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Edie.
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Where Are Your Boys is the book I always wanted to write. Watching emo bands like My Chemical Romance and Paramore soar from suburbs to stardom during my high school years inspired me to take writing seriously, that a kid like me growing up in New Jersey with few connections to the media industry could find a backdoor in, because those bands did, too. With its dense population, adjacency to New York City, and a multitude of record stores and all-ages shows, New Jersey was the setting for much of emo's 2000s boom and the home of My Chemical Romance and many other important bands.
The gold standard of rock and roll oral histories. Two authors, years and years in the making, chronicling one of music's most incendiary eras. "Will you die for the music?" Lou Reed asks in the early pages. In other words, how many knife fights, sleepless nights, and dead friends would it take to stop you from chasing artistic salvation?
Reading this book while I wrote my own made me realize just how sterilized my scene (like much of America) had gotten by the turn of the millennium. Third-wave emo wasn't famously dangerous or gritty, but many of its icons grappled with life-threatening addiction and mental health issues (even more than I expected going in). Yet, thankfully, almost all of those band members are still with us. Please Kill Me illuminated this. It's no accident the final word in my book is "survive."
This is the true story of a misunderstood culture phenomenon, one embracing Andy Warhol, Jim Morrison, Lou Reed, David Bowie, Patti Smith, The Sex Pistols, Iggy Pop, The New York Dolls, The Clash and The Damned. It is a story of sex, drugs and rock and roll, documenting a time of glorious self-destruction and perverse innocence - punk was possibly the last time so many people will have had so much fun killing themselves. Legs McNeil, founder of "Punk" magazine has interviewed those who were members of the punk scene, from the brightest stars to the most observant groupies.
I am currently the features editor at Input, a website about tech and culture. Earlier in my career, I worked at the now-defunct music magazine Blender, for which I wrote an oral history of Sub Pop, the Seattle label that put out early records by the likes of Nirvana, Soundgarden, and Mudhoney. That article was the basis of my book for Everybody Loves Our Town. Iâm also a widely published freelancer, with pieces in the New Yorker, the New York Times, Wired, WSJ. Magazine, Rolling Stone, and many other outlets.
This is the definitive look at an American comedy institution (yes, we know it kinda sucks now) and includes input from almost all the showâs biggest names. The book features the requisite amount of sex, drugs, and rock and roll â plus fisticuffs and lots and lots of backbiting â but it also has some surprisingly tender moments, like Bill Murrayâs recollection of the last time he saw his castmate, Gilda Radner, before her death.
When first published to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Saturday Night Live, LIVE FROM NEW YORK was immediately proclaimed the best book ever produced on the landmark and legendary late-night show. In their own words, unfiltered and uncensored, a dazzling galaxy of trail-blazing talents recalled three turbulent decades of on-camera antics and off-camera escapades. Now a fourth decade has passed---and bestselling authors James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales have returned to Studio 8H. Over more than 100 pages of new material, they raucously and revealingly take the SNL story up to the present, adding a constellation of iconic new stars,âŚ
I have been researching the changes in the workplace for 40 years now. The steady move over that time has been away from a situation where employers controlled the development of their âtalentâ and managed it carefully, especially for white-collar workers, toward arrangements that are much more arms-length where employees are on their own to develop their skills and manage their career. Most employees now see at least some management practices that just donât make sense even for their own employerâcasual approaches to hiring, using âleased employeesâ and contractors, who are paid more, to do the same work as employees, leaving vacancies open, and so forth.
This is a classic oral history of jobs in what older people call âthe good old days.â It is told from the perspective of the individuals doing the jobs they were talking about, and it reveals how interesting their day-to-day experience is.
The reminder for today, especially in our remote workplaces, is how important relationships with people at work are to our happiness and well-being. Itâs also a reminder of how important it is for people to have some control over what they do and to feel invested in their work.
People want to do things well and take pride in what they do. We forget all this when we think of workers as widgets to be optimized.
Perhaps Studs Terkel's best-known book, Working is a compelling, fascinating look at jobs and the people who do them. Consisting of over one hundred interviews conducted with everyone from gravediggers to studio heads, this book provides a timeless snapshot of people's feelings about their working lives, as well as a relevant and lasting look at how work fits into American life.
Tap Dancing on Everest, part coming-of-age memoir, part true-survival adventure story, is about a young medical student, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor raised in N.Y.C., who battles self-doubt to serve as the doctorâand only womanâon a remote Everest climb in Tibet.
I am currently the features editor at Input, a website about tech and culture. Earlier in my career, I worked at the now-defunct music magazine Blender, for which I wrote an oral history of Sub Pop, the Seattle label that put out early records by the likes of Nirvana, Soundgarden, and Mudhoney. That article was the basis of my book for Everybody Loves Our Town. Iâm also a widely published freelancer, with pieces in the New Yorker, the New York Times, Wired, WSJ. Magazine, Rolling Stone, and many other outlets.
Dazed and Confused, Richard Linklaterâs plot-light, pot-heavy 1993 film about Texas teens hanging out on the last day of school in 1976, is perhaps my favorite movie ever, so I was already inclined to love this oral history about the filmâs creation and legacy. Maerz expertly weaves the voices of almost everyone involved in the project â from breakout star Matthew McConaughey to members of the crew â to create a highly entertaining, super-compelling look at a stoner cinema classic.
"Melissa Maerz's brilliant oral history is the definitive account of a cult-classic movie that took a slow ride into the Seventies and defined the Nineties." -Rob Sheffield, Rolling Stone
The definitive oral history of the cult classic Dazed and Confused, featuring behind-the-scenes stories from the cast, crew, and Oscar-nominated director Richard Linklater.
Dazed and Confused not only heralded the arrival of filmmaker Richard Linklater, it introduced a cast of unknowns who would become the next generation of movie stars. Embraced as a cultural touchstone, the 1993 film would also make Matthew McConaughey's famous phrase-alright, alright, alright-ubiquitous. But it started withâŚ
Life is stories, man. Telling stories. Listening to stories. One day, somebody had the brilliant idea to start writing these stories down. And thatâs what weâve been doing ever since. Trading yarns. Figuring things out. Reading and writing. I wrote my first story in middle school. My first novel in college. My first published novel (This Way Madness Lies) in my late twenties. Now itâs thirty years, twenty-five novels, fifty short stories, and three books of poetry later, and Iâm still as obsessed with and passionate about storytelling as I was as a young buck backpacking around Europe with a notebook and a beat-up copy of Down and Out in London and Paris stuffed into my leather satchel.
Iâm the youngest of six sons. Our father read this book aloud to each of us. By the time I came along, heâd had lots of practice. He had distinct voices for all the characters. I can still hear him doing Jimâs voice after Jim gets whacked by the rattlesnake. I had nightmares for a week.
Your grasp of reality is altered when you read Huck Finn as a kid. Twain sweeps you out onto the Mississippi, where you mentally, emotionally, and physically, yes, physically, endure the journey with Huck and Jim.
I didnât realize until I read the novel years later that this book was the first to blow my mind. And what was I? Nine? Maybe ten?
Thanks, Dad!
I grew up as a closeted homosexual in a fundamentalist Christian home, enduring nearly two decades in a crisis of faith. Sermons frequently warned of damnation for my natural inclinations, pushing me to fast, pray, and achieve to resist temptation. This crisis gradually resolved over the eight years I spent writing Playing by the Book, the first coming-out novel to win a National IPPY Medal in religious fiction. Although I donât consider myself a spiritual writer, I am drawn to stories that explore existential struggles and triumphs, including those related to a crisis of faithâmuch like the characters in the novels on this list.
I loved this book for its fantastical portrayal of a Pacific voyage that mirrors the internal conflicts many of us face. Like Pi, who embraced multiple faiths during his ordeal, I searched for answers to reconcile my faith and sexuality across various denominations, religions, and philosophies.
Piâs story as he journeys across the Pacific, a tiger in tow, allowed me to reflect on the moments when I felt alone, wrestling with my faith in the face of an overwhelming challenge, given my fundamentalist upbringing.
After the sinking of a cargo ship, a solitary lifeboat remains bobbing on the wild blue Pacific. The only survivors from the wreck are a sixteen-year-old boy named Pi, a hyena, a wounded zebra, an orangutanâand a 450-pound Royal Bengal tiger.
Soon the tiger has dispatched all but Pi Patel, whose fear, knowledge, and cunning allow him to coexist with the tiger, Richard Parker, for 227 days while lost at sea. When they finally reach the coast of Mexico, Richard Parker flees to the jungle, never to be seen again. The Japanese authorities who interrogate Pi refuse to believe hisâŚ
This irreverent biography provides a rare window into the music industry from a promoterâs perspective. From a young age, Peter Jest was determined to make a career in live music, and despite naysayers and obstacles, he did just that, bringing national acts to his college campus atUW-Milwaukee, booking thousands ofâŚ
The seventh child of a seventh son of a seventh son. Mother spoke of my sleeping nights and alert daysâŚfelt I was curious, observant. She was convinced Iâd be the writer in the family. Named me Jerome after the librarian St. Jerome and Mark after Mark Twain, her favorite author as a child. Mother read to us daily, during high school time, a chapter a night. My brother Fred mailed me a word a week to look up. My freshman year in college I earned money writing compositions. And so it began. I sat on the floor and listened to the world war from Pearl Harbor to D-Day and Hiroshima.
I heard Marilyn Monroe in everything Holly Golightly said. I heard her witticisms. Turned out Truman Capote wrote it using Marilynâs voice.
Holly, a hooker, her protagonist (apartment neighbor) was an in-the-closet gay man. Holly would climb the fire escape and crawl into his room and snuggle in bed with him as if they were lovers. She never denied she was a hooker â but never hid that she had standards and would expect fifty-dollar tips for washroom attendants.
This novella, as does Grapes and Old Man, demonstrates to me the stage play of life we choose to be in is in actsâwe know our assets, limitations and to survive we follow themâin Grapes pickers followed a dream to orange grovesâin Old Manâa fisher needed to prove he could get his luck backâand in Tiffanyâif she could find playgrounds of the rich, sheâd survive.
A beautifully designed edition of Truman Capote's dazzling New York novel Breakfast at Tiffany's, which inspired the classic 1961 film starring Audrey Hepburn
'What I've found does the most good is just to get into a taxi and go to Tiffany's. It calms me down right away, the quietness and the proud look of it; nothing very bad could happen to you there, not with those kind men in their nice suits...'
Meet Holly Golightly - a free spirited, lop-sided romantic girl about town. With her tousled blond hair and upturned nose, dark glasses and chic black dresses, Holly isâŚ
I started studying the tarot ten years ago with no thought that I would ever write about it. I took an introductory class in the back of a local metaphysical shop and went down a rabbit hole of books and teachings. I also enjoy readings myself - from quick fifteen minute reads at sidewalk fairs, to hour long readings in person with renowned readers, from an hour on Zoom with a famous reader, to a reading in a shop in Salem, Massachusetts during the chaos that is October in that town - Iâve benefited from them all. It has been a delight to include this interest in my latest novel.
Carringtonâs surrealist masterpiece is a bit lighter than her other well-known novel, Down Below.
She tells the tale of someone not often seen, much less celebrated, in literature - the crone. At age 92, Marion Leatherby is given the gift of a hearing trumpet by her dear friend Carmella. It is only then she can hear that her family is planning on sending her to an institution.
Carringtonâs fondness for the tarot (she even painted her own deck) can be found in the archetypal characters Leatherby encounters at the institution including the Abbess, the Snow Queen, and the Queen Bee among others.
An old woman enters into a fantastical world of dreams and nightmares in this surrealist classic admired by BjĂśrk and Luis BuĂąuel.
Leonora Carrington, painter, playwright, and novelist, was a surrealist trickster par excellence, and The Hearing Trumpet is the witty, celebratory key to her anarchic and allusive body of work. The novel begins in the bourgeois comfort of a residential corner of a Mexican city and ends with a man-made apocalypse that promises to usher in the earthâs rebirth. In between we are swept off to a most curious old-age home run by a self-improvement cult and drawn severalâŚ
I grew up in a creative family. My father was an illustrator before becoming a childrenâs book author and novelist. My mother, a trained dancer, became my fatherâs collaborator, illustrating their internationally-known Frances books. They inspired me and encouraged me to develop my own talent. I started writing at nine, and have never stopped since. I became a journalist, writing about culture and art for The New York times, New York Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, and Vogue, among others. I am also the author of three well-received artist biographies: Basquiat: A Quick Killing in Art; Lucian Freud: Eyes Wide Open; and Alice Neel: The Art of Not Sitting Pretty.
When I set out to write my first biography I was terrified, with the writersâ equivalent of stage fright. I needed something to jump start me, and the late Patricia Bosworthâs wonderful biography of Diane Arbus did the trick. It steadied my nerves and gave me a practical place to start. I forced myself to write the first paragraph of the book after reading the first few pages of Bosworthâs classic biography of the photographer, who was as original as she was tragic.
Diane Arbus's unsettling photographs of dwarves and twins, transvestites and giants, both polarized and inspired, and her work had already become legendary when she committed suicide in 1971. This groundbreaking biography examines the private life behind Arbus's controversial art. The book deals with Arbus's pampered Manhattan childhood, her passionate marriage to Allan Arbus, their work together as fashion photographers, the emotional upheaval surrounding the end of their marriage, and the radical, liberating, and ultimately tragic turn Arbus's art took during the 1960s when she was so richly productive. This edition includes a new afterword by Patricia Bosworth that covers theâŚ
I grew up thinking that being adopted didnât matter. I was wrong. This book is my journey uncovering the significance and true history of adoption practices in America. Now, in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Courtâs overturning of Roe v. Wade, the renewed debate over womenâs reproductive rights placesâŚ
I grew up in a creative family. My father was an illustrator before becoming a childrenâs book author and novelist. My mother, a trained dancer, became my fatherâs collaborator, illustrating their internationally-known Frances books. They inspired me and encouraged me to develop my own talent. I started writing at nine, and have never stopped since. I became a journalist, writing about culture and art for The New York times, New York Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, and Vogue, among others. I am also the author of three well-received artist biographies: Basquiat: A Quick Killing in Art; Lucian Freud: Eyes Wide Open; and Alice Neel: The Art of Not Sitting Pretty.
Hustvedt creates a very compelling picture of the inner and outer life of a female artist in the contemporary art world, notorious for both its sexism and ageism. The protagonist comes up with a clever ploy for achieving the same success as a male artist: she takes on a male artistâs persona and name, and hires a male artist to impersonate her in public, a convoluted ploy with great potential to ultimately backfire. Donât want to provide any plot spoilers!
Named one of the New York Times Book Reviewâs 100 Notable Books of the Year ** Publishers Weeklyâs Best Fiction Books of 2014 ** NPR Best Books of 2014 ** Kirkus Reviews Best Literary Fiction Books of 2014 ** Washington Post Top 50 Fiction Books of 2014 ** Boston Globeâs Best Fiction of 2014 ** The Telegraphâs Best Fiction to Read 2014 ** St. Louis Post Dispatchâs Best Books of 2014 ** The Independent Fiction Books of the Year 2014 ** One of Buzzfeedâs Best Books Written by Women in 2014 ** San Francisco Chronicleâs Best of 2014 ** AâŚ