Download or read book The Great Nadar written by Adam Begley and published by Crown. This book was released on 2018-07-10 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A dazzling, stylish biography of a fabled Parisian photographer, adventurer, and pioneer. A recent French biography begins, Who doesn't know Nadar? In France, that's a rhetorical question. Of all of the legendary figures who thrived in mid-19th-century Paris—a cohort that includes Victor Hugo, Baudelaire, Gustave Courbet, and Alexandre Dumas—Nadar was perhaps the most innovative, the most restless, the most modern. The first great portrait photographer, a pioneering balloonist, the first person to take an aerial photograph, and the prime mover behind the first airmail service, Nadar was one of the original celebrity artist-entrepreneurs. A kind of 19th-century Andy Warhol, he knew everyone worth knowing and photographed them all, conferring on posterity psychologically compelling portraits of Manet, Sarah Bernhardt, Delacroix, Daumier and countless others—a priceless panorama of Parisian celebrity. Born Gaspard-Félix Tournachon, he adopted the pseudonym Nadar as a young bohemian, when he was a budding writer and cartoonist. Later he affixed the name Nadar to the façade of his opulent photographic studio in giant script, the illuminated letters ten feet tall, the whole sign fifty feet long, a garish red beacon on the boulevard. Nadar became known to all of Europe and even across the Atlantic when he launched "The Giant," a gas balloon the size of a twelve-story building, the largest of its time. With his daring exploits aboard his humongous balloon (including a catastrophic crash that made headlines around the world), he gave his friend Jules Verne the model for one of his most dynamic heroes. The Great Nadar is a brilliant, lavishly illustrated biography of a larger-than-life figure, a visionary whose outsized talent and canny self-promotion put him way ahead of his time.
Download or read book When I Was a Photographer written by Felix Nadar and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2015-11-06 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first complete English translation of Nadar's intelligent and witty memoir, a series of vignettes that capture his experiences in the early days of photography. Celebrated nineteenth-century photographer—and writer, actor, caricaturist, inventor, and balloonist—Félix Nadar published this memoir of his photographic life in 1900 at the age of eighty. Composed as a series of vignettes (we might view them as a series of “written photographs”), this intelligent and witty book offers stories of Nadar's experiences in the early years of photography, memorable character sketches, and meditations on history. It is a classic work, cited by writers from Walter Benjamin to Rosalind Krauss. This is its first and only complete English translation. In When I Was a Photographer (Quand j'étais photographe), Nadar tells us about his descent into the sewers and catacombs of Paris, where he experimented with the use of artificial lighting, and his ascent into the skies over Paris in a hot air balloon, from which he took the first aerial photographs. He recounts his “postal photography” during the 1870-1871 Siege of Paris—an amazing scheme involving micrographic images and carrier pigeons. He describes technical innovations and important figures in photography, and offers a thoughtful consideration of society and culture; but he also writes entertainingly about such matters as Balzac's terror of being photographed, the impact of a photograph on a celebrated murder case, and the difference between male and female clients. Nadar's memoir captures, as surely as his photographs, traces of a vanished era.
Download or read book Nadar Collection Michel Et Mich le Auer written by Maria Morris Hambourg and published by Metropolitan Museum of Art. This book was released on 1995 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nadar, whose real name was Felix Tournachon (1820-1910), was a conspicuous, even astonishing presence in nineteenth-century France. Engaging and quick-witted, he invented himself over and over as a bohemian writer, a journalist, a romantic utopian, a caricaturist, a portrait photographer, a balloonist, an entrepreneur, a prophet of aeronautics. The name "Nadar" was on everyone's lips. Today, it is Nadar's photography that is remembered. His sitters, who were often his friends, included the great men and women of his time: Dumas, Rossini, Baudelaire, Sarah Bernhardt, Daumier, Berlioz, George Sand, Delacroix. Nadar's legendary name has been attached not only to his original photographs but to reprints, copies and a great deal of studio work. For that reason, this volume exactingly reproduces some one hundred photographs from the years 1854-60, the period of his earliest and finest photography, allowing viewers to become familiar with the subtle light and balanced, velvety tones that distinguish Nadar's original work. Accompanying the photographs are essays that shed new light on the many facets of Nadar.
Download or read book Chrome written by George Nader and published by . This book was released on 1979 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the future, there will be only one taboo: to love a robot. But in the desert hideaway where Chrome and the warrior King Vortex meet, a bond between man and machine is unknowingly taking shape ... a bond that will ignite intergalactic violence and bring Earth once more to the brink of total destruction.
Download or read book Camera Lucida written by Roland Barthes and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 1981 with total page 134 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Examining the themes of presence and absence, the relationship between photography and theatre, history and death, these 'reflections on photography' begin as an investigation into the nature of photographs. Then, as Barthes contemplates a photograph of his mother as a child, the book becomes an exposition of his own mind."--Alibris.
Download or read book Nadar Warhol Paris New York written by Gordon Baldwin and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1999 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This engaging catalog features the photographic portraiture of the nineteenth-century Parisian Nadar and the twentieth-century New Yorker Andy Warhol. The two photographers have more in common than one might suppose, particularly as adroit manipulators who simultaneously promoted their own reputations and those of their subjects. Both men emerged from the Bohemia of their day to become photographers after following earlier artistic pursuits: Nadar as a writer and caricaturist, Warhol as a commercial graphic artist, then painter and filmmaker. While celebrating their individual achievements, Nadar/Warhol: Paris/New York also illuminates the role of the visual artist in the conscious creation of celebrity and the changing nature of fame. Among the many portraits in this exhibition catalog are Nadar's photographs of such luminaries as George Sand, Alexandre Dumas, Victor Hugo, Jean-François Millet, and Sarah Bernhardt; and Warhols images of celebrities including Mick Jagger, Truman Capote, Jane Fonda, Robert Rauschenberg, Debbie Harry, Robert Mapplethorpe, and Liza Minnelli.
Download or read book Houdini written by Adam Begley and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2020-03-17 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the prizewinning Jewish Lives series, an exuberant biography of the world’s greatest escape artist In 1916, the war in Europe having prevented a tour abroad, Harry Houdini wrote a film treatment for a rollicking motion picture. Though the movie was never made, its title, “The Marvelous Adventures of Houdini: The Justly Celebrated Elusive American,” provides a succinct summary of the Master Mystifier’s life. Born Erik Weisz in Budapest in 1874, Houdini grew up an impoverished Jewish immigrant in the Midwest and became world-famous thanks to talent, industry, and ferocious determination. He concealed as a matter of temperament and professional ethics the secrets of his sensational success. Nobody knows how Houdini performed some of his dazzling, death-defying tricks, and nobody knows, finally, why he felt compelled to punish and imprison himself over and over again. Must a self-liberator also be a self-torturer? Tracking the restless Houdini’s wide-ranging exploits, acclaimed biographer Adam Begley asks the essential question: What kind of man was this?
Download or read book The Seventeen Traditions written by Ralph Nader and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-10-13 with total page 117 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “The Seventeen Traditions brings us back to what’s important in life—and what makes America truly great.” —Jim Hightower, Illinois Times The activist, humanitarian, and former presidential candidate named one of the 100 most influential figures in American history by The Atlantic—one of only three living Americans so honored—Ralph Nader, looks back at his small-town Connecticut childhood and the traditions and values that shaped his progressive worldview. At once eye-opening, thought-provoking, and surprisingly fresh and moving, Nader’s The Seventeen Traditions is a celebration of uniquely American ethics certain to appeal to fans of Mitch Albom, Tim Russert, and Anna Quindlen—an unexpected and most welcome gift from this fearlessly committed reformer and outspoken critic of corruption in government and society. In a time of widespread national dissatisfaction and disillusionment that has given rise to new dissent characterized by the Occupy Wall Street movement, the liberal icon shows us how every American can learn from The Seventeen Traditions and, by embracing them, help bring about meaningful and necessary change.
Download or read book Unsafe at Any Speed written by Ralph Nader and published by New York : Grossman. This book was released on 1965 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Account of how and why cars kill, and why the automobile manufacturers have failed to make cars safe.
Download or read book The Northern Nadars of Tamil Nadu written by Dennis Templeman and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1996 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dennis Templeman examines the changes in the Northern Nadars' local caste associations in the twentieth century, in an effort to analyze the upward mobility of the Nadars in terms of status, power, and wealth.
Download or read book The Only Street in Paris Life on the Rue des Martyrs written by Elaine Sciolino and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2015-11-02 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Bestseller "Sciolino’s sharply observed account serves as a testament to…Paris—the city of light, of literature, of life itself." —The New Yorker Elaine Sciolino, the former Paris Bureau Chief of the New York Times, invites us on a tour of her favorite Parisian street, offering an homage to street life and the pleasures of Parisian living. "I can never be sad on the rue des Martyrs," Sciolino explains, as she celebrates the neighborhood’s rich history and vibrant lives. While many cities suffer from the leveling effects of globalization, the rue des Martyrs maintains its distinct allure. On this street, the patron saint of France was beheaded and the Jesuits took their first vows. It was here that Edgar Degas and Pierre-Auguste Renoir painted circus acrobats, Emile Zola situated a lesbian dinner club in his novel Nana, and François Truffaut filmed scenes from The 400 Blows. Sciolino reveals the charms and idiosyncrasies of this street and its longtime residents—the Tunisian greengrocer, the husband-and-wife cheesemongers, the showman who’s been running a transvestite cabaret for more than half a century, the owner of a 100-year-old bookstore, the woman who repairs eighteenth-century mercury barometers—bringing Paris alive in all of its unique majesty. The Only Street in Paris will make readers hungry for Paris, for cheese and wine, and for the kind of street life that is all too quickly disappearing.
Download or read book What Becomes a Legend Most written by Philip Gefter and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2020-10-13 with total page 740 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Wise and ebullient . . . . Gefter takes the reader inside so many of Avedon’s photo shoots, and so deftly explicates his work, that you’re thirsty to sate your eyes with Avedon’s actual images . . . . One of the achievements of Gefter’s biography is to argue persuasively for Avedon’s place, as a maker of portraits, as one of the 20th century’s most consequential artists.” — Dwight Garner, New York Times "Gefter weaves the particulars of Avedon’s life story into a larger narrative about American culture in the decades after World War II . . . . Read in the context of our own precarious political and ecological moment, this assessment alone argues eloquently for the abiding, even urgent relevance of Avedon’s imperfect Art." — Caroline Weber, New York Times Book Review “Imagine the offspring of Marcel Proust and the Energizer Bunny—that’s who Richard Avedon was, a chronicler of fashion, an analyst of social types, the author in pictures of his era. And Philip Gefter captures him. His biography is an Avedon of Avedon.” — Louis Menand, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Metaphysical Club “Mesmerizing. . . . Like Avedon’s blank white backgrounds, blasted with light, Gefter’s pages expose in a controlled and intelligent manner all the bigness and littleness of one of the greats.” — Brad Gooch, New York Times bestselling author of Flannery and City Poet "A compelling, beautifully written examination of Avedon's life as it reflects the larger cultural milieu of post–World War II New York, and, more importantly, an argument for the role of the artist in contemporary society." — Stephen Shore, photographer "The portrait that emerges in these pages is not only a biography of the artist—his professional triumphs and disappointments and personal demons—but also a beautifully written assessment of his work, which brings Avedon to life and also vividly evokes his most memorable images." — Kate Betts, Air Mail “Revealing, fluent, and very well written—an exemplary biography of an underappreciated artist.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review) "Gefter’s expert, comprehensive, and sensitive biography embodies the electricity and complexity of Avedon’s work as he centers Avedon within the crossfire of both the battle to legitimize photography as a fine art form and the struggle for gay rights… Gefter’s engrossing portrait of a master portraitist vividly proves his claim that Avedon is “one of the most consequential artists of the twentieth century." — Booklist, starred review "Definitive and insightful." — Publishers Weekly "With this engrossing biography, readers will come away with a greater appreciation of Avedon’s artistic strengths and achievements, as well as the complex man behind the camera." — Library Journal (starred review) "Philip Gefter’s welcome new biography . . . takes Avedon at his own estimation as a serious 20th-century artist. It creates a dense, convincing portrait of a man with huge talent and a gift for life." — Scott Eyman, Wall Street Journal
Download or read book Grand Illusion written by Theresa Amato and published by ReadHowYouWant.com. This book was released on 2010-08 with total page 722 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the national campaign manager for Ralph Nader's historic runs for president in 2000 and 2004, Theresa Amato had a rare ringside role in two of the most hotly contested presidential elections this country has seen. In Grand Illusion, she gives u...
Download or read book Only the Super Rich Can Save Us written by Ralph Nader and published by Seven Stories Press. This book was released on 2011-01-04 with total page 671 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In the cozy den of the large but modest house in Omaha where he has lived since he started on his first billion, Warren Buffett watched the horrors of Hurricane Katrina unfold on television in early September 2005. . . . On the fourth day, he beheld in disbelief the paralysis of local, state, and federal authorities unable to commence basic operations of rescue and sustenance, not just in New Orleans, but in towns and villages all along the Gulf Coast. . . He knew exactly what he had to do. . ." So begins the vivid fictional account by political activist and bestselling author Ralph Nader that answers the question, "What if?" What if a cadre of superrich individuals tried to become a driving force in America to organize and institutionalize the interests of the citizens of this troubled nation? What if some of America's most powerful individuals decided it was time to fix our government and return the power to the people? What if they focused their power on unionizing Wal-Mart? What if a national political party were formed with the sole purpose of advancing clean elections? What if these seventeen superrich individuals decided to galvanize a movement for alternative forms of energy that will effectively clean up the environment? What if together they took on corporate goliaths and Congress to provide the necessities of life and advance the solutions so long left on the shelf by an avaricious oligarchy? What could happen? This extraordinary story, written by the author who knows the most about citizen action, returns us to the literature of American social movements—to Edward Bellamy, to Upton Sinclair, to John Steinbeck, to Stephen Crane—reminding us in the process that changing the body politic of America starts with imagination.
Download or read book Breaking Through Power written by Ralph Nader and published by City Lights Publishers. This book was released on 2016-09-12 with total page 171 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Nader’s assessment of how concentrated wealth and power undermine democracy is clear and compelling, but it’s his substantive vision of how we ought to respond that makes Breaking Through Power essential reading. Written just before Donald Trump’s Electoral College victory, Nader’s latest book reads with even greater urgency now."--Yes Magazine In Breaking Through Power, Ralph Nader draws from a lifetime waging--and often winning--David vs. Goliath battles against big corporations and the United States government. In this succinct, Tom Paine-style wake-up call, the iconic consumer advocate highlights the success stories of fellow Americans who organize change and work together to derail the many ways in which wealth manipulates politics, labor, media, the environment, and the quality of national life today. Nader makes an inspired case about how the nation can--and must--be democratically managed by communities guided by the United States Constitution, not by the dictates of big businesses and the wealthy few. This is classic Ralph Nader, a crystallization of the core political beliefs and commitments that have driven his lifetime of advocacy for greater democracy. "Ralph Nader is the grand progressive of our time. We overlook his words at our own peril! This book is required reading."--Cornel West "Ralph Nader's Breaking Through Power is a brilliant analysis of corporate power and the popular mechanisms that can be used to wrest back our democracy. No one has been fighting corporate domination longer, or understands it better, than Nader, who will go down in history not only as a prophet but an example of what it means to live the moral life. We disregard his wisdom and his courage at our peril."--Chris Hedges, Pulitzer-Prize winner and author of Wages of Rebellion: The Moral Imperative of Revolt "Nader goes beyond delineating the problem and provides a critical prescription to battle the toxicity of unjust power--one that every individual can, and must, embrace."--Nomi Prins, author, All the Presidents' Bankers "People are recognizing that our founding, fundamental values of fairness, justice, and opportunity for all--the very values that define our America--are being shoved aside to create an un-America of plutocracy and autocracy. Ralph Nader's new book Breaking Through Power provides progressive boat-rockers with inspiration and a plan for reclaiming America from the greedy Plutocrats and Fat Cats who think democracy is for sale to the highest bidder."--Jim Hightower "I read Ralph Nader for the same reasons that I read Tom Paine. He knows what he thinks, says what he means, and his courage is a lesson for us all."--Lewis Lapham "Nader insists on speaking up for the little people and backs his arguments and decent sentiments with hard facts."--Publishers Weekly "This book is short, easy to read, and deserves more than five stars. Nader speaks for the average American, and backs up his arguments with facts. This is extremely highly recommended."--Paul Lappen, Midwest Book Review About Ralph Nader: Named by The Atlantic as one of the hundred most influential figures in American history, and by Time and Life magazines as one of the most influential Americans of the twentieth century, Ralph Nader has helped us drive safer cars, eat healthier food, breathe better air, drink cleaner water, and work in safer environments for more than four decades. Nader's recent books include Animal Envy, Unstoppable, The Good Fight, and the bestseller, Seventeen Traditions. Nader writes a syndicated column, has his own radio show, and gives lectures and interviews year round.
Download or read book Updike written by Adam Begley and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2014-04-08 with total page 633 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Updike is Adam Begley’s masterful, much-anticipated biography of one of the most celebrated figures in American literature: Pulitzer Prize-winning author John Updike—a candid, intimate, and richly detailed look at his life and work. In this magisterial biography, Adam Begley offers an illuminating portrait of John Updike, the acclaimed novelist, poet, short-story writer, and critic who saw himself as a literary spy in small-town and suburban America, who dedicated himself to the task of transcribing “middleness with all its grits, bumps and anonymities.” Updike explores the stages of the writer’s pilgrim’s progress: his beloved home turf of Berks County, Pennsylvania; his escape to Harvard; his brief, busy working life as the golden boy at The New Yorker; his family years in suburban Ipswich, Massachusetts; his extensive travel abroad; and his retreat to another Massachusetts town, Beverly Farms, where he remained until his death in 2009. Drawing from in-depth research as well as interviews with the writer’s colleagues, friends, and family, Begley explores how Updike’s fiction was shaped by his tumultuous personal life—including his enduring religious faith, his two marriages, and his first-hand experience of the “adulterous society” he was credited with exposing in the bestselling Couples. With a sharp critical sensibility that lends depth and originality to his analysis, Begley probes Updike’s best-loved works—from Pigeon Feathers to The Witches of Eastwick to the Rabbit tetralogy—and reveals a surprising and deeply complex character fraught with contradictions: a kind man with a vicious wit, a gregarious charmer who was ruthlessly competitive, a private person compelled to spill his secrets on the printed page. Updike offers an admiring yet balanced look at this national treasure, a master whose writing continues to resonate like no one else’s.
Download or read book Peter Paul and Mary written by Peter Yarrow and published by Charlesbridge. This book was released on 2014-11-04 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This carefully crafted and collectible volume tells the intimate story of Peter, Paul, and Mary and their music, in their words and with iconic images that follow their passionate, fifty-year journey to the center of America’s heart. Photographs, many rare and never before published, taken over five decades by some of the world’s top photographers, follow them from their earliest performances in the 1960s, when Mary was the most desired, beautiful, and charismatic performer and a new role model for women. Follow the trio as they lead America to discover the passionate soul of folk music. Join the struggle for racial equality, social justice, and freedom in this memorable journey, from the historic 1963 March on Washington with Martin Luther King, Jr., to the trio’s appearance before a half million people in 1969 to end the Vietnam War, to their singing at the Hollywood Bowl for Survival Sunday in 1978, helping to launch the anti-nuke movement, the world’s first international environmental movement. Through these images, readers will feel and almost hear the trio’s songs calling for a more caring, better world as they performed with a courage and conviction that became for so many the embodiment and soundtrack of their generation’s awakening to conscience, to activism, and to a new dream for all of humankind. Peter, Paul, and Mary’s songs of defiant hope and a certain unmasked innocence are still a powerful part of our American consciousness, and this book reenacts the history of how the trio marked many lives with their indelible stamp of honesty of the sort we all yearn to recapture and recreate today—for ourselves, our children, and the generations to come.
