Showing results by publisher "Tantor Audio" in Arts & Entertainment

Martin Torgoff details the rise of early drug culture in America by weaving together the disparate elements that formed this new segment of the American fabric. Channeling his decades of writing experience, Torgoff connects the birth of jazz in New Orleans, the first drug laws, Louis Armstrong, the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, swing, Lester Young, Billie Holiday, the Savoy Ballroom, Charlie Parker, the birth of bebop, the rise of the Beat Generation, and the launch of heroin in Harlem.

Cynthia Saltzman's Plunder recounts the fate of Paolo Veronese's Wedding Feast at Cana, a vast, sublime canvas that the French, under the command of the young Napoleon Bonaparte, tore from a wall of the monastery of San Giorgio Maggiore, on an island in Venice, in 1797. Painted in 1563 during the Renaissance, the picture was immediately hailed as a masterpiece. In 1801, the Veronese went on exhibition at the Louvre, the new public art museum founded during the Revolution in the former palace of the French kings.

Jaime Primak Sullivan, a Jersey-bred, tough-as-nails PR maven - and unlikely transplant in an upscale suburb of Birmingham, Alabama - has spent her entire life crossing the line: whether she's pushing the boundaries of what proper Southern ladies consider to be "polite behavior" or literally traversing the Mason-Dixon line in the name of love. She isn't afraid to say what everyone is thinking when it comes to love, sex, friendship, and many other topics that are all too often sugar-coated in polite Southern company.

Operation Iraqi Freedom Veteran and former host of All Access, DC Comics' web show, Jason Inman, discusses the influence war has had on some of the most memorable superheroes in comics.

The great pyramids of Giza have intrigued humanity for thousands of years. Questions about the construction and the purpose of these majestic monuments have existed since the middle period of ancient Egyptian civilization; in the sixth century B.C., Herodotus was the first of generations of explorers to travel to Egypt in an attempt to unlock their secrets. Recent cutting-edge research has uncovered information, unimaginable to previous generations, about how and why they were built.

From a young age, Molly Crabapple had the eye of an artist and the spirit of a radical. After a restless childhood on New York's Long Island, she left America to see Europe and the Near East, a young artist plunging into unfamiliar cultures, notebook always in hand, drawing what she observed. Returning to New York City after 9/11 to study art, she posed nude for sketch artists and sketchy photographers, danced burlesque, and modeled for the world-famous Suicide Girls.

In addition to founding Twisted Sister, a world-famous heavy metal band that has sold more than 20 million records worldwide, Jay Jay French is one of the top entrepreneurs in entertainment. After taking over as manager in the 70s, French developed Twisted Sister into the most heavily licensed heavy metal band in history.

Fifty years after he coined the iconic phrase "float like a butterfly, sting like a bee", Drew "Bundini" Brown remains one of boxing's most mysterious and misunderstood figures. His impact on the sport and the culture at large is undeniable. Cornerman and confidant to two of the greatest fighters ever - Sugar Ray Robinson and Muhammad Ali - Brown lived an extraordinary American life.

That Thin, Wild Mercury Sound is the definitive treatment of Bob Dylan's magnum opus, Blonde on Blonde, not only providing the most extensive account of the sessions that produced the trailblazing album but also setting the record straight on much of the misinformation that has surrounded the story of how the masterpiece came to be made. Including many new details and eyewitness accounts, as well as keen insight into the Nashville cats who helped Dylan reach rare artistic heights, it explores the lasting impact of rock's first double album.

In the half-century between 1831 and 1881 three massive obelisks left Egypt for new lands. Prior to these journeys, the last large obelisk moved was the Vatican obelisk in 1586—one of the great engineering achievements of the Renaissance. Roman emperors moved more than a dozen, but left no records of how they did it.

Brian Jones is a forensic, thrilling account of Jones' life, which for the first time details his pioneering achievements and messy unraveling. With more than 120 new interviews, Trynka offers countless new revelations and sets straight the tall tales that have long marred Jones' legacy. His story is a gripping battle between creativity and ambition, between self-sabotage and betrayal. It's all here: the girlfriends, the drugs, and some of the greatest music of all time.

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.

With an in-depth perspective, Connery, Sean Connery defines and distinguishes the iconic star's life and career before, during, and after his most famous role.

Warner Bros. Studio is best known as a media conglomerate with a broad range of intellectual property, spanning movies, TV shows, and streaming content. Despite popular interest in the origins of this empire, the core of the Warner Bros. saga cannot be found in its commercial successes. It is the story of four brothers—Harry, Albert, Sam, and Jack—whose vision for Hollywood helped shape the world of entertainment.

A rich, penetrating memoir about the author's relationship with a flawed but influential figure—the painter Lucian Freud—and the satisfactions and struggles of a life lived through art.

The world loves Sheriff Andy Taylor. Yet the actor who played him was intensely private. Here, for the first time, is the real Andy Griffith, his career and life defined by the island that made him in the years soon after World War II. He achieved his artistic breakthrough while acting in The Lost Colony drama on Roanoke Island, then spent the rest of his life repaying the island for giving him that start. Here, in unique closeup, is Andy of Manteo, reveling in wild, watery and loving ways with his fellow islanders.

In the summer of 1981, Mark Brown was a teenager working at a 7-11 store when he wasn't rehearsing with his high school band, Phantasy. Come fall, Brown, now called BrownMark, was onstage with Prince at the Los Angeles Coliseum, opening for the Rolling Stones in front of 90,000 people. Raw, wry, real, this book takes us from his musical awakening as a boy in Minneapolis to the cold call from Prince at 19, from touring the world with The Revolution and performing in Purple Rain to inking his own contract with Motown.

Avengers assemble! Tackling intriguing dilemmas and issues that no single great philosopher can withstand, this powerful book enlists the brainpower of an A-list team of history's most prominent thinkers to explore the themes behind the action of Marvel Comics' all-star superhero team.

Film historian David Thomson, leads us into this very delicate subject. While unpacking classics such as Seven, Strangers on a Train, The Conformist, The Godfather, and The Shining, he offers a disconcerting sense of how the form of movies makes us accomplices in this sinister narrative process. Murder and the Movies admits us into what Thomson calls "a warped triangle": the creator working out a compelling death; the killer doing his and her best; and the entranced spectator trying to cling to life and a proper sense of decency.

This Very Short Introduction recounts the history of American culture and its creation by diverse social and ethnic groups. In doing so, it emphasizes the historic role of culture in relation to broader social, political, and economic developments. Across the lines of race, class, gender, and sexuality, as well as language, region, and religion, diverse Americans have forged a national culture with a global reach, inventing stories that have shaped a national identity and an American way of life.