Entertainment History

They were the last great band of the '60s and the first great band of the '70s. They rose, somewhat unpromisingly, from the ashes of the Yardbirds to become one of the biggest-selling rock bands of all time - and eventually paid the price for it, with disaster, drug addiction, and death.

The co-founder of The Cure and author of Cured delivers a fascinating deep dive into the dark romanticism of Goth music, a misunderstood genre and culture. GOTH is an entertaining and engaging historical memoir, and a journey through Goth music and culture, exploring creative giants like The...

When beloved host Johnny Carson announced his retirement after 30 years on The Tonight Show, millions of Americans mourned. But inside the television industry, the news ignited a battle between two amazing talents - Jay Leno and David Letterman - who both yearned to occupy the departing legend's chair. For NBC, it would be a decision with millions of dollars at stake. Soon these two comedians with strikingly different styles, who had once shared a friendship as they worked the clubs together, would be engaged in a fierce competition for the prize.

What is art? Why do we value images of saints, kings, goddesses, battles, landscapes or cities from eras of history utterly remote from ourselves? This history of art shows how painters, sculptors and architects have expressed the belief systems of their age: religious, political and aesthetic. From the ancient civilisations of Egypt, Mesopotamia and Greece, to the revolutionary years of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the artist has acted as a mirror to the ideals and conflicts of the human mind.

For fans of one of the most successful and highly discussed shows in recent memory, LOST: Back to the Island is both a delightful time capsule and a rousing work of entertainment criticism.

A carefully crafted and collectible volume celebrates the 50th anniversary of a legendary and groundbreaking Beatles album. Expert Brian Southall's unique edition recounts the story behind the music and the cultural climate of 1967 when Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart Club Band debuted. The "A side" of this coolly curated title is all about the Beatles, the music on the album, the recording process, and more. The "B side" looks at the state of the world in 1967, from the Summer of Love to antiwar protests to the launch of Rolling Stone magazine and more.

No one is born a leader. But through sheer determination and by confronting life’s challenges, Ant Middleton has come to know the meaning of true leadership. In First Man In, he shares the core lessons he’s learned over the course of his fascinating, exhilarating life. Special forces training is no walk in the park. The rules are strict, and they make sure you learn the hard way, pushing you beyond the limits of what is physically possible. There is no mercy. Even when you are bleeding and broken, to admit defeat is failure.

Eating one's own kind is a completely natural behavior in thousands of species, including humans. Throughout history we have engaged in cannibalism for reasons related to famine, burial rites, and medicine. Cannibalism has also been used as a form of terrorism and as the ultimate expression of filial piety. With unexpected wit and a wealth of knowledge, Bill Schutt takes us on a tour of the field, exploring exciting new avenues of research and investigating questions like why so many fish eat their offspring and some amphibians consume their mothers' skin.

Christina Crawford's book was an immediate bestseller, addressing the infrequently discussed topic of child abuse. When Paramount Pictures released the film, starring Faye Dunaway as Crawford, it was critically panned, and remains one of the most legendary critical bombs in film history. The lavish, big-screen adaptation drew unexpected laughter in the scenes depicting life in the Crawford household. Rarely have such good intentions been met with such ridicule.

John Wayne projected dignity, integrity, and strength in all his films, even when his characters were flawed, and whatever character he played was always prepared to confront injustice in his own way. More than thirty years after his death, he remains the standard by which male stars are judged and an actor whose morally unambiguous films continue to attract sizeable audiences.

Raconter une histoire ne s'improvise pas. La narration est un artisanat qui, avant de pouvoir prétendre à l'art, exige le respect de règles que John Truby a rassemblées dans cette Anatomie du scénario. Sa méthode unique nous fait entrer dans les secrets de fabrication de ce qui constitue la condition première de la réussite d'un film - une bonne histoire - et nous guide pas à pas dans la construction des personnages, de l'intrigue, de l'univers du récit, des dialogues, en détaillant les vingt-deux étapes incontournables dans l'écriture d'un scénario réussi.

Fleetwood Mac has had a groundbreaking career spanning over fifty years and includes some of the bestselling albums and greatest hits of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. But the band's unique story is one of enormous triumph and also deep tragedy. There has never been a band in the history of music riven with as much romantic drama, sexual tension, and incredible highs and lows as Fleetwood Mac. Dreams is a must-listen for casual Fleetwood Mac fans and die-hard devotees alike.

On New Year's Eve, 1970, Paul McCartney told his lawyers to issue the writ at the High Court in London, effectively ending The Beatles. You might say this was the last day of the pop era. The following day, which was a Friday, was 1971. You might say this was the first day of the rock era. And within the remaining 364 days of this monumental year, the world would hear Don McLean's "American Pie", The Rolling Stones' "Brown Sugar", The Who's "Baba O'Riley", Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven", and more.

If you’ve ever streamed a show on HBO Max, seen a Formula One race, hummed a tune on SiriusXM, bought concert tickets via Ticketmaster, or watched an Atlanta Braves game, you’ve crossed paths with John Malone. You just didn’t know it. John Malone remains a stranger to most people, though...

When Brian De Palma agreed to allow Julie Salamon unlimited access to the film production of Tom Wolfe's best-selling book The Bonfire of the Vanities, both director and journalist must have felt like they were on to something big. How could it lose? But instead Salamon got a front-row seat at the Hollywood disaster of the decade.

In 1969, Illeana Douglas' parents saw the film Easy Rider and were transformed. Taking Dennis Hopper's words - "That's what it's all about, man" - to heart, they abandoned their comfortable upper-middle-class life and gave Illeana a childhood filled with hippies, goats, free spirits, and free love. Illeana writes, "Since it was all out of my control, I began to think of my life as a movie, with a Dennis Hopper-like father at the center of it." I Blame Dennis Hopper is a rollicking, funny, at times tender exploration of the way movies can change our lives.

The blues grew out of the plantations and prisons, the swampy marshes and fertile cotton fields of the Mississippi Delta. With original research and keen insights, Ted Gioia - the author of a landmark study of West Coast jazz and the critically acclaimed The History of Jazz - brings to life the stirring music of the Delta, evoking the legendary figures who shaped its sound and ethos: Robert Johnson, Charley Patton, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Howlin' Wolf, B. B. King, and others.

The rollicking saga of reality television, a “sweeping” (The Washington Post) cultural history of America’s most influential, most divisive artistic phenomenon, from the Pulitzer Prize–winning New Yorker writer—“a must-read for anyone interested in television or popular culture”...

For millennia, the sacred drummers of pre-Christian Mediterranean and western Asia were women. In this inspiring book, Layne Redmond, herself a renowned drummer, tells their history.

The tale of Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, and the fall and redemption of Anakin Skywalker has become modern myth, an epic tragedy of the corruption of a young man in love into darkness, the rise of evil, and the power of good triumphing in the end. But it didn't start out that way. In this thorough account of one of cinema's most lasting works, Michael Kaminski presents the true history of how Star Wars was written, from its beginnings as a science fiction fairy tale to its development over three decades into the epic we now know, chronicling the methods, techniques, thought processes, and struggles of its creator.