Entertainment History

While the Civil War raged in America, another very different revolution was beginning to take shape across the Atlantic, in the studios of Paris. The artists who would make Impressionism the most popular art form in history were showing their first paintings amid scorn and derision from the French artistic establishment. Indeed, no artistic movement has ever been, at its inception, quite so controversial.

While the Western was dying a slow death across the cultural landscape, it was blazing back to life as a video game in the early twenty-first century. Rockstar Games' Red Dead franchise, beginning with Red Dead Revolver in 2004, has grown into one of the most critically acclaimed video game franchises of the twenty-first century. Red Dead Redemption: History, Myth, and Violence in the Video Game West offers a critical, interdisciplinary look at this cultural phenomenon at the intersection of game studies and American history.

While every new TV series has to face some problems, no show had to overcome greater obstacles than Gilligan's Island. In spite of that, no series has achieved greater success, as measured by the fact that Gilligan's Island has given rise to three TV movies, two animated series, and is the most rerun program in the entire history of television.

In 1992, the Screaming Trees were expected to become the next big band to come out of the Seattle music scene during the heyday of grunge. Except it never happened. It wasn't because the band didn't have great songs—indeed, the Trees were revered for their ability to write a great song that was both artistically original and commercially viable, which is no easy task. Other Seattle bands like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and Soundgarden were fans of the Screaming Trees, playing shows with them and collaborating on albums, long before their own bands broke through into the mainstream.

Shit, Actually is a love letter and a breakup note all in one: to the films that shaped us and the ones that ruined us. More often than not, Lindy finds, they're one and the same.

Respected broadcaster Alan Cross narrates the definitive history of alternative rock over the last 30 years. He recounts the stories of David Bowie, The Velvet Underground, The Clash, The Ramones, The Sex Pistols, and Iggy Pop.

It’s October 1977, and the Rolling Stones are in a Paris recording studio. They’re under siege. Keith Richards’s legal troubles after his arrest for heroin possession threaten the band’s future, and the broad consensus among rock aficionados is that the band will never again reach the heights of Exile on Main Street.

Here for the first time is the history of art dealers, those extraordinary men and women who, over centuries (and almost entirely out of the public eye), built their profession on a singular skill: identifying the intangible but infinitely desirable qualities that characterize the greatest works of art - and finding clients for whom those qualities are irresistible.

Dave Hill was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio. But his grandfather was from Canada. Inspired by a publisher's payment of several hundred dollars (Canadian) in cash, Dave has traveled all over Canada, reconnecting with his heritage in such places as Montreal, Moose Jaw, Regina, Winnipeg, and Merrickville, meeting a range of Canadians, touching things he probably shouldn't, and having adventures too numerous and rich in detail to be done justice in this blurb. The result, he promises, is "the greatest Canada-based literary thrill ride of your lifetime".

In this intensive, intimate, and anything-but-glamorous behind-the-scenes account, film insider and cinephile Paul M. Sammon explores how Ridley Scott used his creative genius to transform the work of science fiction's most uncompromising author into a critical sensation, a commercial success, and a cult classic that would reinvent the genre.

In How Star Wars Conquered the Universe, veteran journalist Chris Taylor traces the series from the difficult birth of the original film through its sequels, the franchise’s death and rebirth, the prequels, and the preparations for a new trilogy. Taylor provides portraits of the friends, writers, artists, producers, and marketers who labored behind the scenes to turn Lucas’s idea into a legend.

In this new audiobook, broadcaster and music writer Alan Cross narrates the definitive history of Pearl Jam. Cross succeeds once again in revealing the fascinating history behind the music in the same compelling way we've come to expect from his long broadcasting career.

From its unassuming beginnings as a casual home game between friends to the role-playing phenomenon it is today, Critical Role has become the stuff of legend. These pages chronicle how a circle of friends who all happen to be talented voice actors built the most-watched tabletop role-playing livestream of all time.

Human beings have always made music. Music can move us and tell stories of faith, struggle, or love. It is common to all cultures across the world. But how has it changed over the millennia? Robert Philip explores the extraordinary history of music in all its forms, from our earliest ancestors to today’s mass-produced songs. This is a truly global story. Looking to Europe, South America, Asia, Africa, and beyond, Philip reveals how musicians have been brought together by trade and migration and examines the vast impact of colonialism.

Told with the same intimate style, brutal honesty, and uproarious wisdom that placed Wishful Drinking on the New York Times bestseller list for months, Shockaholic is the juicy account of Carrie Fisher’s life, focusing more on the Star Wars years and dishing about the various Hollywood relationships she’s formed since she was chosen to play Princess Leia at only 19 years old.

Film Studies is a concise and indispensable introduction to the formal study of cinema. Ed Sikov offers a step-by-step curriculum for the appreciation of all types of narrative cinema, detailing the essential elements of film form and systematically training the spectator to be an active listener and critic. He treats a number of fundamental factors in filmmaking, including editing, composition, lighting, the use of color and sound, and narrative.

From Gregorian Chant to Henryk Gorecki, the first living classical composer to get into the pop album charts, here is the fascinating story of over a thousand years of Western classical music and the composers who have sought to express in music the deepest of human feelings and emotions. Also available: The History of Opera.

Dark City expands with new chapters and a fresh collection of restored photos that illustrate the mythic landscape of the imagination. It's a place where the men and women who created film noir often find themselves dangling from the same sinister heights as the silver-screen avatars to whom they gave life.

Mel Brooks' own words telling all about the players, the filming, and studio antics during the production of this great comedy classic. The audiobook is alive and teeming with hundreds of photos, original interviews, and hilarious commentary. Young Frankenstein was made with deep respect for the craft and history of cinema-and for the power of a good schwanzstucker joke. This audiobook will also rely on interviews with gifted director of photography Gerald Hirschfeld, Academy Award-winning actress Cloris Leachman, and veteran producer Michael Gruskoff.

In the summer of 1982, eight science fiction films were released within six weeks of one another. E.T., Tron, Star Trek: Wrath of Khan, Conan the Barbarian, Blade Runner, Poltergeist, The Thing, and Mad Max: The Road Warrior changed the careers of some of Hollywood's now biggest names―altering the art of movie-making to this day.