Entertainment Science

Phonopoetics tells the neglected story of early "talking records" and their significance for literature, from the 1877 invention of the phonograph to some of the first recorded performances of modernist works. The book challenges assumptions of much contemporary criticism by taking the recorded oral performance as its primary object of analysis and by exploring the historically specific convergences between audio recording technologies, media formats, generic forms, and the institutions and practices surrounding the literary.

At the height of the ideological antagonism of the Cold War, the US State Department unleashed an unexpected tool in its battle against Communism: jazz. From 1956 through the late 1970s, America dispatched its finest jazz musicians to the far corners of the earth, from Iraq to India, from the Congo to the Soviet Union, in order to win the hearts and minds of the Third World and to counter perceptions of American racism.

Musician and naturalist Bernie Krause is one of the world's leading experts in natural sound, and he's spent his life discovering and recording nature's rich chorus. Searching far beyond our modern world's honking horns and buzzing machinery, he has sought out the truly wild places that remain, where natural soundscapes exist virtually unchanged from when the earliest humans first inhabited the earth.

Kase Shackley is an embittered hover pilot still reeling from the night his sister died in his arms. He's a screw up in every sense, so when a pilot nearly dies on his watch, he faces serious charges. Seeking to clear his name, he flies a ragtag crew to a lost and dangerous land from which they might never return. If only he didn't have to work with the infuriating bookshop girl who insulted him with Shakespeare

With her last living breath, Tenley "Ten" Lockwood made her choice and picked her realm in the Everlife. Now, as the war between Troika and Myriad rages, she must face the consequences. Because Ten possesses a rare supernatural ability to absorb and share light, the Powers That Be have the highest expectations for her future - and the enemy wants her neutralized. Fighting to save her Secondlife, she must learn about her realm from the ground up while launching her first mission.

When Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stepped onto the lunar surface in July of 1969, they wore spacesuits made by Playtex: 21 layers of fabric, each with a distinct yet interrelated function, custom-sewn for them by seamstresses whose usual work was fashioning bras and girdles. This book is the story of that spacesuit. It is a story of the triumph over the military-industrial complex by the International Latex Corporation, best known by its consumer brand of "Playtex" - a victory of elegant softness over engineered hardness, of adaptation over cybernetics.

Seventeen-year-old Bristol has never had a problem with the ghosts that float in and out of her life. It's all the people with a pulse that confuse her. After the death of her parents, Bristol's life is thrown into chaos, and she's forced to move to Spirit, a small town where shadows are stirring. As she learns to navigate her new school and figures out how to keep her psychic abilities secret from her family, Bristol comes face to face with the boy who makes a regular appearance in her dreams....

Jonathan Goldsmith has many answers to that question. For years he was a struggling actor in New York and Los Angeles, with experiences that included competing for roles with Dustin Hoffman, getting shot by John Wayne, drinking with Tennessee Williams, and sailing the high seas with Fernando Lamas, never mind romancing many lovely ladies along the way. However, it wasn't all fun and games for Jonathan. Frustrated with his career, he left Hollywood for other adventures in business and life.

Just when Claudia thought she'd come out on top, she's slammed with ominous dreams and a troubling reunion: Raul, one of her most prominent clients when she was a sex worker, has arrived at the academy! In her previous life, he offered to pay off her debts and free her from the brothel, but this time, he may be the mastermind fanning the flames of international conflict. Claudia's prepared to bring her tricks of the trade to the political stage--and she'll have Raul dancing in the palm of her hand in no time!

"The meaning of life is the most urgent of questions", said the existentialist thinker Albert Camus. And no less a philosopher than Woody Allen has wondered: "How is it possible to find meaning in a finite world, given my waist and shirt size?" The essays in Movies and the Meaning of Life look at popular and cult movies, examining their assumptions and insights on meaning-of-life questions....

Composed from exhaustive research and hundreds of personal interviews, the Stay Awhile and Listen series divulges the fated meeting that brought the two Blizzards together, the clashes that tore them apart, and their transformation from grassroots democracy to corporate empire. At the center of it all - Diablo, a hack-and-slash adventure through the darkest recesses of Hell that changed online gaming forever.

In 1951 George Jorgensen, an American man of 26, left for Denmark and returned a year later as the first world-renowned transsexual, Christine Jorgensen. In her own personable style, Jorgensen offers a firsthand account of her ground-breaking life. "Nature made a mistake," she wrote, "which I have corrected."

Few could explain, let alone seek out, a career in criticism. Yet what A. O. Scott shows in Better Living Through Criticism is that we are, in fact, all critics: because critical thinking informs almost every aspect of artistic creation, of civil action, of interpersonal life. With penetrating insight and warm humor, Scott shows that while individual critics - himself included - can make mistakes and find flaws where they shouldn't, criticism as a discipline is one of the noblest, most creative and urgent activities of modern existence.

It's swimming season! But Ryuuji's hopes of a relaxing dip are shattered when another spat between Taiga and Ami escalates into a challenge--a no-holds barred swimming contest! The prize? The winner gets to claim Ryuuji for the summer! Ryuuji's none too keen on being spirited away by Ami, but if he wants Taiga to win, he's going to have to teach her to swim from scratch! And what happens if Taiga doesn't even want to win?

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?'

Flula Borg's fascination with America and its "peoples" have warmed hearts nationwide. A frequent guest of Conan O’Brien, the German-born actor and multi-talented entertainer (think Sacha Baron Cohen's Borat crossed with Billy Eichner) fell in love with the United States upon his first visit as a young boy. Throughout his career, he has succeeded in regaling audiences with stories from his outlandish travel exploits while paying homage to his German upbringing, culminating in a personality that is supercharged and charmingly wholesome.

In the final book in the series, Lief, Barda and Jasmine must find the heir to the kingdom's throne. They know that only the true heir can use the belt's magic to overthrow the evil Shadow Lord. But the heir has been in deepest hiding since birth and only the belt can reveal the hiding place. Shock follows shock as the Deltora Quest rushes to its thundering climax and the fury and the power of the Shadow Lord himself threaten to destroy its three heroes and everything they love.

Considered by many to be a founder of Afrofuturism, Sun Ra - a.k.a. Herman Blount - was a composer, keyboardist, bandleader, philosopher, entrepreneur, poet, and self-proclaimed extraterrestrial from Saturn. He recorded over 200 albums with his Arkestra, which, dressed in Egypto-space costumes, played everything from boogie-woogie and swing to fusion and free jazz.

The Tardis lands in a forbidding castle in a time of religious upheaval. The old god has been overthrown, and all heretics are to be slaughtered. Obviously it isn't the sort of thing which would happen there every day - just every few years or so. And when the Doctor and Frobisher are hailed as messengers from heaven, they quickly become vital to opposing factions in their struggle for power. But will they be merely the acolytes of the new order - or will they be made gods themselves?

Ascenti: Humans Opening to AI features a diverse group of professionals, known as “creatives,” who specialize in visual art, writing, photography, audiobook performance, music, and computer games. These individuals experimented by inspiring AI apps to generate works based on prompts derived from their original artworks and writings, then interpreted AI’s outcomes. Some of the creatives found that AI provided positive solutions to overcome visual or other challenges they face. Others uncovered methods where AI supplemented or amplified their artistic visions.