Entertainment Science

Millions of people go to enormous lengths to achieve fame. Fame is woven into our lives in ways that may have been unimaginable in years past. Mining decades of experience, writer, director, producer, and actress Justine Bateman writes a visceral, intimate look at the experience of Fame. Combining the internal reality-shift of the famous, theories on the public’s behavior at each stage of a famous person’s career, and the experiences of other famous performers, Bateman takes the listener inside and outside the emotions of Fame.

A teenage girl awakens to find herself trapped in a coffin. She has no idea who she is, where she is, or how she got there. Fighting her way free brings little relief - she discovers only a room lined with caskets and a handful of equally mystified survivors. Beyond their room lies a corridor filled with bones and dust but no people and no answers. She knows only one thing about herself - her name, M. Savage, which was engraved on the foot of her coffin. She finds herself in charge. She is not the biggest among them or the boldest, but for some reason the others trust her.

The Grimsby series follows the true to life path of oft beloved, and sometimes much maligned, Attorney at Law Grimsby as he navigates through the every day world of the law business in the United States on behalf of every day people whose issues and problems you will likely recognize. Grimsby focuses on trying to "right wrongs". Grimsby - Beauty and the Legal Beast contains humor, maybe dark humor, detailing smashing successes and some crushing defeats. There is also a love story along the way.

Closeted high school sophomore Charlie Creevey's quiet life in the Sierra Nevada Foothills is shattered one day when a menacing stranger invades his home, forcing him to flee to the Pacific Northwest. Barely escaping with his life, Charlie is whisked away to Seattle to take refuge with an aunt and uncle he doesn't know. There, he discovers he hails from a family of witches, and will soon be initiated into the craft and must face the reality that he is a gay witch.

Some people bomb auditions. Sadie Ramirez throws up during her tryouts on TV show America's Top Talent. Her performance is so bad, it earns her a fairy godmother through the Magical Alliance's Pitiful Damsel Outreach Program. Enter Chrysanthemum Everstar: a gum-chewing, cell-phone-carrying, high-heel-wearing fairy godmother in training.

In YouTubers: How YouTube Shook Up TV and Created a New Generation of Stars, author Chris Stokel-Walker delves into the world of YouTube influencers and the impact they have had on entertainment and media. Focusing on the rise of YouTubers as a new breed of celebrities, Stokel-Walker explores the evolution of the platform from a simple video-sharing site to a powerhouse of influence and creativity.

October 1930. His Majesty's airship, the R101, sets off on her maiden voyage to the farthest-flung reaches of the British Empire, carrying the brightest lights of the imperial fleet. Carrying the hopes and dreams of a breathless nation. Not to mention a ruthless spy with a top-secret mission, a mysterious passenger who appears nowhere on the crew list, a would-be adventuress destined for the Singapore Hilton...and a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey.

In this essential Star Wars Legends novel, the sequel to Heir to the Empire, Grand Admiral Thrawn’s sinister plan threatens to spell doom for the fledgling New Republic and its most iconic heroes. The dying Empire’s most cunning and ruthless warlord, Grand Admiral Thrawn, has taken command...

For the first time, learn what really happened inside the walls of Hotel des Mille Collines. In Inside the Hotel Rwanda, survivor Edouard Kayihura tells his own personal story of what life was really like during those harrowing days within the walls of that infamous hotel and offers the testimonies of others who survived there, from Hutu and Tutsi to UN peacekeepers. Kayihura writes of a divided society and his journey to the place he believed would be safe from slaughter.

Audiobook includes a special foreword on "Jerry Seinfeld, Jean Shepherd, and Compassionate Humor," by the author-narrator. For the first time, author Quentin Schultze, who taught storytelling with screenwriter Jean Shepherd, reveals the “secret” parables that Shepherd included in his screenplay for A Christmas Story. Now you won't need a decoder ring to learn why the Old Man’s leg lamp is his “trophy wife,” why the bully is named “Scut,” why there is a “Bumpus” in all of us, why Mom and the kids give a “Bronx cheer” after singing “Jingle Bells” in the Olds, and so much more.

Alex Lockerby’s father once told him that it’s the simple jobs that take the longest, and finding missing things is about as simple a job as Alex can get. When wealthy socialites hire him to track down their wayward daughter, finding her is easy, but that’s just the beginning of his problems.

In a city the size of New York, things go missing all the time. When a Nobel Prize-winning chemist vanishes without a trace, his granddaughter taps Alex to find him. Locating people is easy for someone with the best finding rune in the city, but when Alex tracks down the missing man, he has no memory of who he is or what happened to him, and his research is missing.

Nerdy astronomy geek Marsha, "M" to her few friends, has never been anybody special. Orphaned as an infant and reluctantly raised by an overly-strict "aunt", she's not even sure who she is. M's dream of someday escaping tiny Jewel, Indiana, and making her mark in the world seems impossibly distant until hot new quarterback Rigel inexplicably befriends her. As Rigel turns his back on fawning cheerleaders to spend time with M, strange things start to happen....

A new school term begins as Ryuuji, still hurting from Minori's rejection, awkwardly tries to figure out how to face her. Meanwhile, something weird's going on between Taiga and Kitamura—and with everyone packed into close quarters for a school trip to the mountains, hidden motives start rising to the surface. But when a dangerous accident befalls one of them on the snowy slopes, feelings might be the least of their worries!

Much has been written about the storied New Hollywood of the 1970s, but while Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, and Francis Ford Coppola were making their first classic movies, a parallel universe of directors gave birth to the modern horror film - aggressive, raw, and utterly original. Based on unprecedented access to the genre's major players, New York Times critic Jason Zinoman's Shock Value delivers the first definitive account of horror's golden age.

When Rogue Squadron faces their greatest test yet, their only chance of success lies in working with the sinister Ysanne Isard. Sleek, swift and deadly, the famed X-Wing fighters have earned their reputation as the Rebel Alliance’s ultimate strike force the hard way—first in battle, the last...

With his allies by his side, Jinya manages to bring an end to Nagumo Eizen's schemes. But while the lives of those dear to him are safe, the demonic sword he sought, Demon Wail, is taken by Yonabari amid the chaos. Yonabari is secretly after a power hidden in the blade—a power with deep ties to Jinya's memory of Kadono... Is the sword lost to Jinya forever? And as the sun sets on the Taisho era, can Jinya hold those dear to him close despite the march of time?

Authors John Dorney, Jessica Regan and Tom Salinsky provide a captivating decade-by-decade exploration of the Oscars. For each decade, they examine the making of classic films, trends and innovations in cinema, behind-the-scenes scandals at the awards ceremony and who won and why. Twenty films are reviewed in-depth, alongside 10 detailed 'making-of' accounts and capsule reviews of every single Best Picture winner in history. In addition, each Best Picture winner is carefully scrutinised to answer the ultimate question: 'did the Academy get it right?'

In Strange Tools: Art and Human Nature, philosopher and cognitive scientist Alva Noë raises a number of profound questions: What is art? Why do we value art as we do? What does art reveal about our nature? Drawing on philosophy, art history, and cognitive science, and making provocative use of examples from all three of these fields, Noë offers new answers to such questions. He also shows why recent efforts to frame questions about art in terms of neuroscience and evolutionary biology alone have been and will continue to be unsuccessful.

With tensions rising between the Council and demonkind, Kelsey finds herself investigating a series of murders that threaten the fragile truce between them. If she can’t stop these killings soon, they could ignite a fire sure to burn the supernatural world down. Unfortunately for her, Kelsey’s problems don’t stop there. Her connection with Marcus is frayed at best, and Gray hasn’t been heard from in months. Her only semblance of peace comes from a new man in her life. When Gray storms back into the picture, her love life goes from incredibly complicated to apocalyptic.