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A Good Bad Boy: Luke Perry and How a Generation Grew Up
An artful and contemplative tribute to the late actor famed for his role as Dylan McKay in Beverly Hills, 90210. Best known for playing loner rebel Dylan McKay in Beverly Hills 90210, Luke Perry was fifty-two years old when he died of a stroke in 2019. There have been other deaths of 90's stars, but this one hit different. Gen X was reminded of their own inescapable mortality, and robbed of an exciting career resurgence for one of their most cherished icons--with recent roles in the hit series Riverdale and Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time In Hollywood bringing him renewed attention and acclaim. Only upon his death, as stories poured out online about his authenticity and kindness, did it become clear how little was known about the exceedingly humble actor and how deeply he impacted popular culture. In A Good Bad Boy, Margaret Wappler attempts to understand who Perry was and why he was unique among his Hollywood peers. To do so, she uses an inventive hybrid narrative. She speaks with dozens who knew Perry personally and professionally. They share insightful anecdotes: how he kept connected to his Ohio upbringing; nearly blew his 90210 audition; tried to shed his heartthrob image by joining the HBO prison drama Oz; and in the last year of his life, sought to set up two of his newly divorced friends. (After his death, the pair bonded in their grief and eventually married.) Amid these original interviews and exhaustive archival research, Wappler weaves poignant vignettes of memoir in which she serves as an avatar to show how Perry shaped a generation's views on masculinity, privilege and the ideal of "cool." Timed to the fifth anniversary of Perry's death, A Good Bad Boy is a profound and entertaining examination of what it means to be an artist and an adult.Sold out -
I'm So Glad We Had This Time Together: A Memoir
An astonishing, epic graphic memoir in the spirit of Fun Home by Alison Bechdel and Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe "I'm So Glad We Had This Time Together is that rarest of things: a book about coming out to a loving yet conservative family that is as heartrending to read as it is to look at. It's an incredibly moving, funny, and ultimately triumphant account (spoiler alert!) of what can only be described as a magical fairy tale (pun totally intended!)."--Anderson Cooper Meet little Maurice Vellekoop, the youngest of four children raised by Dutch immigrants in the 1970s in a blue-collar suburb of Toronto. Despite their working-class milieu, the Vellekoops are devoted to art, music, and film, and they instill a deep reverence for the arts in young Maurice--except for literature. He'd much rather watch Cher and Carol Burnett on TV than read a book. He also loves playing with his girlfriends' Barbie dolls and helping his Mum in her hair salon, which she runs out of the basement of their house. In short, he is really, really gay. Which is a huge problem, because the family is part of the Christian Reformed Church, a strict Calvinist sect. They go to church twice on Sunday, and they send their kids to a private Christian school, catechism classes, and the Calvinist Cadet Corps. Needless to say, the church is intolerant of homosexuality. Though she loves her son deeply, Maurice's mother, Ann, cannot accept him, setting the course for a long estrangement. Vellekoop struggles through all of this until he graduates from high school and is accepted into the Ontario College of Art in the early 1980s. Here he finds a welcoming community of bohemians, including a brilliant, flamboyantly gay professor who encourages him to come out. But just as he's dipping his toes into the waters of gay sex and love, a series of romantic disasters, followed by a violent attack, sets him back severely. And then the shadow of the AIDS era descends. Maurice reacts by retreating to the safety of childhood obsessions, and seeks to satisfy his emotional needs with film- and theatre-going, music, boozy self-medication, and prolific art-making. When these tactics inevitably fail, Vellekoop at last embarks on a journey towards his heart's true desire. In psychotherapy, the spiderweb of family, faith, guilt, sexuality, mental health, the intergenerational fallout of World War II, King Ludwig II of Bavaria, French Formula Hairspray, and much more at last begins to untangle. But it's going to be a long, messy, and occasionally hilarious process. I'm So Glad We Had This Time Together is an enthralling portrait of what it means to be true to yourself, to learn to forgive, and to be an artist.Sold out -
About Ed
A moving story about love, AIDS, grief, and memory by one of the most adventurous writers to come out of San Francisco's LGBTQ+ scene. Bob Glück met Ed Aulerich-Sugai in 1970. Ed was an aspiring artist; Bob wanted to write. They were young men in San Francisco at the high tide of sexual liberation and soon, and for eight years, they were lovers, after which they were friends. Ed was an explorer in the realms of sex. He was beautiful, fragile, exasperating, serious, unassuaged. In 1994 he died of HIV. His dream notebooks became a touchstone for this book, which Glück has been working on for some two decades, while also making his name as a proponent of New Narrative writing and as one of America's most unusual, venturesome, and lyrical authors. About Ed is about Ed, who remains, as our dead do, both familiar and unknowable, faraway and close. It is about Bob too. The book is a hybrid, at once fiction and fact, like memory, and it takes in many things through tales of political activism and domestic comedy and fury to questions of art and love and experiences of longing and horror. The book also shifts in register, from the delicate to the analytic, to funny and explicit and heartbroken. It begins in the San Francisco of the early 1980s, when Ed and Bob have been broken up for a while. aIds is spreading, but Ed has yet to receive his diagnosis. It follows him backward through his life with Bob in the 1970s and forward through the harrowing particulars of death. It holds on to him and explores his art. It ends in his dreams. -
My Effin' Life
The long-awaited memoir, generously illustrated with never-before-seen photos, from the iconic Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, Rush bassist, and New York Times bestselling author of Geddy Lee's Big Beautiful Book of Bass.
Geddy Lee is one of rock and roll's most respected bassists. For nearly five decades, his playing and work as co-writer, vocalist and keyboardist has been an essential part of the success story of Canadian progressive rock trio Rush. Here for the first time is his account of life inside and outside the band.
Long before Rush accumulated more consecutive gold and platinum records than any rock band after the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, before the seven Grammy nominations or the countless electrifying live performances across the globe, Geddy Lee was Gershon Eliezer Weinrib, after his grandfather was murdered in the Holocaust.
As he recounts the transformation, Lee looks back on his family, in particular his loving parents and their horrific experiences as teenagers during World War II.
He talks candidly about his childhood and the pursuit of music that led him to drop out of high school.
He tracks the history of Rush which, after early struggles, exploded into one of the most beloved bands of all time.
He shares intimate stories of his lifelong friendships with bandmates Alex Lifeson and Neil Peart--deeply mourning Peart's recent passing--and reveals his obsessions in music and beyond.
This rich brew of honesty, humor, and loss makes for a uniquely poignant memoir.
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History Comics: The Stonewall Riots: Making a Stand for LGBTQ Rights
Turn back the clock with History Comics! In this graphic novel, experience the Stonewall Riots firsthand and meet iconic activists like Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera.
Three teenagers--Natalia, Jax, and Rashad--are magically transported from their modern lives to the legendary Stonewall Inn in the summer of 1969. Escorted by Natalia's eccentric abuela (and her pet cockatiel, Rocky), the friends experience the police raid firsthand and are thrown into the infamous riots that made the struggle for LGBTQ rights front-page news. -
Best Wishes, Warmest Regards: The Story of Schitt's Creek
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
GLOBE AND MAIL BESTSELLER The official tie-in book for the beloved, nine-time Emmy(R) Award-winning series Schitt's Creek. This beautifully produced, keepsake coffee-table book is the ultimate celebration of the series, the town, the characters, and the state of mind that is Schitt's Creek. Capturing the essence and alchemy of all six seasons of what is now considered to be one of the most groundbreaking comedy television series of the last decade, Best Wishes, Warmest Regards is a gift to fans everywhere who have made the show their own. Included are character profiles from the cast of Johnny, Moira, David, and Alexis, and all of the characters that populate the town, major moments from Moira's endorsement of Herb Ertlinger Winery, to Patrick and David's first kiss, to Cabaret and the Rose Family Christmas episode. Also included are special features, such as the complete, illustrated catalogs of David's knits and Moira's wigs, Moira's vocabulary, Alexis's adventures, and behind-the-scenes moments from Dan and Eugene Levy and the cast of Schitt's Creek. -
Cocktails with George and Martha: Movies, Marriage, and the Making of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
An award-winning writer reveals the behind-the-scenes story of the provocative play, the groundbreaking film it became, and how two iconic stars changed the image of marriage forever.
From its debut in 1962, Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? was a wild success and a cultural lightning rod. The play transpires over one long, boozy night, laying bare the lies, compromises, and scalding love that have sustained a middle-aged couple through decades of marriage. It scandalized critics but magnetized audiences. Across 644 sold-out Broadway performances, the drama demolished the wall between what could and couldn't be said on the American stage and marked a definitive end to the I Love Lucy 1950s. Then, Hollywood took a colossal gamble on Albee's sophisticated play-and won. Costarring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, the sensational 1966 film minted first-time director Mike Nichols as industry royalty and won five Oscars. How this scorching play became a movie classic-surviving censorship attempts, its director's inexperience, and its stars' own tumultuous marriage-is one of the most riveting stories in all of cinema. Now, acclaimed author Philip Gefter tells that story in full for the first time, tracing Woolf from its hushed origins in Greenwich Village's bohemian enclave, through its tormented production process, to its explosion onto screens across America and a permanent place in the canon of cinematic marriages. This deliciously entertaining book explores how two couples-one fictional, one all too real-forced a nation to confront its most deeply held myths about relationships, sex, family, and, against all odds, love. -
The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone
Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism
#1 Book of the Year from Brain Pickings Named a best book of the year by NPR, Newsweek, Slate, Pop Sugar, Marie Claire, Elle, Publishers Weekly, and Lit Hub A dazzling work of biography, memoir, and cultural criticism on the subject of loneliness, told through the lives of iconic artists, by the acclaimed author of The Trip to Echo Spring.
When Olivia Laing moved to New York City in her mid-thirties, she found herself inhabiting loneliness on a daily basis. Increasingly fascinated by the most shameful of experiences, she began to explore the lonely city by way of art. Moving from Edward Hopper's Nighthawks to Andy Warhol's Time Capsules, from Henry Darger's hoarding to David Wojnarowicz's AIDS activism, Laing conducts an electric, dazzling investigation into what it means to be alone, illuminating not only the causes of loneliness but also how it might be resisted and redeemed. Humane, provocative, and moving, The Lonely City is a celebration of a strange and lovely state, adrift from the larger continent of human experience, but intrinsic to the very act of being alive. -
All the Beauty in the World: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me
A fascinating, revelatory portrait of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and its treasures by a former New Yorker staffer who spent a decade as a museum guard. Millions of people climb the grand marble staircase to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art every year. But only a select few have unrestricted access to every nook and cranny. They're the guards who roam unobtrusively in dark blue suits, keeping a watchful eye on the two million square foot treasure house. Caught up in his glamorous fledgling career at The New Yorker, Patrick Bringley never thought he'd be one of them. Then his older brother was diagnosed with fatal cancer and he found himself needing to escape the mundane clamor of daily life. So he quit The New Yorker and sought solace in the most beautiful place he knew. To his surprise and the reader's delight, this temporary refuge becomes Bringley's home away from home for a decade. We follow him as he guards delicate treasures from Egypt to Rome, strolls the labyrinths beneath the galleries, wears out nine pairs of company shoes, and marvels at the beautiful works in his care. Bringley enters the museum as a ghost, silent and almost invisible, but soon finds his voice and his tribe: the artworks and their creators and the lively subculture of museum guards--a gorgeous mosaic of artists, musicians, blue-collar stalwarts, immigrants, cutups, and dreamers. As his bonds with his colleagues and the art grow, he comes to understand how fortunate he is to be walled off in this little world, and how much it resembles the best aspects of the larger world to which he gradually, gratefully returns. In the tradition of classic workplace memoirs like Lab Girl and Working Stiff, All The Beauty in the World is a surprising, inspiring portrait of a great museum, its hidden treasures, and the people who make it tick, by one of its most intimate observers. -
Fleabag: The Scriptures
Go deeper into the groundbreaking, Golden Globe and Emmy-winning series with this must-have collection--"a completist's dream of a book, including the show's full scripts and Waller-Bridge's commentary" (Vogue). NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY EVENING STANDARD "Her coat falls open. She only has her bra on underneath. She pulls out the little sculpture of the woman with no arms. It sits on her lap. Two women. One real. One not. Both with their innate femininity out." Phoebe Waller-Bridge's critically acclaimed, utterly unique series Fleabag took the world by storm with its piercing dialogue, ruthlessly dry wit, and deeply human drama. In Fleabag: The Scriptures, Waller-Bridge brings together for the first time the filming scripts of the first and second seasons, complete with the original stage directions as well as exclusive commentary on her creative process and the making of the series. Now recognized as one of today's most essential voices, she delivers powerful insights into her now-iconic protagonist: the hilarious, emotionally damaged, sexually unapologetic woman who can make viewers laugh, cry, and cringe in a single scene. Essential for any fan, Fleabag: The Scriptures is the ultimate companion to a landmark series. -
Sold outJimmy: The Secret Life of James Dean
A fresh and long-overdue reassessment of James Dean, examining his life and legacy as a queer man.
Although he died at a heartbreakingly young age and appeared in only a handful of movies, James Dean revolutionized American manhood. As a celebrity and icon, he melded vulnerability with determination, sensitivity with strength, in a way that offered a bracing and--for some--threatening new vision of masculinity. His massive influence and the fascination he has always inspired are inseparable from his identity as a queer man whose complex sexuality shattered the norms of midcentury American society. (When asked whether he was a homosexual, he reportedly said, "I'm certainly not going through life with one hand tied behind my back.")
Today, even though it is widely accepted that Dean was gay or bisexual, the story of his life and personal character continue to be colored by the prejudices of an earlier era and the work of often unscrupulous biographers and journalists. Drawing on exhaustive new research (including more than four hundred previously secret pages of Dean's personal and business records), Jimmy: The Secret Life of James Dean is a revelatory reassessment of the man and his legacy. Free from sensationalism--but unafraid to confront the difficult facts of Dean's life--it deploys modern insights into sexual diversity to transform our understanding of James Dean's story, and the stories of boys and men like him.
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Jean-Michel Basquiat. 40th Ed.
The legend of Jean-Michel Basquiat is as strong as ever. Synonymous with 1980s New York, the artist first appeared in the late 1970s under the tag SAMO, spraying caustic comments and fragmented poems on the walls of the city. He appeared as part of a thriving underground scene of visual arts and graffiti, hip hop, post-punk, and DIY filmmaking, which met in a booming art world. As a painter with a strong personal voice, Basquiat soon broke into the established milieu, exhibiting in galleries around the world.
Basquiat's expressive style was based on raw figures and integrated words and phrases. His work is inspired by a pantheon of luminaries from jazz, boxing, and basketball, with references to arcane history and the politics of street life--so when asked about his subject matter, Basquiat answered "royalty, heroism and the streets." In 1983 he started collaborating with the most famous of art stars, Andy Warhol, and in 1985 was on the cover of The New York Times Magazine. When Basquiat died at the age of 27, he had become one of the most successful artists of his time.
First published in an XXL edition, this unprecedented insight into Basquiat's art is now available in a compact, accessible volume in celebration of TASCHEN's 40th anniversary. With pristine reproductions of his most seminal paintings, drawings, and notebook sketches, it offers vivid proximity to Basquiat's intricate marks and scribbled words, further illuminated by an introduction to the artist from editor Hans Werner Holzwarth, as well as an essay on his themes and artistic development from curator and art historian Eleanor Nairne. Richly illustrated year-by-year chapter breaks follow the artist's life and quote from his own statements and contemporary reviews to provide both personal background and historical context. -
Liberty Equality Fashion: The Women Who Styled the French Revolution
Joséphine Bonaparte, future Empress of France; Térézia Tallien, the most beautiful woman in Europe; and Juliette Récamier, muse of intellectuals, had nothing left to lose. After surviving incarceration and forced incestuous marriage during the worst violence of the French Revolution of 1789, they dared sartorial revolt. Together, Joséphine and Térézia shed the underwear cages and massive, rigid garments that women had been obliged to wear for centuries. They slipped into light, mobile dresses, cropped their hair short, wrapped themselves in shawls, and championed the handbag. Juliette made the new style stand for individual liberty.
The erotic audacity of these fashion revolutionaries conquered Europe, starting with Napoleon. Everywhere a fashion magazine could reach, women imitated the news coming from Paris. It was the fastest and most total change in clothing history. Two centuries ahead of its time, it was rolled back after only a decade by misogynist rumors of obscene extravagance.
New evidence allows the real fashion revolution to be told. This is a story for our time: of a revolution that demanded universal human rights, of self-creation, of women empowering each other, and of transcendent glamor
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Golden Girls Forever: An Unauthorized Look Behind the Lanai
New York Times
bestsellerThe complete, first-ever Golden Girls retrospective, packed with hundreds of exclusive interviews, behind-the-scenes and never-before-revealed stories, more than two hundred color and black-and-white photos, commentary, and more.
They were four women of a certain age, living together under one roof in Miami--smart and strong Dorothy, airhead Rose, man-hungry belle Blanche, and smart-mouthed matriarch Sophia. They were the Golden Girls, and for seven seasons, this hilarious quartet enchanted millions of viewers with their witty banter, verve, sass, and love, and reaffirmed the power of friendship and family.
Over thirty years after it first aired, The Golden Girls has become a cult classic, thanks to fan fiction, arts and crafts, podcasts, hundreds of fan blogs and websites, and syndication. Now, Golden Girls Forever pays homage to this wildly popular, acclaimed, and award-winning sitcom. Drawing on interviews with the show's creators, actors, guest stars, producers, writers, and crew members, Jim Colucci paints a comprehensive portrait of the Girls both in front of the cameras and behind the scenes.
Illustrated with hundreds of photos, including stills from the show and a treasure trove of never-before-seen and newly rediscovered photos, Golden Girls Forever includes:
- Girls and Their Guests: short profiles of the show's most famous guest stars
- Why I Love the Girls: Lance Bass, Laverne Cox, Ross Mathews, Perez Hilton, Zachary Quinto, Chris Colfer, Jason Collins, and many, many other celebrities share their love of the Girls
- Exclusive interviews with ninety-four-year-old Betty White; the famously private Bea Arthur and Rue McClanahan, before their deaths; and fan-favorite actors who appeared on the show
- Harvey Fierstein's tribute to his close friend, Estelle Getty
Bursting with fun facts, anecdotes, reminiscences, and insights, Golden Girls Forever is the ultimate companion to the show for fans old and new.
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Palaces for the People: How Social Infrastructure Can Help Fight Inequality, Polarization, and the Decline of Civic Life
"A comprehensive, entertaining, and compelling argument for how rebuilding social infrastructure can help heal divisions in our society and move us forward."--Jon Stewart NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR - "Engaging."--Mayor Pete Buttigieg, The New York Times Book Review (Editors' Choice) We are living in a time of deep divisions. Americans are sorting themselves along racial, religious, and cultural lines, leading to a level of polarization that the country hasn't seen since the Civil War. Pundits and politicians are calling for us to come together and find common purpose. But how, exactly, can this be done? In Palaces for the People, Eric Klinenberg suggests a way forward. He believes that the future of democratic societies rests not simply on shared values but on shared spaces: the libraries, childcare centers, churches, and parks where crucial connections are formed. Interweaving his own research with examples from around the globe, Klinenberg shows how "social infrastructure" is helping to solve some of our most pressing societal challenges. Richly reported and ultimately uplifting, Palaces for the People offers a blueprint for bridging our seemingly unbridgeable divides. LONGLISTED FOR THE ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR EXCELLENCE IN NONFICTION "Just brilliant!"--Roman Mars, 99% Invisible "The aim of this sweeping work is to popularize the notion of 'social infrastructure'--the 'physical places and organizations that shape the way people interact'. . . . Here, drawing on research in urban planning, behavioral economics, and environmental psychology, as well as on his own fieldwork from around the world, [Eric Klinenberg] posits that a community's resilience correlates strongly with the robustness of its social infrastructure. The numerous case studies add up to a plea for more investment in the spaces and institutions (parks, libraries, childcare centers) that foster mutual support in civic life."--The New Yorker "Palaces for the People--the title is taken from the Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie's description of the hundreds of libraries he funded--is essentially a calm, lucid exposition of a centuries-old idea, which is really a furious call to action."--New Statesman "Clear-eyed . . . fascinating."--Psychology Today -
Horror Cinema
Get ready to quake in fear with this revised and expanded edition of our history of horror cinema. This chilling volume packs 640 pages full with the finest slashers, ghosts, zombies, cannibals, and more, curating the very creepiest screen creations from the flickering spooks of the 1920s to the special-effect terrors of the 21st century. Across 10 illustrated chapters, the compendium gets under the skin of some of horror's favorite figures and themes, whether the vampire, the haunted house, the female killer, or the werewolf. Each classic device is explored in aesthetic and historical terms, probing horror's manipulation of archetypal human fears as much as socially and culturally specific anxieties. A subsequent Top 50 movies section brings readers up close and trembling with 50 horror showpieces, from black-and-white classics like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Godzilla to Rosemary's Baby, The Wicker Man, The Shining, The Blair Witch Project, and much, much more. Throughout, the book's featured images include movie posters, set designs, film stills, and on-set shots.