Art

The Glass Castle is a remarkable memoir of resilience and redemption, and a revelatory look into a family at once deeply dysfunctional and uniquely vibrant. When sober, Jeannette's brilliant and charismatic father captured his children's imagination, teaching them physics, geology, and how to embrace life fearlessly. But when he drank, he was dishonest and destructive. Her mother was a free spirit who abhorred the idea of domesticity and didn't want the responsibility of raising a family. The Wa... more info>>

A revealing behind-the-scenes portrait of the award-winning tv show inside the actors studioâ?" and its creator and host James Lipton. Each week Inside the Actors Studio takes the unique insights and intimate revelations of its celebrated guests into 84 million homes on the Bravo network and 125 countries. Now, with Inside Inside, James Lipton, the 2007 recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Emmy, is handing every one of us a backstage pass. You will witness in unprecedented close-up the wit, wis... more info>>

Drawing from a variety of experts in an industry that has seen major technological advances since the second edition, The Movie Business Book, Third Edition, offers the most comprehensive, authoritative overview of this fascinating, global business. A must-read for industry newcomers, film students and movie buffs, this new edition features key movers and shakers, such as Tom Rothman, chairman of Fox Filmed Entertainment; Michael Grillo, head of Feature Film Production at DreamWorks SKG; Sydney ... more info>>

A true twenty-first-century hero, Napoleon Dynamite is awesome at drawing ligers, hunting wolverines, and playing tetherball. He also has some sweet dance moves. His friends have some pretty good skills too--Pedro has a Huffy Sledgehammer and a mustache, and Deb makes the best boondoggle key chains in town. Sure, Uncle Rico tries to ruin Napoleon's life and makes him look like a freakin' idiot, but even if Napoleon's just had the worst day of his life, tomorrow he can get up and do whatever he f... more info>>

Good news: You don't have to sacrifice style just to pay your electric bill. Kathryn Finney, a.k.a. the Budget Fashionista, is the expert on all things chic and cheap. Now she opens up her Prada bag of shopping and style tips to make you fashionably frugal, with change to spare. It's as easy as 1-2-3! 1. Know your budget: Learn innovative, money-saving ways to increase your clothing funds. 2. Know your style: Get helpful hints from fashion insiders and use them to develop your own mode of self-e... more info>>

Aeschylus: A complete fifth-century Athenian, he was the creator of her proudest artistic achievement, tragedy. By using more than one actor he changed the form of plays from recited poetry to true dramatic dialogue, thereby making possible the sweeping grandeur of his great trilogy, The Oresteia. Sophocles: The most popular tragedian of the Golden Age, he expanded the scope of classic drama by his technical innovations and lyric intensity, leaving the world such masterpieces as Antigone and Oed... more info>>

In a world of extreme makeovers, this book is a thoughtful, adventure-filled, witty look at what the space we live in says about us, the pleasures of home renovation projects great and small, and how home renovation can change our lives. Few things define us as powerfully as the place where we live. The size and location of a house may reveal basic facts about our financial or social status, but it is the personal touches--a paint color or a homemade desk--that reflect our aspirations, our taste... more info>>

A child's very first word is a miraculous sound, the opening note in a lifelong symphony. Most parents never forget the moment. But that first word is soon followed by a second and a third, and by the age of three, children are typically learning ten new words every day and speaking in complete sentences. The process seems effortless, and for children, it is. But how exactly does it happen? How do children learn language? And why is it so much harder to do later in life? Drawing on cutting-edge ... more info>>

The most refreshingly candid celebrity memoir in years, from an actress who has always lived life on her own terms. Known to millions as psychiatrist Dr. Jennifer Melfi on HBO's hit series The Sopranos, a role for which she has received multiple Emmy, Golden Globe, and Screen Actors Guild nominations, Lorraine Bracco is one of the most recognizable actresses working today. A glamorous and intelligent presence on both the big and small screen, as well as on the Broadway stage, it's hard to imagin... more info>>

John Leguizamo defies easy categorization. Fans of his smash-hit one-man shows (Mambo Mouth, Spic-O-Rama, Freak, and Sexaholic) have gotten a glimpse into his life, but this book tells the whole story, taking readers on a journey from his childhood in Queens ("my father was a strict autocrat-totalitarian-despot-dictator-disciplinarian") to his current home at the top of the Hollywood pyramid--actor, director, producer, one of the highest-paid Latin actors in the world, with the clout to shape ev... more info>>

For more than a quarter century, Al Pacino has spoken freely and deeply with acclaimed journalist and bestselling author Lawrence Grobel on subjects as diverse as childhood, acting, and fatherhood. Here, for the first time, are the complete conversations and shared observations between the actor and the writer; the result is an intimate and revealing look at one of the most accomplished, and private, artists in the world. Pacino grew up sharing a three-room apartment in the Bronx with nine peopl... more info>>

A shimmering evocation, by turns intimate and panoramic, of one of the world's great cities, by its foremost writer. Orhan Pamuk was born in Istanbul and still lives in the family apartment building where his mother first held him in her arms. His portrait of his city is thus also a self-portrait, refracted by memory and the melancholy--or huzun--that all Istanbullus share: the sadness that comes of living amid the ruins of a lost empire. With cinematic fluidity, Pamuk moves from his glamorous, ... more info>>

Japanese animation, known as anime, has a firm hold on American pop culture. Often dismissed as fanciful entertainment, anime is much more than children's cartoons. Anime runs the gamut from historical epics to sci-fi sexual thrillers, portraying important social and cultural issues such as alienation, gender inequality, and teenage angst.

Do the arts mean? Do all the arts mean? Do they all mean in the same way? Does an art work mean in the same way in which a street sign means? Do all art works mean in a semiotically interesting way? Jackson Barry here uses a semiotic approach in clarifying the historical and cultural forces molding our world of sensorially elaborated "signs."

Francine Prose's life of Caravaggio evokes the genius of this great artist through a brilliant reading of his paintings. Caravaggio defied the aesthetic conventions of his time; his use of ordinary people, realistically portrayed--street boys, prostitutes, the poor, the aged--was a profound and revolutionary innovation that left its mark on generations of artists. His insistence on painting from nature, on rendering the emotional truth of experience, whether religious or secular, makes him an ar... more info>>

"It is a damn poor mind that can think of only one way to spell a word."--Andrew Jackson. Weird or wierd? Necessary or neccessary? Recomend or recommend? English spelling is fiendish, but that doesn't mean you can't have fun with it. Accomodating Brocolli in the Cemetary is at once a celebration of spelling and a solace to anyone who has ever struggled with the arcane rules of the English language. As amusing as he is informative, Vivian Cook thrills the reader with more than a hundred entries--... more info>>

An Italian village on a hilltop near the Adriatic coast, a decaying palazzo facing the sea, and in the basement, cobwebbed and dusty, lit by a single bulb, an archive unknown to scholars. Here, a young graduate student from Rome, Francesca Cappelletti, makes a discovery that inspires a search for a work of art of incalculable value, a painting lost for almost two centuries. The artist was Caravaggio, a master of the Italian Baroque. He was a genius, a revolutionary painter, and a man beset by pe... more info>>

In 1994, Eric Clapton came across a Wayne Henderson guitar in a recording studio and decided on the spot that he had to have one. Rarer than Stradivarius violins, these musical works of art are built from near-extinct Brazilian Rosewood, Appalachian spruce, black ebony, and fine mother-of-pearl. With Henderson's keen ear for the vibrations of each piece of wood he uses, each note that comes out of them has the power of a cannon and the sweetness of maple syrup. In Clapton's Guitar, Allen St. Joh... more info>>

When it was released in 1955, the film Rebel Without a Cause had a revolutionary impact on moviemaking and youth culture, virtually giving birth to our concept of the American teenager. For the first time, Live Fast, Die Young tells the complete story of the explosive making of Rebel, a film that has rocked every generation since its release. Set against a backdrop of the Atomic Age and an old Hollywood studio system on the verge of collapse, it vividly evokes the cataclysmic, immensely influent... more info>>

In Now Playing at the Valencia, the author of such bestselling novels as Havana and Pale Horse Coming has compiled his favorite movie reviews written between 1997 and 2003, bringing to the discussion the passionate feelings for cinema he discovered in the '50s, a time when genres were forming, mesmerizing stars played unforgettable characters, and enduring classics were made. While filmmaking has changed tremendously since Hunter first frequented the Valencia, the view from the fifteenth row, an... more info>>

Love-Lies-Bleeding, Don DeLillo's third play, is a daring, profoundly compassionate story about life, death, art and human connection. Three people gather to determine the fate of the man who sits in a straight-backed chair saying nothing. He is Alex Macklin, who gave up easel painting to do land art in the southwestern desert, and he is seventy now, helpless in the wake of a second stroke. The people around him are the bearers of a complicated love, his son, his young wife, the older woman--his... more info>>

Oedipus the King; Antigone; Electra; Ajax Trachinian Women; Philoctetes; Oedipus at Colonus The greatest of the Greek tragedians, Sophocles wrote over 120 plays, surpassing his older contemporary Aeschylus and the younger Euripides in literary output as well as in the number of prizes awarded his works. Only the seven plays in this volume have survived intact. From the complex drama of Antigone, the heroine willing to sacrifice life and love for a principle, to the mythic doom embodied by Oedipu... more info>>

Complete with behind-the-scenes diary entries from the set of Vachon's best-known films, Shooting to Kill offers all the satisfaction of an intimate memoir from the front lines of independent film-making, from one of its most successful agent provocateurs--and survivors. Hailed by the New York Times as the "godmother to the politically committed film" and by Interview as a true "auteur producer," Christine Vachon has made her name with such bold, controversial, and commercially successful films ... more info>>

In the mid-1990s, two major Hollywood studios, Warner Bros. and Paramount Pictures, each launched their own broadcast television network with the hope of becoming the fifth major player in an industry long dominated by ABC, CBS, NBC, and, more recently, Fox. Despite the odds against them, the WB and UPN went on to alter the landscape of primetime television, only to then merge as the CW network in 2006--each a casualty of conflicting personalities, relentless competition, and a basic failure to ... more info>>

"These are the rules I've picked up along the way to help me remain invisible when I'm writing a book, to help me show rather than tell what's taking place in the story."--Elmore Leonard. For aspiring writers and lovers of the written word, this concise guide breaks down the writing process with simplicity and clarity. From adjectives and exclamation points to dialect and hoopetedoodle, Elmore Leonard explains what to avoid, what to aspire to, and what to do when it sounds like "writing" (rewrit... more info>>