Politics Entertainment

Photographer and Grateful Dead insider Rosie McGee narrates her memoir, telling dozens of previously-untold stories of living, traveling and working with the Dead during their first decade as a band. Not just for Deadheads or baby boomers - this audiobook is for anyone seeking a woman's intimate account of the San Francisco rock music community in the Sixties, rare in a field of such books most often written by men.

This is the first academic study of sneakers and the subculture that surrounds them. Since the 1980s, American sneaker enthusiasts, popularly known as 'sneakerheads' or 'sneakerholics', have created a distinctive identity for themselves, while sneaker manufacturers such as Reebok, Puma and Nike have become global fashion brands. How have sneakers come to gain this status and what makes them fashionable?

This combination of serious artistic engagement with warmth and clarity of prose revels in the experiences and pleasures of art and the body, identity, and community.

Julie, 28, Chicago. All Eddie had were her photos - her green eyes and her wayward posture. Who made the first move doesn’t matter...or does it? Off jump, he could tell she was bad news and a great catch. But how to bring it to the real world? That’s what a whirlwind vacation in St. Barth’s is for. Follow along as one man tries to turn his supreme confidence and complete vulnerability into three little words.

Investigative journalist and number-one New York Times best-selling author Ian Halperin reveals the true and untold story about this larger-than-life and often outrageous figure. From his childhood in Austria to his rise as a star of American conservative politics, the story of ArnoldSchwarzenegger's life reads like the script of a Hollywood B-movie penned by Horatio Alger.

Chairs. Neat people. Ugliness. War. Over six decades of intrepid reporting and elegant essays, Andy Rooney has proven a shrewd cultural analyst. Andy Rooney: 60 Years of Wisdom and Wit brings together the best of more than a half-century of work (including long-out-of-print pieces from his early years) in an unforgettable celebration of one of America’s funniest men. Like Mark Twain, Finley Peter Dunne (Mister Dooley) and Will Rogers, Andy Rooney is a classic chronicler of America, a writer for the ages.

When musicians in the New York folk scene of the 1960s grew tired of city life, they decided to "get it together in the country". They headed for Woodstock - not to the site of the infamous music festival of 1969 but to the Catskills, to Bearsville, to Woodstock proper. Counterculture revolutionaries like Janis Joplin, Richie Havens, and Paul Butterfield got "back to the land", turning the once sleepy hollow into a funky Shangri-La.

A memoir by Academy Award-winning actress Lee Grant, detailing her starring roles in Valley of the Dolls and Shampoo, her 12 years on the Hollywood blacklist, and a singularly unpredictable life.

"A diamond is forever." Who among us doesn't recognize this slogan and, with it, the fascination that diamonds hold in our collective imagination as emblems of royalty, glamor, and eternal love? Rachelle Bergstein's cultural biography illuminates the enticing, often surprising story of our society's enduring obsession with diamonds - and the people who have worked tirelessly to ensure their continued allure.

"Creepy crawling" was the Manson Family's practice of secretly entering someone's home and, without harming anyone, leaving only a trace of evidence that they had been there, some reminder that the sanctity of the private home had been breached. Now, author Jeffrey Melnick reveals just how much the Family creepy crawled their way through Los Angeles in the sixties and then on through American social, political, and cultural life for close to fifty years, firmly lodging themselves in our minds.

Political provocateur Bill Maher tells it like it is in a useful and hilarious guide for the many Americans who want to do more here at home to help in the war effort, but are at a loss as to how. Says Maher, "Traveling the country, I find that people want to do more here at home, but are at a loss as to what. Even when the government issues a Terrorism Advisory, it's maddeningly vague - 'Terrorist alert today! Code Burnt Orange!' 'And what?' I always want to ask, "Bring a sweater?'"

Many people say that drugs killed Whitney Houston. Yes, drugs were a part of her downfall, but they were only symptoms, the obvious evidence of what was actually an emotional addiction to where she came from. At a very deep level, an unconscious level, she was more powerfully attached to beliefs, images, and attitudes that kept her dependently loyal to and dragged down by the insecurity of her earliest childhood. This unconscious loyalty is what ultimately killed her.

Philip Gardiner has spent his life on a crusade uncovering the truth behind myths, legends and ancient mysteries. Author of the best selling Secrets of the Serpent and The Ark, the Shroud and Mary, the author now delves into another aspect of the human enigma with Secret Societies. In Secret Societies, Gardiner's quest is to uncover truths and secrets of the world's most powerful men in history.

Low-rise jeans, butterfly clips, The Lizzie McGuire Movie, and Paris Hilton’s nights out. The early 2000s were a time of major moments in fashion, media, celebrity culture, and especially music. Artists such as Britney Spears, Avril Lavigne, Taylor Swift, Rihanna, and Beyoncé were leading the charge—their success not only producing a new respect for female artists, but for pop stardom itself. Nora Princiotti examines how these artists redefined the role of the pop star within the music industry and culture more broadly, and ultimately set the stage for the women who top the charts today.

A beloved folk singer presents an impassioned account of the fall and rise of the small American towns she cherishes. Dubbed by the New Yorker as "one of America's very best singer-songwriters", Dar Williams has made her career not in stadiums, but touring America's small towns. She has played their venues, composed in their coffee shops, and drunk in their bars. She has seen these communities struggle, but also seen them thrive in the face of postindustrial identity crises.

Media and law enforcement work at cross-purposes. Law enforcement want to solve a case as fast as possible and put the guilty behind bars. The media want a case to drag on as long as humanly possible and do all they can to extricate every last bit of drama, drop by bloody drop, in order to hold the attention of the millions of viewers who have gotten hooked. Law enforcement must abide by rules. The media make their own rules, and even then break them or find ways to work loopholes into them.

A welcome surprise: more than 50 prose pieces, gathered together for the first time, by one of America's most revered and admired novelists and short-story writers, whose articles, essays, and cultural commentary - appearing in the New York Review of Books, the New York Times Book Review, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Guardian, Harper's Magazine, and elsewhere - have been parsing the political, artistic, and media idiom for the last three decades.

Grammy Nominee for Best Spoken Comedy Album
Once again there's good news for those of us who rage at the evening news, shake our heads at Washington's business-as-usual, or watch as politicians carom helplessly between political crises and sex scandals: Dennis Miller is back performing his fourth installment of hilarious observations, I Rant, Therefore I Am. More from Miller.

FEAT DESC

The true, inspiring tales in Random Acts of Kindness spotlight ordinary people from ages nine to 100 who have found unique ways to show compassion and make a difference. Some of these stories will warm your heart and make you laugh; others will make you smile; and a few might make you cry—in a good way—with the joy of knowing there is so much goodness and generosity in the world.