Download or read book Team Rodent written by Carl Hiaasen and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2010-09-29 with total page 97 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Disney is so good at being good that it manifests an evil; so uniformly efficient and courteous, so dependably clean and conscientious, so unfailingly entertaining that it's unreal, and therefore is an agent of pure wickedness. . . . Disney isn't in the business of exploiting Nature so much as striving to improve upon it, constantly fine-tuning God's work." --from TEAM RODENT TEAM RODENT How Disney Devours America "Revulsion is good. Revulsion is healthy. Each of us has limits, unarticulated boundaries of taste and tolerance, and sometimes we forget where they are. Peep Land is here to remind us; a fixed compass point by which we can govern our private behavior. Because being grossed out is essential to the human experience; without a perceived depravity, we'd have nothing against which to gauge the advance or decline of culture; our art, our music, our cinema, our books. Without sleaze, the yardstick shrinks at both ends. Team Rodent doesn't believe in sleaze, however, nor in old-fashioned revulsion. Square in the middle is where it wants us all to be, dependable consumers with predictable attitudes. The message, never stated but avuncularly implied, is that America's values ought to reflect those of the Walt Disney Company, and not the other way around." BONUS: This edition includes an excerpt from Carl Hiaasen's Bad Monkey.

Download or read book Star Island written by Carl Hiaasen and published by Vintage Crime/Black Lizard. This book was released on 2010-07-27 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A hilarious spin on life in the celebrity fast lane from “Florida’s most entertainingly indignant social critic” (The New York Times Book Review) and the national bestselling author of Squeeze Me. Meet twenty-two-year-old Cherry Pye (née Cheryl Bunterman), a pop star since she was fourteen—and about to attempt a comeback from her latest drug-and-alcohol disaster. Now meet Cherry again: in the person of her “undercover stunt double,” Ann DeLusia. Ann portrays Cherry whenever the singer is too “indisposed”—meaning wasted—to go out in public. And it is Ann-mistaken-for-Cherry who is kidnapped from a South Beach hotel by obsessed paparazzo Bang Abbott. Now the challenge for Cherry’s handlers (über–stage mother; horndog record producer; nipped, tucked, and Botoxed twin publicists; weed whacker–wielding bodyguard) is to rescue Ann while keeping her existence a secret from Cherry’s public—and from Cherry herself. The situation is more complicated than they know. Ann has had a bewitching encounter with Skink—the unhinged former governor of Florida living wild in a mangrove swamp—and now he’s heading for Miami to find her . . . Will Bang Abbott achieve his fantasy of a lucrative private photo session with Cherry Pye? Will Cherry sober up in time to lip-synch her way through her concert tour? Will Skink track down Ann DeLusia before Cherry’s motley posse does? BONUS: This edition includes an excerpt from Carl Hiaasen's Bad Monkey.

Download or read book Razor Girl written by Carl Hiaasen and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2016-09-06 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *SHORLISTED FOR THE BOLLINGER EVERYMAN WODEHOUSE PRIZE 2017* A book of the month in The Times A thriller of the week in the Mail on Sunday One of the Guardian Readers' Books of the Year Key West is a small place, but there are criminal secrets buried everywhere . . . When jumped-up reality TV star Buck Nance aggravates the crowd in a Key West bar, he incites a riot and vanishes in the melee. His hapless agent Lane Coolman should have been by Buck's side, but has been accidentally taken hostage by two petty criminals who now think they can turn a quick profit by ransoming an LA talent agent. As the search for Buck continues, the mystery draws in a broad cast of characters from across the island including Andrew Yancy, the disgraced cop who now works restaurants on roach patrol; a delusional fan of Buck's show; the local sheriff who's desperate for re-election; a shady lawyer and his gold-digging fiancée; the gay mayor and his restauranteur partner; a Mafioso hotelier; and a redheaded con artist named Merry who, using a razor blade and a high-speed car, has developed a signature way of luring in her victims. Outrageously funny, fast-paced and uniquely addictive, Razor Girl will keep you utterly gripped until the final page. Praise for Razor Girl 'if you are unlucky enough not to have read Carl Hiaasen, delay no longer' Evening Standard 'a joy from first page to last' Daily Mail 'absorbing' The Herald 'hugely entertaining' Crime Scene 'razor-sharp' Irish Times

Download or read book Rejuvenile written by Christopher Noxon and published by Crown. This book was released on 2006-06-20 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Once upon a time, boys and girls grew up and set aside childish things. Nowadays, moms and dads skateboard alongside their kids and download the latest pop-song ringtones. Captains of industry pose for the cover of BusinessWeek holding Super Soakers. The average age of video game players is twenty-nine and rising. Top chefs develop recipes for Easy-Bake Ovens. Disney World is the world’s top adult vacation destination (that’s adults without kids). And young people delay marriage and childbirth longer than ever in part to keep family obligations from interfering with their fun fun fun. Christopher Noxon has coined a word for this new breed of grown-up: rejuveniles. And as a self-confessed rejuvenile, he’s a sympathetic yet critical guide to this bright and shiny world of people who see growing up as “winding down”—exchanging a life of playful flexibility for anxious days tending lawns and mutual funds. In Rejuvenile, Noxon explores the historical roots of today’s rejuveniles (hint: all roads lead to Peter Pan), the “toyification” of practical devices (car cuteness is at an all-time high), and the new gospel of play. He talks to parents who love cartoons more than their children do, twenty-somethings who live happily with their parents, and grown-ups who evangelize on behalf of all-ages tag and Legos. And he takes on the “Harrumphing Codgers,” who see the rejuvenile as a threat to the social order. Noxon tempers stories of his and others’ rejuvenile tendencies with cautionary notes about “lost souls whose taste for childish things is creepy at best.” (Exhibit A: Michael Jackson.) On balance, though, he sees rejuveniles as optimists and capital-R Romantics, people driven by a desire “to hold on to the part of ourselves that feels the most genuinely human. We believe in play, in make believe, in learning, in naps. And in a time of deep uncertainty, we trust that this deeper, more adaptable part of ourselves is our best tool of survival.” Fresh and delightfully contrarian, Rejuvenile makes hilarious sense of this seismic culture change. It’s essential reading not only for grown-ups who refuse to “act their age,” but for those who wish they would just grow up.

Download or read book Carl Hiaasen written by David Geherin and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2018-11-21 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Carl Hiaasen has been described as "one of the funniest crime writers in decades," "America's finest satirical novelist," and a "great American writer about the great American subjects of ambition, greed, vanity, and disappointment." A columnist for thirty years, Hiaasen also wrote several award-winning young adult books but is best known for his 14 crime novels. His distinctive blend of outrageous humor and biting satire appeals to mystery fans, as well as readers of comic fiction and those interested in social and environmental issues. The author examines Hiaasen's entire body of work, from his earliest writing as a reporter and then columnist for the Miami Herald to his bestselling novels for both adult and young readers. While much of his writing focuses on his beloved Florida, his work has a universal appeal that has earned him global fame.

Download or read book The Downhill Lie written by Carl Hiaasen and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2008-05-13 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally drawn to the game by his father, Carl Hiaasen wisely quit golfing in 1973. But some ambitions refuse to die, and as the years–and memories of shanked 7-irons faded, it dawned on Carl that there might be one thing in life he could do better in middle age than he could as a youth. So gradually he ventured back to the dreaded driving range, this time as the father of a five-year-old son–and also as a grandfather. “What possesses a man to return in midlife to a game at which he’d never excelled in his prime, and which in fact had dealt him mostly failure, angst and exasperation? Here’s why I did it: I’m one sick bastard.” And thus we have Carl’s foray into a world of baffling titanium technology, high-priced golf gurus, bizarre infomercial gimmicks and the mind-bending phenomenon of Tiger Woods; a maddening universe of hooks and slices where Carl ultimately–and foolishly–agrees to compete in a country-club tournament against players who can actually hit the ball. “That’s the secret of the sport’s infernal seduction,” he writes. “It surrenders just enough good shots to let you talk yourself out of quitting.” Hiaasen’s chronicle of his shaky return to this bedeviling pastime and the ensuing demolition of his self-esteem–culminating with the savage 45-hole tournament–will have you rolling with laughter. Yet the bittersweet memories of playing with his own father and the glow he feels when watching his own young son belt the ball down the fairway will also touch your heart. Forget Tiger, Phil and Ernie. If you want to understand the true lure of golf, turn to Carl Hiaasen, who offers an extraordinary audiobook for the ordinary hacker. BONUS: This edition includes an excerpt from Carl Hiaasen's Bad Monkey.

Download or read book Native Tongue written by Carl Hiaasen and published by Vintage Crime/Black Lizard. This book was released on 2010-08-18 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the New York Times bestselling author comes a novel in which dedicated, if somewhat demented, environmentalists battle sleazy real estate developers in the Florida Keys. "Rips, zips, hurtles, keeping us turning the pages at breakfinger pace." —New York Times Book Review When the precious clue-tongued mango voles at the Amazing Kingdom of Thrills on North Key Largo are stolen by heartless, ruthless thugs, Joe Winder wants to uncover why, and find the voles. Joe is lately a PR man for the Amazing Kingdom theme park, but now that the voles are gone, Winder is dragged along in their wake through a series of weird and lethal events that begin with the sleazy real-estate agent/villain Francis X. Kingsbury and can end only one way....

Download or read book The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents written by Terry Pratchett and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-10-06 with total page 181 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “An astonishing novel. Were Terry Pratchett not demonstratively a master craftsman already, The Amazing Maurice might be considered his masterpiece.” —Neil Gaiman The Amazing Maurice runs the perfect Pied Piper scam. This streetwise alley cat knows the value of cold, hard cash and can talk his way into and out of anything. But when Maurice and his cohorts decide to con the town of Bad Blinitz, it will take more than fast talking to survive the danger that awaits. For this is a town where food is scarce and rats are hated, where cellars are lined with deadly traps, and where a terrifying evil lurks beneath the hunger-stricken streets.... Set in bestselling author Sir Terry Pratchett's beloved Discworld, this masterfully crafted, gripping read is both compelling and funny. When one of the world's most acclaimed fantasy writers turns a classic fairy tale on its head, no one will ever look at the Pied Piper—or rats—the same way again! This book’s feline hero was first mentioned in the Discworld novel Reaper Man and stars in the movie version of his adventure, The Amazing Maurice, featuring David Tenant, Emma Clarke, Hamish Patel, and Hugh Laurie. Fans of Maurice will relish the adventures of Tiffany Aching, starting with The Wee Free Men and A Hat Full of Sky! Carnegie Medal Winner * ALA Best Fiction for Young Adults * New York Public Library Books for the Teen Age * VOYA Best Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror * Book Sense Pick

Download or read book Memorable Customer Experiences written by Joëlle Vanhamme and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2016-04-22 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Experiential marketing - or memorable customer experiences - is proving a popular tool amongst businesses seeking to make an impact in a competitive world. Yet the scramble to achieve a presence among experience providers has led many companies to design and implement experiential marketing without integrating it with their overall marketing strategy. These companies often end up dissatisfying their customers rather than delighting them. This research anthology investigates different angles of experiential marketing. The 16 chapters are organised in six sections. The first section considers whether memorable customer experiences result from the use of traditional marketing practices, perhaps implemented more effectively than previously, or require entirely new practices with new foundations that turn companies into experience providers. Section two details ways businesses seek to build brands through putting experiential marketing into practice, while section three asks whether there are general principles that can be applied to the design of customer experiences which ensure successful outcomes whatever market you may operate in. Section four examines how companies manage their customer experiences once they have made the strategic decision to provide them, and section five looks at methods available to evaluate the success of these customer experiences. 'Experiential marketing changes everything!' claim the management gurus, but is it really so significant that not joining this race is dangerous? The last section of the book offers a much needed critique of experiential marketing.

Download or read book Rant Dawdle written by William (Bill) E. Smith and published by Charivari Press. This book was released on 2011 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Untitled Document Rant & Dawdle is a fictional memoir comprising thirty-eight interwoven stories from the perspective of a grumpy old man living on a small island off the west coast of Canada and an expectant young boy born into the poverty of WW2 English working class. The old man dreaming in retrospect, the young boy living a developing history, both to eventually rendezvous in the eighties. Filled with the humour and history of a post war generation nurtured on comic books, the Goon Show and jazz. William (Bill) E. Smith is a British Columbia-based musician, writer, editor, graphic designer, photographer, and record and film producer. With John Norris, Smith co-produced the Canadian jazz periodical Coda Magazine, Sackville Recordings and its subsidiary label Onari Records from 1976 until 2001. Smith was a founder of a succession of Toronto-based groups integral to the Canadian improvised music community in the 1970s, including Canadian Creative Music Collective, and New Art Music Ensemble. The latter became the Bill Smith Ensemble in 1980; they recorded five albums, including collaborations with Joe McPhee and Wadada Leo Smith. Smith has also recorded with, among others, Birdyak, Wolfgang Fuchs and The Six Winds. Smith initiated a series of projects with the title Imagine the Sound in the '80s, including a book of his writings and photography and the acclaimed documentary film directed by Ron Mann. Now residing on Hornby Island, Smith currently works with Arthur Bull and Tony Wilson, Comments on the self-published limited edition from fellow artists: "You covered an enormous territory and gave new life to an era of history and ideals that we all need to remember. There were so many things that rang a bell, I wished I'd taken notes. And so many times I laughed " --Renee Rodin: Writer, Visual Artist, and Cultural Worker (Vancouver, Canada). "It's bleedin' brilliant. It's not a book, it's an achievement. Bravo." --Art Lange: Writer, Producer, Former editor Downbeat Magazine (Chicago, USA). "Fantastic I started reading and found it was almost impossible to stop What is so great is that I can relate to a lot of things you write about. Thank you very much. And what a brilliant edition " --Leo Feigen, Leo Records (Newton Abbott, UK). "I laughed out loud many times. And the jazz stuff. I think it's very important that you have written it all down. Unique and insightful." --Jim Munro: Musician, Bricoleur (Richmond, Canada). "A wild bit of synchronicity today ...overburdened with work-related stress i closed my office door and on impulse dialed up You Tube to watch the Chuvalo-Ali fight, which i have never seen (it's there). Later that same day I come home to my little apartment, pour myself deep glass of scotch, open your book randomly for a read, only to find, not only the wonderful evocation of the mystique of the Colonial Tavern, but your beautiful account of that very same fight. And so it goes..." --Arthur Bull: Musician, Poet, Chinese Translator (Digby Neck, Canada).

Download or read book The Gospel According to Disney written by Mark I Pinsky and published by Westminster John Knox Press. This book was released on with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this follow-up to his bestselling The Gospel According to The Simpsons: The Spiritual Life of the World's Most Animated Family, religion journalist Mark Pinsky explores the role that the animated features of Walt Disney played on the moral and spiritual development of generations of children. Pinsky explores thirty-one of the most popular Disney films, as well as recent developments such as the 1990s boycott of Disney by the Southern Baptist Convention and the role that Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg played in the resurgance of the company since the mid-1980s.

Download or read book Insight Guides Florida Travel Guide eBook written by Insight Guides and published by Apa Publications (UK) Limited. This book was released on 2023-01-01 with total page 714 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Insight Guide is a lavishly illustrated inspirational travel guide to Florida and a beautiful souvenir of your trip. Perfect for travellers looking for a deeper dive into the destination's history and culture, it's ideal to inspire and help you plan your travels. With its great selection of places to see and colourful magazine-style layout, this Florida guidebook is just the tool you need to accompany you before or during your trip. Whether it's deciding when to go, choosing what to see or creating a travel plan to cover key places like Palm Beach, Lake Okeechobee, it will answer all the questions you might have along the way. It will also help guide you when you'll be exploring Everglades National Park or discovering Caladesi Island State Park on the ground. Our Florida travel guide was fully-updated post-COVID-19. The Insight Guide FLORIDA covers: South Florida, Miami, Florida Keys, Atlantic Coast, Central Florida, North Florida. In this guide book to Florida you will find: IN-DEPTH CULTURAL AND HISTORICAL FEATURES Created to explore the culture and the history of Florida to get a greater understanding of its modern-day life, people and politics. BEST OF The top attractions and Editor's Choice featured in this Florida guide book highlight the most special places to visit. TIPS AND FACTS Up-to-date historical timeline and in-depth cultural background to Florida as well as an introduction to Florida's food and drink, and fun destination-specific features. PRACTICAL TRAVEL INFORMATION A-Z of useful advice on everything from when to go to Florida, how to get there and how to get around, as well as Florida's climate, advice on tipping, etiquette and more. COLOUR-CODED CHAPTERS Every part of the destination, from Gulf Coast to Miami has its own colour assigned for easy navigation of this Florida travel guide. CURATED PLACES, HIGH-QUALITY MAPS Geographically organised text, cross-referenced against full-colour, high-quality travel maps for quick orientation in Daytona Beach, Tampa and many other locations in Florida. STRIKING PICTURES This guide book to Florida features inspirational colour photography, including the stunning Fort Lauderdale and the spectacular Kennedy Space Center.

Download or read book Movie Towns and Sitcom Suburbs written by Stephen Rowley and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-10-21 with total page 457 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Media depictions of community are enormously influential on wider popular opinion about how people would like to live. In this study, Rowley examines depictions of ideal communities in Hollywood films and television and explores the implications of attempts to build real-world counterparts to such imagined places.

Download or read book Skinny Dip written by Carl Hiaasen and published by Vintage Crime/Black Lizard. This book was released on 2016-09-06 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BESTSELLER • Take a hilarious ride through the warped politics and mayhem of the human environment, and the human heart, in this "screwball delight so full of bright, deft, beautifully honed humor.... You'd follow [Hiaasen] anywhere." —The New York Times Chaz Perrone might be the only marine scientist in the world who doesn’t know which way the Gulf Stream runs. He might also be the only one who went into biology just to make a killing, and now he’s found a way–doctoring water samples so that a ruthless agribusiness tycoon can continue illegally dumping fertilizer into the endangered Everglades. When Chaz suspects that his wife, Joey, has figured out his scam, he pushes her overboard from a cruise liner into the night-dark Atlantic. Unfortunately for Chaz, his wife doesn’t die in the fall. Clinging blindly to a bale of Jamaican pot, Joey Perrone is plucked from the ocean by former cop and current loner Mick Stranahan. Instead of rushing to the police and reporting her husband’s crime, Joey decides to stay dead and (with Mick’s help) screw with Chaz until he screws himself. As Joey haunts and taunts her homicidal husband, as Chaz’s cold-blooded cohorts in pollution grow uneasy about his ineptitude and increasingly erratic behavior, as Mick Stranahan discovers that six failed marriages and years of island solitude haven’t killed the reckless romantic in him, we’re taken on a full-throttle, pure Hiaasen ride.

Download or read book The Giant Diamond Robbery Geronimo Stilton 44 written by Geronimo Stilton and published by Scholastic Inc.. This book was released on 2011-12-01 with total page 134 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In each Geronimo Stilton book, another funny, cheesy adventure is always right around the corner. Each book is fast-paced, with lively full-color art and a unique format kids 7-10 will love.I, Geronimo Stilton, am no sportsmouse. But that didn't stop Grandfather William from dragging me to a golf tournament so I could be his caddie! Once I arrived, who should I bump into but my friend Kornelius Von Kickpaw, a.k.a. Special Agent 00K. Someone was plotting to steal the Super Mouse Cup, and it was up to me and Kornelius to crack the case!

Download or read book The Disney Middle Ages written by T. Pugh and published by Springer. This book was released on 2012-12-10 with total page 473 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For many, the middle ages depicted in Walt Disney movies have come to figure as the middle ages, forming the earliest visions of the medieval past for much of the contemporary Western (and increasingly Eastern) imagination. The essayists of The Disney Middle Ages explore Disney's mediation and re-creation of a fairy-tale and fantasy past, not to lament its exploitation of the middle ages for corporate ends, but to examine how and why these medieval visions prove so readily adaptable to themed entertainments many centuries after their creation. What results is a scrupulous and comprehensive examination of the intersection between the products of the Disney Corporation and popular culture's fascination with the middle ages.

Download or read book Understanding Disney written by Janet Wasko and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2020-01-20 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the 1930s, the Walt Disney Company has produced characters, images, and stories that have captivated audiences around the world. How can we understand the appeal of Disney products? What is it about the Disney phenomenon that attracts so many children, as well as adults? In this updated second edition, with new examples provided throughout, Janet Wasko examines the processes by which the Disney company – one of the largest media and entertainment corporations in the world – continues to manufacture the fantasies that enthrall millions. She analyses the historical expansion of the Disney empire into the twenty-first century, examines the content of Disney’s classic and more recent films, cartoons and TV programs and discusses how they are produced, considering how some of the same techniques have been applied to the Disney theme parks. She also discusses the reception (and sometimes, reinterpretation) of Disney products by different kinds of audiences. By looking at the Disney phenomenon from a variety of perspectives, she provides an updated and comprehensive overview of one of the most significant media and cultural institutions of our time. This important book by a leading scholar of the entertainment industries will be of great interest to students in media and cultural studies, as well as a broader readership of Disney fans.