|
Search Results:
|
Displaying records 21 through 30 of 4000 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
Price: $14.99
|
|
Sale: $8.51
|
| |
|
Manufacturer: Thomas Nelson
|
|
Number of Items: 1
|
| |
|
|
|
Binding: Paperback
|
|
Author: Ron Hall::Denver Moore
|
|
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
|
|
Dewey Decimal Number: 920
|
|
Publication Date: 2008-03-11
|
|
Reading Level: 224
|
|
|
|
Description: A dangerous, homeless drifter who grew up picking cotton in virtual slavery. An upscale art dealer accustomed to the world of Armani and Chanel. A gutsy woman with a stubborn dream. A story so incredible no novelist would dare dream it. It begins outside a burning plantation hut in Louisiana . . . and an East Texas honky-tonk . . . and, without a doubt, in the heart of God. It unfolds in a Hollywood hacienda . . . an upscale New York gallery . . . a downtown dumpster . . . a Texas ranch. Gritty with pain and betrayal and brutality, this true story also shines with an unexpected, life-changing love.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
Price: $25.95
|
|
Sale: $13.78
|
| |
|
Manufacturer: William Morrow
|
|
Number of Items: 1
|
| |
|
|
|
Binding: Hardcover
|
|
Author: John Grogan
|
|
Publisher: William Morrow
|
|
Dewey Decimal Number: 070.92
|
|
Publication Date: 2008-10-21
|
|
Reading Level: 352
|
|
|
Description: Finding your place in the world can be the longest trip home . . . In his debut bestseller, Marley & Me, John Grogan showed how a dog can become an extraordinary presence in the life of one family. Now, in his highly anticipated follow-up, Grogan again works his magic, bringing us the story of what came first. Before there was Marley, there was a gleefully mischievous boy growing up in a devout Catholic home outside Detroit in the 1960s and '70s. Despite his loving parents' best efforts, John's attempts to meet their expectations failed spectacularly. Whether it was his disastrous first confession, the use of his hobby telescope to take in the bronzed Mrs. Selahowski sunbathing next door, the purloined swigs of sacramental wine, or, as he got older, the fumbled attempts to sneak contraband past his father and score with girls beneath his mother's vigilant radar, John was figuring out that the faith and fervor that came so effortlessly to his parents somehow had eluded him. And then one day, a strong-willed young woman named Jenny walked into his life. As their love grew, John began the painful, funny, and poignant journey into adulthood—away from his parents' orbit and into a life of his own. It would take a fateful call and the onset of illness to lead him on the final leg of his journey—the trip home again. The Longest Trip Home is a book for any son or daughter who has sought to forge an identity at odds with their parents', and for every parent who has struggled to understand the values of their children. It is a book about mortality and grace, spirit and faith, and the powerful love of family. With his trademark blend of humor and pathos that made Marley & Me beloved by millions, John Grogan traces the universal journey each of us must take to find our unique place in the world. Filled with revelation and laugh-out-loud humor, The Longest Trip Home will capture your heart—but mostly it will make you want to reach out to those you love. Questions for John Grogan  Q:When did you decide to write about your childhood and your relationship with your parents as the subject of your next book? A: For many years I knew I wanted to write about my childhood. I was born in 1957, so I was growing up in the middle of all the turmoil and social unrest of the 1960s and early 1970s. It was a pretty eventful time. But that’s just the first section of The Longest Trip Home. It was only in the last few years that I began seeing the book as more than a growing-up memoir. My childhood was part of the story, but of equal importance was the often funny and sometimes painful struggle I made as a young adult to break free from my parents’ influence and find my own place in the world. I realized pretty quickly my courtship of my future wife, Jenny, was central to this part of the story. And then, as I entered middle age and my parents their sunset years, I saw that time was running out to reconcile and reconnect with them. I ended up writing the book in three parts: Growing Up, Breaking Away, and Coming Home. Q: How do you think readers will relate to your story? A: Well, we all belong to families. We all have to deal with those messy, complicated, often infuriating dynamics that it seems no family is without. All of us, too, must find our way free of our parents’ orbit and to our own place in the world. And we all must come to terms at some point with our parents’ mortality--and our own. After I wrote Marley & Me and was going around the country talking about it, countless readers came up to me and said nearly the identical thing: “It was as if you were writing about my life.” I hope readers will find the same relevance and touch points in The Longest Trip Home. Q: Do you ever visit your old neighborhood? A: I go back at least once or twice a year. My mother resides in a nursing home not far away, and my family still owns our childhood house in Harbor Hills. The neighborhood has changed dramatically in the thirty years since I left home. Nearly every waterfront home --lovely in their day but considered modest by today’s standards--has been torn down and replaced with opulent mansions. The houses away from the water, such as the ones in which my friends Tommy, Rock, and Sack grew up, are largely unchanged, but the cars parked in the driveways, mostly European, are a far cry from the made-in-America Chevrolets and Fords that were the order of the day when I was a kid. My childhood home has changed not at all; it’s almost like a museum relic. Same kitchen cupboards, same linoleum floor, same bathroom tile. I cannot visit the old homestead or walk those neighborhood streets without being flooded with memories, a lot of good ones and some bittersweet. Thomas Wolfe was right: you can never go home again. Not easily, at least. Q: Your parents were tremendously devoted to each other, and yet they sound like they were definitely a case of opposites attracting. How were they different? A: My father was shy, quiet, and bashful. He was serious and meticulous and a horrible dancer. My mother was just the opposite, gregarious, funny, spunky, the life of any party, and light on her feet. Mom loved to pull pranks and tell stories; Dad was incapable of teasing someone and loved to listen to her stories. She was in bed before ten o’clock most nights; he seldom hit the sack before one a.m. Dad would hang a picture on the wall by measuring to the thirty-second of an inch and using a level. Mom would squint through one eye and drive a nail in wherever the spirit led her. But they both had generous and kind hearts, and they shared a deep, life-long devotion to their faith and to God. As the expression goes, the family that prays together stays together. For my parents, that certainly was the case. Their faith was the pillar that supported their marriage for nearly six decades. Q: How did your parents influence you as a parent? What life lessons did you learn from them? A: Growing up, I never once doubted my parents’ love for me. Even though the words “I love you” were seldom spoken in our house, especially by the men, there also was no question about that love. Their actions, their concern, their worry, their amusement at their children’s antics--even some of the more egregious ones--all spoke to their strong love for each other and their children. And it was an unconditional love. Even at times when I knew I had disappointed them deeply, I never wondered about their love for me. They taught me that every child deserves the security of knowing he or she is loved unconditionally. As a parent, I’m trying to follow in their footsteps that way. Q: Your father wasn’t able to witness your success. What do you think he would have thought? A: My father died in December 2004, while Marley & Me was still in the manuscript stage. Dad was always the biggest fan of my work, even my first college internship at a community weekly paper called, of all things, The Spinal Column. He religiously clipped and saved my newspaper columns and magazine articles. I know how proud he would be of me as an author. At the same time, I am certain I could not have written The Longest Trip Home while he was still alive. As I’ve said, I believe you shouldn’t tell a story unless you can tell it honestly and openly. If I knew my father would be reading it, I don’t think I could have done that.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
Price: $26.95
|
|
Sale: $14.00
|
| |
|
Manufacturer: Crown Business
|
|
Number of Items: 1
|
| |
|
|
|
Binding: Hardcover
|
|
Author: T. Boone Pickens
|
|
Publisher: Crown Business
|
|
Edition: 1
|
|
Dewey Decimal Number: 338.7622338092
|
|
Publication Date: 2008-09-02
|
|
Reading Level: 272
|
|
|
Description: With a Plan for Reducing U.S. Oil Dependency
It’s never too late to top your personal best.
Now eighty years old, T. Boone Pickens is a legendary figure in the business world. Known as the “Oracle of Oil” because of his uncanny ability to predict the direction of fuel prices, he built Mesa Petroleum, one of the largest independent oil companies in the United States, from a $2,500 investment. In the 1980s, Pickens became a household name when he executed a series of unsolicited buyout bids for undervalued oil companies, in the process reinventing the notion of shareholders’ rights. Even his failures were successful in that they forced risk-averse managers to reconsider the way they did business.
When Pickens left Mesa at age sixty-eight after a spectacular downward spiral in the company’s profits, many counted him out. Indeed, what followed for him was a painful divorce, clinical depression, a temporary inability to predict the movement of energy prices, and the loss of 90 percent of his investing capital. But Pickens was far from out.
From that personal and professional nadir, Pickens staged one of the most impressive comebacks in the industry, turning his investment fund’s remaining $3 million into $8 billion in profit in just a few years. That made him, at age seventy-seven, the world’s second-highest-paid hedge fund manager. But he wasn’t done yet. Today, Pickens is making some of the world’s most colossal energy bets. If he has his way, most of America’s cars will eventually run on natural gas, and vast swaths of the nation’s prairie land will become places where wind can be harnessed for power generation. Currently no less bold than he was decades ago when he single-handedly transformed America’s oil industry, Pickens is staking billions on the conviction that he knows what’s coming. In this book, he spells out that future in detail, not only presenting a comprehensive plan for American energy independence but also providing a fascinating glimpse into key resources such as water—yet another area where he is putting billions on the line.
From a businessman who is extraordinarily humble yet is considered one of the world’s most visionary, The First Billion Is the Hardest is both a riveting account of a life spent pulling off improbable triumphs and a report back from the front of the global energy and natural-resource wars—of vital interest to anyone who has a stake in America’s future.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
Price: $25.95
|
|
Sale: $14.37
|
| |
|
Manufacturer: William Morrow
|
|
Number of Items: 1
|
| |
|
|
|
Binding: Hardcover
|
|
Author: Maureen Mccormick
|
|
Publisher: William Morrow
|
|
Dewey Decimal Number: 791.45028092
|
|
Publication Date: 2008-10-01
|
|
Reading Level: 288
|
|
|
Description: Marcia! Marcia! Marcia! Marcia Brady, eldest daughter on television's The Brady Bunch, had it all—style, looks, boys, brains, and talent. No wonder her younger sister Jan was jealous! For countless adolescents across America who came of age in the early 1970s, Marcia was the ideal American teenager. Girls wanted to be her. Boys wanted to date her. But what viewers didn't know about the always-sunny, perfect Marcia was that offscreen, her real-life counterpart, Maureen McCormick, the young actress who portrayed her, was living a very different—and not-so-wonderful—life. Now, for the very first time, Maureen tells the shocking and inspirational true story of the beloved teen generations have invited into their living rooms—and the woman she became. In Here's the Story, Maureen takes us behind the scenes of America's favorite television family, the Bradys. With poignancy and candor, she reveals the lifelong friendships, the hurtful jealousies, the offscreen romance, the loving support her television family provided during a life-or-death moment, and the inconsolable loss of a man who had been a second father. But The Brady Bunch was only the beginning. Haunted by the perfection of her television alter ego, Maureen landed on the dark side, caught up in a fast-paced, drug-fueled, star-studded Hollywood existence that ultimately led to the biggest battle of her life. Moving from drug dens on Wonderland Avenue to wild parties at the Playboy mansion and exotic escapades on the beaches of Hawaii, this candid, hard-hitting memoir exposes a side of a beloved pop-culture icon the paparazzi missed. Yet it is also a story of remarkable success. After kicking her drug habit, Maureen battled depression, reconnected with her mother, whom she nursed through the end of her life, and then found herself in a pitched battle for her family in which she ultimately triumphed. There is no question: Maureen McCormick is a survivor. After fifty years, she has finally learned what it means to love the person you are, insight that has brought her peace in a happy marriage and as a mother. Here's the Story is the empowering, engaging, shocking, and emotional tale of Maureen McCormick's courageous struggle over adversity and her lifelong battle to come to terms with the idea of perfection—and herself.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
Price: $21.00
|
|
Sale: $12.82
|
| |
|
Manufacturer: Simon & Schuster
|
|
Number of Items: 1
|
| |
|
|
|
Binding: Hardcover
|
|
Author: Carrie Fisher
|
|
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
|
|
Edition: 1st Simon & Schuster Hardcover Ed
|
|
Dewey Decimal Number: 791.43028092
|
|
Publication Date: 2008-12-02
|
|
Reading Level: 176
|
|
|
|
Description: Finally, after four hit novels, Carrie Fisher comes clean (well, sort of ) with the crazy truth that is her life in her first-ever memoir. In Wishful Drinking, adapted from her one-woman stage show, Fisher reveals what it was really like to grow up a product of "Hollywood in-breeding," come of age on the set of a little movie called Star Wars, and become a cultural icon and bestselling action figure at the age of nineteen. Intimate, hilarious, and sobering, Wishful Drinking is Fisher, looking at her life as she best remembers it (what do you expect after electroshock therapy?). It's an incredible tale: the child of Hollywood royalty -- Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher -- homewrecked by Elizabeth Taylor, marrying (then divorcing, then dating) Paul Simon, having her likeness merchandized on everything from Princess Leia shampoo to PEZ dispensers, learning the father of her daughter forgot to tell her he was gay, and ultimately waking up one morning and finding a friend dead beside her in bed. Wishful Drinking, the show, has been a runaway success. Entertainment Weekly declared it "drolly hysterical" and the Los Angeles Times called it a "Beverly Hills yard sale of juicy anecdotes." This is Carrie Fisher at her best -- revealing her worst. She tells her true and outrageous story of her bizarre reality with her inimitable wit, unabashed self-deprecation, and buoyant, infectious humor.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
Price: $6.99
|
|
Sale: $2.32
|
| |
|
Manufacturer: Beacon Press
|
|
Number of Items: 1
|
| |
|
|
|
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
|
|
Author: Viktor E. Frankl
|
|
Publisher: Beacon Press
|
|
Edition: 1
|
|
Dewey Decimal Number: 302
|
|
Publication Date: 2006-06-14
|
|
Reading Level: 165
|
|
|
Description: Psychiatrist Viktor Frankl's memoir has riveted generations of readers with its descriptions of life in Nazi death camps and its lessons for spiritual survival. Between 1942 and 1945 Frankl labored in four different camps, including Auschwitz, while his parents, brother, and pregnant wife perished. Based on his own experience and the experiences of those he treated in his practice, Frankl argues that we cannot avoid suffering but we can choose how to cope with it, find meaning in it, and move forward with renewed purpose. Frankl's theory—known as logotherapy, from the Greek word logos ("meaning")—holds that our primary drive in life is not pleasure, as Freud maintained, but the discovery and pursuit of what we personally find meaningful.
At the time of Frankl's death in 1997, Man's Search for Meaning had sold more than 10 million copies in twenty-four languages. A 1991 reader survey by the Library of Congress and the Book-of-the-Month Club that asked readers to name a "book that made a difference in your life" found Man's Search for Meaning among the ten most influential books in America.
Born in Vienna in 1905 Viktor E. Frankl earned an M.D. and a Ph.D. from the University of Vienna. He published more than thirty books on theoretical and clinical psychology and served as a visiting professor and lecturer at Harvard, Stanford, and elsewhere. In 1977 a fellow survivor, Joseph Fabry, founded the Viktor Frankl Institute of Logotherapy. Frankl died in 1997.
Harold S. Kushner is rabbi emeritus at Temple Israel in Natick, Massachusetts, and the author of several best-selling books, including When Bad Things Happen to Good People.
William J. Winslade is a philosopher, lawyer, and psychoanalyst at the University of Texas Medical School in Galveston.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
Price: $27.95
|
|
Sale: $7.95
|
| |
|
Manufacturer: Triumph Books
|
|
Number of Items: 1
|
| |
|
|
|
Binding: Hardcover
|
|
Author: Photography and Text by Pete Souza
|
|
Publisher: Triumph Books
|
|
Dewey Decimal Number: 973.931092
|
|
Publication Date: 2008-07-01
|
|
Reading Level: 176
|
|
|
|
Description: Illinois Senator Barack Obama's presidential campaign has galvanized Democrats and independents in ways not seen or heard since John F. Kennedy was president. In fact, the belief in Obama's political positions, his charisma, and Barack's affinity for connecting with his audience has brought an endorsement from Senator Edward (Ted) Kennedy, Ethel Kennedy and Caroline Kennedy. Pete Souza has extensively documented Senator Barack Obama's rise to political stardom with exclusive photographs beginning with Obama's first day in the U.S. Senate. He has accompanied the Senator to seven countries including Kenya, South Africa, and Russia. Souza had unprecedented access to photograph private and political moments as senator and presidential candidate Obama went about his duties. His photographs of Obama have won national photojournalism awards for the past three years. Souza is a freelance photographer and assistant professor of photojournalism at Ohio University. He has worked as an official White House photographer for President Ronald Reagan and was also the official photographer for the President's June 2004 funeral. He is the author of two celebrated photographic books of President Reagan's term in office, Unguarded Moments: Behind-the-Scenes Photographs of President Reagan (1992) and Images of Greatness: An Intimate Look at the Presidency of Ronald Reagan by Triumph Books (2004.) Souza's photographs have also appeared as photo spreads or covers in renowned magazines as National Geographic, Life, Fortune, Newsweek, and U.S. News & World Report. His photographs have also been part of group exhibits at the National Archives, Smithsonian Museum of American History, and Corcoran Gallery of Art.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
Price: $15.00
|
|
Sale: $7.87
|
| |
|
Manufacturer: Scribner
|
|
Number of Items: 1
|
| |
|
|
|
Binding: Paperback
|
|
Author: Steve Martin
|
|
Publisher: Scribner
|
|
Edition: Reprint
|
|
Dewey Decimal Number: 792.7028092
|
|
Publication Date: 2008-09-02
|
|
Reading Level: 224
|
|
|
|
Description: At age 10, Steve Martin got a job selling guidebooks at the newly opened Disneyland. In the decade that followed, he worked in Disney's magic shop, print shop, and theater, and developed his own magic/comedy act. By age 20, studying poetry and philosophy on the side, he was performing a dozen times a week, most often at the Disney rival, Knott's Berry Farm. Obsession is a substitute for talent, he has said, and Steve Martin's focus and daring--his sheer tenacity--are truly stunning. He writes about making the very tough decision to sacrifice everything not original in his act, and about lucking into a job writing for The Smothers Brothers Show. He writes about mentors, girlfriends, his complex relationship with his parents and sister, and about some of his great peers in comedy--Dan Ackroyd, Lorne Michaels, Carl Reiner, Johnny Carson. He writes about fear, anxiety and loneliness. And he writes about how he figured out what worked on stage. This book is a memoir, but it is also an illuminating guidebook to stand-up from one of our two or three greatest comedians. Though Martin is reticent about his personal life, he is also stunningly deft, and manages to give readers a feeling of intimacy and candor. Illustrated throughout with black and white photographs collected by Martin, this book is instantly compelling visually and a spectacularly good read.
Amazon.com Exclusive
Three Bonus Deleted Passages from Steve Martin's Born Standing Up
 On Returning to Disneyland
Ten years later, after the Beatles, drugs, and Vietnam had changed the entire tenor of American life, I returned to the magic shop at Disneyland and stood as a stranger. As I looked around the eerily familiar room another first came over me, a previously unknown emotion, one that was to have a curious force over me for the rest my life: the longing tug of nostalgia. Looking at the counter where I pitched Svengali Decks and the Incredible Shrinking Die, I was awash with the recollection of indelible nights where the sky was blown open by fireworks and big band sounds drifted through trees strung with fairy lights. I remembered my youth, when every moment was crisply present, when heartbreak and joy replaced each other quickly, fully and without trauma. Even now when I visit Disneyland, I am steeped in melancholy, because a corporation has preserved my nostalgia impeccably. Every nail and screw is the same, and Disneyland looks as new now as it did then. The paint is fresh, and the only wear allowed is faux. In fact, only I have changed. In the dream-like world of childhood memories, so often vague and imprecise, Disneyland remains for me not only vivid in memory, but vivid in fact. On Meeting Diane Hall
During the day, I attended Santa Ana Junior College, taking drama classes and pursuing an unexpected interest in English poetry from Donne to Eliot. I would occasionally assist on a college stage production--never appearing in one--as a member of the crew. Years later I was looking through a box of memorabilia and noticed a silk-screened playbill of the musical Carousel, May, 1964, which listed me as a stagehand. The lead actress was Diane Hall. Something connected and I remembered that Diane Keaton's name was once Hall, (hence, Annie Hall). I confirmed with her that she was in that production. Neither of us remembers meeting the other, yet we must have worked in proximity. More evidence that I was a wallflower. Decades later, we ended up "making love" on the floor of a movie set on Father of the Bride. On the Kennedy Assassination
One Friday in 1963, I had finished a class and was about to drive to Knott's Berry Farm for the afternoon shows when I saw a clump of agitated students across the campus. I asked someone what was going on. "They're saying that the president's been shot." I drove across town to Knott's and punched radio buttons. I could hear the scheduled programs clicking off and being replaced by live broadcasts. Assassination seemed so ancient and inconceivable, I was sure that someone would soon correct the erroneous report. President Kennedy died that day and I didn't know that news could be taken so personally by a nation. Sitting backstage, watching the Birdcage's black-and-white TV drone out the increasingly grave report, we were all mute. We assumed the performance that night would be canceled, but as show time neared, word came down that we were going on. We couldn't fathom why; we believed no one would show up, much less enjoy us. I still can't explain the psychology, why the very full house that night was able to roar with laughter. The obvious must be correct: our silly show was providing some kind of balm that soothed the ache. In 2003 I hosted the Oscars on the particular weekend that the United States invaded Iraq. The news was grim and just hours before the show I flipped on the TV and saw a report, subsequently proven false, that our captive soldiers were being beheaded. I quickly turned the TV off, sick. I knew, from my experience forty years earlier with the Kennedy assassination, what my job was, and I harbored a secret knowledge that the audience would laugh. I also felt that soldiers who might be watching would be tuning in to see the Oscars and all its hoopla, not a cheerless comedian doing what he doesn’t do best. I decided to acknowledge the circumstances early in the show and then get on with the jokes. The academy had announced that the show would "cut back on the glitz." I walked out for the opening monologue, took a look around the stage at the dazzling, swirling staircases, mirrored curtains and polished floor, and simply said, "I'm glad they cut back on the glitz." It got a laugh of relief and the show could go on.
More from Steve Martin
Praise for Born Standing Up
"[A] lean, incisive new book about the trajectory of [Martin's] life in comedy...Born Standing Up does a sharp-witted job of breaking down the step-by-step process that brought Steve Martin from Disneyland, where he spent his version of a Dickensian childhood as a schoolboy employee, to both the pinnacle of stardom and the brink of disaster...tightly focused...Born Standing Up is a surprising book: smart, serious, heartfelt and confessional without being maudlin." --Janet Maslin, The New York Times "Absolutely magnificent. One of the best books about comedy and being a comedian ever written." --Jerry Seinfeld, GQ "The writing is evocative, unflinching and cool. When Martin takes a scalpel to his life, what you feel is the precision of the surgeon more than the primal scream of the unanaesthetized patient...Born Standing Up is neither fanfare nor confession. It gives off a vibe of rigorous honesty. With lots of laughs." --Richard Corliss, Time Magazine "A spare, unexpectedly resonant remembrance of things past…Martin's one true subject is the evolution of his comedy--the transcendent moments...A smart, gentlemanly, modest book…winning." --Jeff Giles, Entertainment Weekly, EW Pick: A "A charming memoir tracking what the great comic characterizes as his 'war years.' Martin offers an eloquent and exacting account... [and] approaches his subjects with generosity, warmth and integrity." --Kirkus Reviews "Sure to delight fans and create new ones." --Laura Mathews, Good Housekeeping "What fun to discover the humble beginnings of some of his iconic personas...inspiring." --Rachel Rosenblit, Elle "The archetypical story of the underdog's rise and a particularly American story...beautifully written, honest, engaging, and quietly brave." --Frederic Tuten, Bomb Magazine "Son, you have an ob-leek sense of humor." --Elvis Presley
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
Price: $29.95
|
|
Sale: $17.17
|
| |
|
Manufacturer: Knopf
|
|
Number of Items: 1
|
| |
|
|
|
Binding: Hardcover
|
|
Author: Barbara Walters
|
|
Publisher: Knopf
|
|
Dewey Decimal Number: 070.92
|
|
Publication Date: 2008-05-06
|
|
Reading Level: 624
|
|
|
Description: Young people starting out in television sometimes say to me: “I want to be you.” My stock reply is always: “Then you have to take the whole package.”
And now, at last, the most important woman in the history of television journalism gives us that “whole package,” in her inspiring and riveting memoir. After more than forty years of interviewing heads of state, world leaders, movie stars, criminals, murderers, inspirational figures, and celebrities of all kinds, Barbara Walters has turned her gift for examination onto herself to reveal the forces that shaped her extraordinary life.
Barbara Walters’s perception of the world was formed at a very early age. Her father, Lou Walters, was the owner and creative mind behind the legendary Latin Quarter nightclub, and it was his risk-taking lifestyle that gave Barbara her first taste of glamour. It also made her aware of the ups and downs, the insecurities, and even the tragedies that can occur when someone is willing to take great risks, for Lou Walters didn’t just make several fortunes—he also lost them. Barbara learned early about the damage that such an existence can do to relationships—between husband and wife as well as between parent and child. Through her roller-coaster ride of a childhood, Barbara had a close companion, her mentally challenged sister, Jackie. True, Jackie taught her younger sister much about patience and compassion, but Barbara also writes honestly about the resentment she often felt having a sister who was so “different” and the guilt that still haunts her.
All of this—the financial responsibility for her family, the fear, the love—played a large part in the choices she made as she grew up: the friendships she developed, the relationships she had, the marriages she tried to make work. Ultimately, thanks to her drive, combined with a decent amount of luck, she began a career in television. And what a career it has been! Against great odds, Barbara has made it to the top of a male-dominated industry. She was the first woman cohost of the Today show, the first female network news coanchor, the host and producer of countless top-rated Specials, the star of 20/20, and the creator and cohost of The View. She has not just interviewed the world’s most fascinating figures, she has become a part of their world. These are just a few of the names that play a key role in Barbara’s life, career, and book: Yasir Arafat, Warren Beatty, Menachem Begin, George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, Jimmy Carter, Fidel Castro, Hugo Chávez, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Roy Cohn, the Dalai Lama, Princess Diana, Katharine Hepburn, King Hussein, Angelina Jolie, Henry Kissinger, Monica Lewinsky, Richard Nixon, Rosie O’Donnell, Christopher Reeve, Anwar Sadat, John Wayne . . . the list goes on and on.
Barbara Walters has spent a lifetime auditioning: for her bosses at the TV networks, for millions of viewers, for the most famous people in the world, and even for her own daughter, with whom she has had a difficult but ultimately quite wonderful and moving relationship. This book, in some ways, is her final audition, as she fully opens up both her private and public lives. In doing so, she has given us a story that is heartbreaking and honest, surprising and fun, sometimes startling, and always fascinating.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
Price: $24.95
|
|
Sale: $13.89
|
| |
|
Manufacturer: Simon Spotlight
|
|
Number of Items: 1
|
| |
|
|
|
Binding: Hardcover
|
|
Author: Tori Spelling
|
|
Publisher: Simon Spotlight
|
|
Edition: 1st Simon Spotlight Entertainment Hardcover Ed
|
|
Dewey Decimal Number: 791.45028092
|
|
Publication Date: 2008-03-11
|
|
Reading Level: 288
|
|
|
|
Description: She was television's most famous virgin--and, as Aaron Spelling's daughter, arguably its most famous case of nepotism. Portraying Donna Martin on Beverly Hills, 90210, Tori Spelling became one of the most recognizable young actresses of her generation, with a not-so-private personal life every bit as fascinating as her character's exploits. Yet years later the name Tori Spelling too often closed--and sometimes slammed--the same doors it had opened. sTORI Telling is Tori's chance to finally tell her side of the tabloid-worthy life she's led, and she talks about it all: her decadent childhood birthday parties, her nose job, her fairy-tale wedding to the wrong man, her so-called feud with her mother. Tori has already revealed her flair for brilliant, self-effacing satire on her VH1 show So NoTORIous and Oxygen's Tori & Dean: Inn Love, but her memoir goes deeper, into the real life behind the rumors: her complicated relationship with her parents; her struggles as an actress after 90210; her accident-prone love life; and, ultimately, her quest to define herself on her own terms. From her over-the-top first wedding to finding new love to her much-publicized--and misunderstood--"disinheritance," sTORI Telling is a juicy, eye-opening, enthralling look at what it really means to be Tori Spelling.
Amazon.com Exclusive
A Bonus Story and Family Photo from Tori Spelling
The Manor
 People are always asking about my parents' mansion, which they called the "Manor," but I don't really spend much time talking about it in sTORI Telling because I didn't grow up there. After demolishing Bing Crosby's former estate in Holmby Hills, a fancy neighborhood in west L.A., they spent six years building the Manor. It's about 46,000 square feet (slightly over an acre) and has 123 rooms. Not that I counted or measured. I got those figures from the press, just like everyone else. Anyway, we moved in when I was seventeen and I only lived there for two years. In some ways the house is like a normal house, but everything is on a bigger scale. It has four floors: the basement (which we call the "Lower Level," probably because that's its designation on the elevator) and the first, second, and third floors. The first floor has a kitchen, a breakfast room, a dining room, an office, a family room, a living room, and a projection room. There's a grand foyer with sweeping staircases on each side. Oh, and there's also a guards' room and the staff dining room. Everyone except fancy guests comes through the service entrance into a hallway with the guards' room and the kitchen. The kitchen is gigantic, and my fondest memory of it is from when I was twenty-one and had just moved back in after splitting up with a boyfriend. I came home drunk with some girlfriends, and we pillaged the two double-sized Sub-Zero refrigerators. There was always bulk food in there for the staff. We pulled out a big vat of chicken salad and a tub of peanut dressing, both of which looked like they'd been made for giants. Somewhere in the middle of our feast we decided to have a food fight, and the five of us started flinging food at each other. Soon we were covered in peanut dressing from head to toe and the pristine kitchen was a mess. Then we heard a ding, the elevator doors opened, and there was my mother. She stared at us in silent disbelief. I said, "We're going to clean it up!" She just said, "Mmm hmm," and left the room. I felt a surge of love for her in that moment. It took us hours to clean the kitchen, but it was worth it. That moment made it feel, for once, like home. --Tori Spelling
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Displaying records 21 through 30 of 4000
|
|
|
|
