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Books > Language & Literature > Biography & autobiography > Film, television, music, theatre
"Book of the Year." -- MOJO Magazine"Outstanding Book of the Year."
--The Herald (Glasgow) A Best Book of the Year by NPR, Pitchfork,
The Telegraph, and UncutA tender and intimate memoir by one of the
most remarkable, trailblazing, and tenacious women in music, the
two-time Grammy Award-winning "premiere song-stylist and songwriter
of her generation" (Hilton Als), Rickie Lee Jones This troubadour
life is only for the fiercest hearts, only for those vessels that
can be broken to smithereens and still keep beating out the rhythm
for a new song. Last Chance Texaco is the first-ever
no-holds-barred account of the life of two-time Grammy Award-winner
Rickie Lee Jones in her own words. It is a tale of desperate
chances and impossible triumphs, an adventure story of a girl who
beat the odds and grew up to become one of the most legendary
artists of her time, turning adversity and hopelessness into
timeless music. With candor and lyricism, the "Duchess of
Coolsville" (Time) takes us on a singular journey through her
nomadic childhood, to her years as a teenage runaway, through her
legendary love affair with Tom Waits and ultimately her longevity
as the hardest working woman in rock and roll. Rickie Lee's stories
are rich with the infamous characters of her early songs -
"Chuck-E's in Love," "Weasel and the White Boys Cool," "Danny's
All-Star Joint," and "Easy Money"-- but long before her notoriety
in show business, there was a vaudevillian cast of hitchhikers,
bank robbers, jail breaks, drug mules, a pimp with a heart of gold
and tales of her fabled ancestors. In this tender and intimate
memoir by one of the most remarkable, trailblazing, and tenacious
women in music are never-before-told stories of the girl in the
raspberry beret, a singer-songwriter whose music defied
categorization and inspired American pop culture for decades.
Six-time Emmy Award-winning funny man Tim Conway, best known for
his roles on "The Carol Burnett Show," offers a straight-shooting
and hilarious memoir about his life on stage and off as an actor
and comedian.
In the annals of TV history, few entertainers have captured as many
hearts, tickled as many funny bones, and brought as many families
together in living rooms across America as Tim Conway. In "What's
So Funny?" he brings his hilarious hijinks from the screen to the
page.
Conway's often-improvised humor, razor-sharp timing, and hilarious
characters have made him one of the funniest and most authentic
performers to grace the stage and studio. As Carol Burnett has
said, "there's no one funnier" than Tim Conway. Now, Conway takes
us on a seventy-year, rags-to-riches journey that is touchingly
comical and ultimately inspiring, from his pranks in small Ohio
classrooms during the Great Depression to his pitch-perfect
performances on national TV and in major motion pictures. Along the
way, Conway shares hilarious and often moving accounts of the glory
days of "The Carol Burnett Show"; his famous partnerships with
entertainment greats like Harvey Korman, Don Knotts, and Dick Van
Dyke; and his friendships with stars like Betty White, Bob Newhart,
and, of course, Carol Burnett, who also provides an intimate
foreword to the book.
As Conway continues to tour the country giving live comedy
performances that enchant his always eager audiences, "What's So
Funny?" brings his warmth, humor, and heart to delight and inspire
fans everywhere.
'A sickly child not expected to survive, a chubby teenager and a
binge-eating bride? The unlikely beginnings of a health and fitness
legend.' Daily Express 'A story of glamour, success and
achievement, mixed with vulnerability, near-despair and searing
honesty.' Rob Parsons OBE The doctor's voice is sad but firm: 'I'm
very sorry, but I have to tell you that your little girl is
unlikely to reach her 10th birthday.' Years later, having defied
the odds and become a teenager, the same girl discovers a medical
report that tells her, to her horror, she is overweight. That was
the moment the young Rosemary Conley decided to change her life.
After leaving school at 15, training as a secretary and working as
a Tupperware dealer, Rosemary started her own slimming classes in
1972 with an investment of just GBP8. In 1983 she published the
first of 36 books that were to sell in their millions around the
world, alongside millions more of her fitness videos, while also
starring in her own TV shows on BBC and ITV. She became, in short,
one of the most popular and successful diet and fitness experts the
world has seen. But Rosemary's life was not to be one of unbounded
achievement and success. As well as the good times there were dark
and distressing times, and here she tells of the sorrows and
setbacks that were to come - as well as the joy she found, and
still finds, in helping people live longer, healthier and happier
lives.
De Vos ken die kunste, en die mense agter die kunste, so hy kan
heerlik spot met die hogere dinge in die lewe. Die bundel bevat ’n
hele vertellings oor bekende figure uit die kunstewereld, soos die
Karel Schoeman. Kop op 'n blok is vlymskerp geskryf en die humor
(wat dikwels selfspot insluit) is werklik snaaks. Inderwaarheid
vorm die teks 'n soort outobiografie van een van die mees geliefde
skrywers in Afrikaans.
A hilarious, poignant memoir from comedian Todd Glass about his
decision at age forty-eight to finally live openly as a gay
man--and the reactions and support from his comedy pals, from Louis
CK to Sarah Silverman.
Growing up in a Philadelphia suburb in the 1970s was an easy life.
Well, easy as long as you didn't have dyslexia or ADD, or were a
Jew. And once you added gay into the mix, life became more
difficult. So Todd Glass decided to hide the gay part, no matter
how comic, tragic, or comically tragic the results.
It might have been a lot easier had he chosen a profession other
than stand-up comedy. By age eighteen, Todd was opening for big
musical acts like George Jones and Patti LaBelle. His career
carried him through the Los Angeles comedy heyday in the 1980s, its
decline in the 1990s, and its rebirth via the alternative comedy
scene and the explosion in podcasting. But the harder he worked at
his craft, the more difficult it became to manage his "situation."
There were the years of abstinence and half-hearted attempts to
"cure" himself. The fake girlfriends so that he could tell
relationship jokes onstage. The staged sexual encounters to burnish
his reputation offstage. It took a brush with death to cause him to
rethink the way he was living his life; a rash of suicides among
gay teens to convince him that it was finally time to come out to
the world.
Now, Todd has written an open, honest, and hilarious memoir in an
effort to help everyone--young and old, gay and straight--breathe a
little more freely. Peppered with anecdotes from his life among
comedy's greatest headliners and tales of the occasionally insane
lengths Todd went through to keep a secret that--let's face it--he
probably didn't have to keep for as long as he did, "The Todd Glass
Situation" is a front-row seat to the last thirty plus years of
comedy history and a deeply personal story about one man's search
for acceptance.
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