “A fascinating look at how consumers perceive logos, ads, commercials, brands, and products.”—Time How much do we know about why we buy? What truly influences our decisions in today’s message-cluttered world? In Buyology, Martin Lindstrom presents the astonishing findings from his groundbreaking three-year, seven-million-dollar neuromarketing study—a cutting-edge experiment that peered inside the brains of 2,000 volunteers from all around the world as they encountered various ads, logos, commercials, brands, and products. His startling results shatter much of what we have long believed about what captures our interest—and drives us to buy. Among the questions he explores: • Does sex actually sell? • Does subliminal advertising still surround us? • Can “cool” brands trigger our mating instincts? • Can our other senses—smell, touch, and sound—be aroused when we see a product? Buyology is a fascinating and shocking journey into the mind of today's consumer that will captivate anyone who's been seduced—or turned off—by marketers' relentless attempts to win our loyalty, our money, and our minds.