Books like Marlene Dietrich — picked by fans

When Brian De Palma agreed to allow Julie Salamon unlimited access to the film production of Tom Wolfe's best-selling book The Bonfire of the Vanities , both director and journalist must have felt like they were on to something big. How could it lose? But instead Salamon got a front-row seat at the Hollywood disaster of the decade. She shadowed the film from its early stages through the last of the eviscerating reviews, and met everyone from the actors to the technicians to the studio executives. They'd all signed on for a blockbuster, but there was a sense of impending… show more.

Irresistible and authoritative, The Movie Musical! is an in-depth look at the singing, dancing, happy-making world of Hollywood musicals, beautifully illustrated in color and black-and-white--an essential text for anyone who's ever laughed, cried, or sung along at the movies.

Leading film historian Jeanine Basinger reveals, with her trademark wit and zest, the whole story of the Hollywood musical--in the most telling, most incisive, most detailed, most gorgeously illustrated book of her long and remarkable career.
     From Fred Astaire, whom she adores, to La La Land, which she deplores, Basinger examines a dazzling array of stars, strategies, talents, and innovations in… show more.

When the head of Columbia Pictures, David Begelman, got caught forging Cliff Robertson's name on a $10,000 check, it seemed, at first, like a simple case of embezzlement. It wasn't. The incident was the tip of the iceberg, the first hint of a scandal that shook Hollywood and rattled Wall Street. Soon powerful studio executives were engulfed in controversy; careers derailed; reputations died; and a ruthless, take-no-prisoners corporate power struggle for the world-famous Hollywood dream factory began.

First published in 1982, this now classic story of greed and lies in Tinseltown appears here with a stunning final chapter on Begelman's… show more.

'Lion of Hollywood' is the definitive biography of Louis B Mayer, the chief of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer - MGM - the biggest and most successful film studio of Hollywood's Golden Age.

An immigrant from tsarist Russia, Mayer began in the film business as an exhibitor but soon migrated to where the action and the power were, Hollywood. Through sheer force of energy and foresight, he turned his own modest studio into MGM, where he became the most powerful man in Hollywood, bending the film business to his will. He made legendary films, including the fabulous MGM musicals, and he… show more.

The New York Times bestselling author of Eyes That Kiss in the Corners, Joanna Ho, delivers a poignant picture book biography about the musician Yo-Yo Ma, immigration, and using music to build bridges.

Winner of the Ezra Jack Keats Award Honor * Featured in Book Riot's Must Read September 2021 List

"By examining the life of Ma, whose story resonates with courage, persistence, and unity, Ho inspires readers to break barriers of their own." -Horn Book (starred review)

"Everyone can benefit from Ho's message of music bringing calm and peace to the world." -Booklist

"Hopeful and lovely." -Kirkus

"An ambitious… show more.

"In her long and extraordinary career, Cicely Tyson has not only succeeded as an actor, she has shaped the course of history." -President Barack Obama, 2016 Presidential Medal of Freedom ceremony

"Just as I Am is my truth. It is me, plain and unvarnished, with the glitter and garland set aside. In these pages, I am indeed Cicely, the actress who has been blessed to grace the stage and screen for six decades. Yet I am also the church girl who once rarely spoke a word. I am the teenager who sought solace in the verses of the old hymn… show more.

Everyone has a purpose. And, according to Oprah Winfrey, 'Your real job in life is to figure out as soon as possible what that is, who you are meant to be, and begin to honour your calling in the best way possible.'

That journey starts right here.

In her book, The Path Made Clear, Oprah shares what she sees as a guide for activating your deepest vision of yourself, offering the framework for creating not just a life of success, but one of significance. The book's ten chapters are organized to help you recognize the important milestones along the road… show more.

When Florence Finch died at the age of 101, few of her Ithaca, NY neighbors knew that this unassuming Filipina native was a Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient, whose courage and sacrifice were unsurpassed in the Pacific War against Japan. Long accustomed to keeping her secrets close in service of the Allies, she waited fifty years to reveal the story of those dramatic and harrowing days to her own children.

Florence was an unlikely warrior. She relied on her own intelligence and fortitude to survive on her own from the age of seven, facing bigotry as a mixed-race mestiza with… show more.

When the disarmingly charming and ruthlessly domineering Geneva Holloway lets her star temperament get out of hand, Jimmy Hoy, a writer for the "Geneva Holloway Show," joins with the show's other writers in plotting the perfect revenge

Sophie, a twenty-something Jim Morrison groupie gliding through a golden existence in L.A., and Lola, a German immigrant who has settled in Hollywood, know that while Los Angeles is constantly changing, it is essentially eternal. The two women dazzle - one with the promises of youth, the other with the fulfilment of nostalgia - as they wend their way through the pink sunsets and the palm trees of Los Angeles.

Living out their addictively decadent lives, Sophie and Lola are cult writer Babitz's literary embodiment of the iconic L.A. Woman - more than in part inspired by her own wild… show more.