One of the most dynamic and globally recognized entertainment forces of our time opens up fully about his life, in a brave and inspiring book that traces his learning curve to a place where outer success, inner happiness, and human connection are aligned. Along the way, Will tells the story in full of one of the most amazing rides through the worlds of music and film that anyone has ever had.

Will Smith's transformation from a fearful child in a tense West Philadelphia home to one of the biggest rap stars of his era and then one of the biggest movie stars in Hollywood history, with a string of box office successes that will likely never be broken, is an epic tale of inner transformation and outer triumph, and Will tells it astonishingly well. But it's only half the story.

Will Smith thought, with good reason, that he had won at life: not only was his own success unparalleled, his whole family was at the pinnacle of the entertainment world. Only they didn't see it that way: they felt more like star performers in his circus, a seven-days-a-week job they hadn't signed up for. It turned out Will Smith's education wasn't nearly over.

This memoir is the product of a profound journey of self-knowledge, a reckoning with all that your will can get you and all that it can leave behind. Written with the help of Mark Manson, author of the multi-million-copy bestseller The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, Will is the story of how one exceptional man mastered his own emotions, written in a way that can help everyone else do the same. Few of us will know the pressure of performing on the world's biggest stages for the highest of stakes, but we can all understand that the fuel that works for one stage of our journey might have to be changed if we want to make it all the way home. The combination of genuine wisdom of universal value and a life story that is preposterously entertaining, even astonishing, puts Will the book, like its author, in a category by itself.

Are you a country music fan, or a blues, folk, jazz, or rock fan? Better make that "Are you a music fan?"

This is a true story of man - a real pioneer - who was driven to capture the music that came to form the basis of today's popular music. Art Satherley is referred to in many a biographies of stars from yesteryear.

He was born in 1889 in Bristol, England. This Bristolian travelled the southern states of America recording real American music. He said it was like the music from home. No place was too far or too distant for him to take his primitive recording equipment. He used school halls log cabins, hotels, anywhere - even a funeral parlour - as locations to record. Blues artists such as Ma Rainy, Blind Lemon Jefferson, and W. C. Handy were on his recording log, this list could be a hundred names long. Then, there were the hillbilly, down-home country folk, another long list of now legendary names, ranging from Gene Autry to Roy Acuff to Marty Robbins, that Art Satherley was responsible for.

Arthur worked for the great inventor Thomas Edison at the Wisconsin Chair ompany before being installed as recording manager at the company's record-pressing plant called the New York Recording Laboratory, which included Paramount records as one of its labels. Uncle Art Satherley eventually became vice president of Columbia Records, retiring in 1952, and the history and development of the recording industry are intertwined with Art's captivating professional journey

Uncle Art's story is told in it's entirety for the first time in Uncle Art by a fellow Bristolian and musician Alan John Britton. Britton includes his own background and the discovery of this fascinating story. It includes Arthur's childhood and schooling and some history of Bristol and the important role that the city's port played in the movement of settlers and trade to the New World.

Choice Magazine (a major library review magazine): "After an introductory section on the history of the piano, particularly as reflected in and influenced by works of the major composers for the instrument, this interesting and informative book describes various compositional "schools," from Austro-German, French, and Italian through English, American, Russian, Spanish, Japanese, and others. This section constitutes a brief course in music history beginning with the Renaissance. ... The body of the work consists of historical and stylistic sketches of 17 composers, with brief remarks about several works of each, and lists of selected works, ending with a complete work or movement. These sketches are exceptionally well written, assuming an intelligent reader, and convey a great deal of information concisely.... this book contains much well-organized and useful material. For libraries serving serious amateur pianists, high school upward. ****************** Booklist (The book review magazine of the American Library Association): This authoritative volume will make a solid addition to the public library music collection. After offering a brief opening chapter on the evolution of the piano as instrument and the changing styles of technique, author Pat Hammond provides opinionated but well-reasoned analyses of the works of the major piano composers, with focus on the Baroque era (Bach and Handel), the Classical age (Haydn, Mozart Beethoven), Romanticism (Schubert, Chopin Liszt, and others), Impressionism (Debussy) and Modernism (Bartok). This book's unique feature is its inclusion of musical examples of each composer's work, which are meant to be played as one reads along. Pertinent biographical material is also featured for the great masters. Appendixes include a suggested twentieth-century piano repertoire and a bibliography. Piano music - Bibliography ******************* Clavier Magazine "Compiled and annotated by Patricia Fallows-Hammond. Suitable as a reference source, this handbook supplies concise biographical and stylistic sketches of composers and annotation of selected compositions. ... Fallows-Hammond has a knack for setting and maintaining an appropriate level of sophistication. Writing in a crisp, direct style, she steers the student toward complicated subjects and gives them a palpable hold on them. To explain the concept of the concerto grosso, for example, she explains that, "In Handel's time, Concerto Crosso meant a small group of instruments playing in contrast to a larger body of strings." Her synopsis of the development of sonata form is equally apt....Commentary on the composers is well-researched and written at a uniform level of detail that will make it useful to a wide audience....Fallows-Hammond does a good job of compiling accurate information on the composers she has chosen. If the contents of the book serve your purposes, you will find this handbook a handy reference source. " **************** The American Organist "The author has created a self-instruction course which gives information about the evolution of the piano and changing styles in piano technique, and then discusses topics with emphasis on special composers: ..... Piano students seeking background information will profit from this book. Recommended for public libraries." ******************** Keyboard Magazine "Patricia Fallow-Hammond's 302 page study embraces the proposition that historical context is an important, and frequently neglected, element in building an understanding of classical repertoire. .... she has assembled a fairly basic catalogue of keyboard works, arranged chronologically by composer, and preceded each list with a short biography relating milestones from each composer's life. ....... Her decision to further enlighten the reader with short samples of their handiwork is a happy extra addition. Her efficiency at summarizing and packaging that line is what makes her debut in print a success."

Barbara Stanwyck (1907-1990) rose from the ranks of chorus girl to become one of Hollywood's most talented leading women-and America's highest paid woman in the mid-1940s. Shuttled among foster homes as a child, she took a number of low-wage jobs while she determinedly made the connections that landed her in successful Broadway productions. Stanwyck then acted in a stream of high-quality films from the 1930s through the 1950s. Directors such as Cecil B. DeMille, Fritz Lang, and Frank Capra treasured her particular magic. A four-time Academy Award nominee, winner of three Emmys and a Golden Globe, she was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Academy.

Dan Callahan considers both Stanwyck's life and her art, exploring her seminal collaborations with Capra in such great films as "Ladies of Leisure," "The Miracle Woman," and "The Bitter Tea of General Yen"; her Pre-Code movies "Night Nurse" and "Baby Face"; and her classic roles in "Stella Dallas," "Remember the Night," "The Lady Eve," and "Double Indemnity." After making more than eighty films in Hollywood, she revived her career by turning to television, where her role in the 1960s series "The Big Valley" renewed her immense popularity.

Callahan examines Stanwyck's career in relation to the directors she worked with and the genres she worked in, leading up to her late-career triumphs in two films directed by Douglas Sirk, "All I Desire" and "There's Always Tomorrow," and two outrageous westerns, "The Furies" and "Forty Guns." The book positions Stanwyck where she belongs-at the very top of her profession-and offers a close, sympathetic reading of her performances in all their range and complexity.

This is classic Hollywood history as told through the life and career of one of its most iconic actresses. The book benefits tremendously from the author's meeting with Olivia de Havilland after he was assigned to handle her projected memoir at the Delacorte Press in 1973. Amburn also knew many of the key figures in her life and career, a veritable pantheon of Hollywood royalty from the 30s, 40s, and 50s: Jimmy Stewart, George Cukor, and David O. Selznick, and he was an editor at William Morrow when the company published the autobiography of de Havilland's difficult sister Joan Fontaine. Superbly researched and full of delicious anecdotes about Clark Gable, John Huston, Vivien Leigh, Laurence Olivier, Montgomery Clift, Errol Flynn, David Niven, and Bette Davis--particularly the bloody, bone-crunching fistfight Flynn and Huston waged over Olivia--this book not only profiles one of the finest actresses of her time, but also the culture of the film industry's Golden Age. It details de Havilland's relationships with the men who sought her--Howard Hughes, Jimmy Stewart, Errol Flynn, John F. Kennedy, Burgess Meredith, and John Huston, as well as her friendships with Grace Kelly, British Prime Minister Edward Heath, Ronald Reagan, Victor Fleming, and Ingrid Bergman. Here, too, are the fabulous and often surprising back stories of her 49 films, including Gone With the Wind, The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Snake Pit, Hush . . . Hush, Sweet Charlotte, and the two for which she won Oscars, The Heiress and To Each His Own. The account of the filming of Gone With the Wind is unique in that the author interviewed many of the people involved in the epic making of this masterpiece as Lois Dwight Cole, who discovered the novel, producer David O. Selznick, director George Cukor, agents Kay Brown and Annie Laurie Williams, Radie Harris, Vivien Leigh's closest friend in the press, and both Edie Goetz and Irene Mayer Selznick, daughters of Louis B. Mayer, head of MGM, the studio that funded, released, and ended up owning Gone With the Wind. Also included in this biography are Olivia's adventures with Bette Davis. They appeared together in four movies and Davis tried to destroy her, but Olivia stood up to Davis as no other actress had ever dared to do. She won Davis's respect, and by the time they made their biggest hit, Hush . . . Hush, Sweet Charlotte, a lasting friendship had blossomed. Undertaking a joint national publicity tour, they attracted mobs of boisterous fans and, in private, reminisced about the Golden Age of movies, evaluated the current crop of stars, and exchanged observations about love goddesses, nudity, and parenthood.

It was Boston in the 1960's - a time when nightclubs, bars and lounges had the city alive at night and a good time could continue after hours; and when entertainers frequented the city taking advantage of the climate. Add the world of the sporting life and Boston's deceiving glamour could not be denied.. In the middle of it all were five best friends, known as "squares," who attended high school by day and received a far different education by night. The girls rode in Cadillacs, drank in bars and explored their sexuality. They made a pact to just have fun and ignore the rest. Their fun was innocent, but the culture wasn't. Their values would be tested. As consequences arise for the girls, prices must inevitably be paid.

With her white beehive and Mondrian make-up, Jordan's look helped shape a revolution on the King's Road and has become an iconic part of pop culture. With commentary from key players, including Vivienne Westwood, Paul Cook and her partner behind the SEX counter Michael Collins, Defying Gravity is the revealing story of a life at the eye of punk's storm. Deluxe signed box-set edition - Limited to 500 copies - A copy of the book hand signed by Jordan - A specially designed poster featuring Graham Humphreys' jacket design - A T-shirt designed by Graham Humphreys - A certificate of authenticity