High Art

Everyone knows Steve Madden's name and his shoes, but few are familiar with his story. Over the past 30 years, Steve Madden has taken his eponymous shoe company from the fledgling start-up he founded with a mere $1,100 to a global, multibillion-dollar brand. But Madden's mistakes, from his battle with addiction to the financial shortcuts that landed him in prison, are as important to his story as his most iconic shoes. In this raw, intimate, and ultimately inspiring book, Madden holds nothing back as he shares what it took to get here and the lessons he's learned along the way.

Jon Savage, the author of the canonical England's Dreaming, explodes new ground in this electrifying history of pop music from 1955 through 1979. In demonstrating that gay and lesbian artists were responsible for many of the greatest cultural breakthroughs in the last half of the twentieth century, he shows that it was their secretly encoded music—appealing to a closeted but greatly oppressed public—which led to the historic dismantling of discriminatory gay laws and the fusion of queer and straight culture.

Today, even as so many of us spend hours in front of screens and in the virtual world, there is a growing movement that recognizes the power in the personal, the imperfect, the handmade. Eric Gorges, a metal shaper, taps into that hunger to get back to what's "real" through visits with the fellow artisans he has profiled for his popular public television program. In this book, he tells their stories and shares the collective wisdom of calligraphers, potters, stone carvers, glassblowers, engravers, wood workers, and more while celebrating the culture they've created.

A companion to the best selling Napalm and Silly Putty, George Carlin's More Napalm and Silly Putty picks up where the original left off, with more laser-sharp observations, tough questions, philosophical musings, linguistic legerdemain, and inspired weirdness in these unabridged excerpts from the thinking man's comic - and three-time Grammy winner!

With Muse of Fire, Michael Korda, the bestselling author of Alone and Hero, takes a novel approach to World War I by telling its history through the lives of the soldier-poets whose verses memorialize the war's unimaginable horrors. He begins with Rupert Brooke and the halcyon days before violence engulfed his generation—destroying the self-contented world of Edwardian England—and ends with the tragic death of Wilfred Owen, killed only days before the armistice brought an end to a war that took over 25,000,000 lives.

Bram Stoker, despite having a name nearly as famous as his legendary undead count, has remained a puzzling enigma. Now, in this psychological and cultural portrait, David J. Skal exhumes the inner world and strange genius of the writer who conjured an undying cultural icon.

Many people who seek guidance from Tarot are searching for a different view of their life with support for changes. This book illustrates a powerful new approach to achieve this goal. Transformative Tarot Counseling™ combines the deep potential for change in a reading with the techniques and ethics needed to support the client. This introductory book presents Tarot Readers and other Metaphysical Consultants with professional guidance to begin exploring ways that enrich the reading experience for both the reader and client.

Early in his career, A.J. Jacobs put his Ivy League education to work at Entertainment Weekly. He emerged five years later knowing which stars have fake boobs, which stars have toupees, which have both, and not much else. This realization led Jacobs on a life-changing quest: to read the entire contents of the Encyclopedia Britannica, all 33,000 pages, all 44 million words.

Jimmy Breslin: The Man Who Told the Truth is the first biography of the legendary writer, vividly portrayed by Richard Esposito, a former colleague of the Big Man. From Breslin's humble beginnings as a copy boy, to winning the 1986 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary, the writer's life was as fascinating as any of his subjects.

A lost young man’s well-intentioned—sometimes hilarious, sometimes heartbreaking—attempt at navigating adulthood, online culture, and friendship in this coming-of-age story for our times. Waylon Gans did not mean to start a riot on the university campus. He was only there because he wanted...

Mick Jagger, Jimmy Cliff, Roger Waters, Jimmy Page, Stevie Wonder, Bonnie Raitt, and many other leading artists reveal for the first time the emotions, inspirations, and techniques behind their influential works. Covering the history of rock, R&B, country, disco, soul, reggae, and pop, Anatomy of a Song is a love letter to the songs that have defined generations of listeners.

The cassette tape was revolutionary. Cheap, portable, and reusable, this small plastic rectangle changed music history. Make your own tapes! Trade them with friends! Tape over the ones you don't like! The cassette tape upended pop culture, creating movements and uniting communities. This entertaining book charts the journey of the cassette from its invention in the early 1960s to its Walkman-led domination in the 1980s to decline at the birth of compact discs to resurgence among independent music makers.

This illuminating book weaves personal stories of a multilingual upbringing with the latest scientific breakthroughs in interspecies communication to show how the skill of deep listening enhances our curiosity and empathy toward the world around us.

By early 1943, it had become increasingly clear the Allies would win the Second World War. Christian intellectuals on both sides of the Atlantic thought the soon-to-be-victorious nations were not culturally or morally prepared for their success. These Christian intellectuals - Jacques Maritain, T. S. Eliot, C. S. Lewis, W. H. Auden, and Simone Weil, among others - sought both to articulate a sober and reflective critique of their own culture and to outline a plan for the moral and spiritual regeneration of their countries in the post-war world.

An inviting and accessible new translation of Aristotle's complete Poetics—the first and best introduction to the art of writing and understanding stories.

Following the adventures of two brothers who investigate deeply strange and paranormal mysteries in their never-ending road trip, the TV show Supernatural has many fans eager to better understand the psychology behind the series' themes and characters. Featuring cast and crew interviews, this collection examines issues at the heart and soul of Supernatural's heroes and foes.

A fierce memoir of a mother's murder, a daughter's coming-of-age in the wake of immense loss, and her ultimate mission to know the woman who gave her life.

A history of Saturday Night Live that finally reveals what really went on backstage, on the set, in the writers' offices, and on the town. Dozens of stars, writers, and guest hosts recall the backstage gossip, feuds, foibles, drugs, sex, struggles, and calamities of the show that changed television.

In 2001, Ian McKellen put on the robe and pointed hat of a wizard named Gandalf and won a place in the hearts of Tolkien fans worldwide. Though his role in the film adaptation of Lord of the Rings introduced him to a new audience, McKellen had a thriving career a lifetime before his visit to Middle Earth. He made his West End acting debut in 1964 in James Saunders's A Scent of Flowers, but it was in 1980 that he took Broadway by storm when he played Antonio Salieri in Peter Shaffer's Tony Award-winning play Amadeus....

In this valuable resource guide for both beginners and professionals, veteran songwriter, producer, arranger, vocalist, music director, and educator Larry D. Batiste shares practical advice and tips from his decades of experience in ways that are bound to help all listeners improve their songwriting skills. Through this book, listeners will learn the craft of professional songwriting, including the ins-and-outs of song structure, lyric and melody writing, and the essential elements of a hit song.