Entertainment Memoir

Rita Hayworth was the epitome of 1940s glamour. A legendary "Love Goddess", she was a huge box-office star, and her sultry beauty and sensational figure made her into one of Hollywood's greatest sex-symbols: a pin-up so incendiary that GIs pasted it on to the first atom bomb ever detonated.

After a lifetime of putting his body on the line to entertain his dozens (and dozens!) of fans, the Hardcore Legend is paying the price - physically and emotionally. When the final bell on Mick's career tolls, not in the ring, but in a neurologist's office, his future seems far from merry and bright. Until Mick is given the chance to become Santa Claus - not dress up, not pretend, but become Santa - allowing him to rediscover the joy of performing. Fully committing to his new mission, Mick details the drastic measures he takes to keep the Christmas magic alive.

Just what was it about the Grateful Dead that made them rock and roll's most beloved band? In Deadheads, those with the real story, who were there and are still listening to the music, explain it all. Grateful Dead lyricist John Perry Barlow talks about his lifelong friendship with Dead guitarist Bob Weir. Cajun chef Rick Begneaud shares his memories of feeding the Dead. John Popper of Blues Traveler recalls playing with the Dead at Bill Graham's memorial tribute .

In The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke, Jeffrey C. Stewart offers the definitive biography of the father of the Harlem Renaissance, based on the extant primary sources of his life and on interviews with those who knew him personally. He narrates the education of Locke, including his becoming the first African American Rhodes Scholar, earning a PhD in philosophy at Harvard University, and his long career as a professor at Howard University. And yet he became most closely associated with the flowering of Black culture in Jazz Age America.

A misfit kid at the best of times, Mishka Shubaly had his world shattered when, in a 24-hour span in 1992, he survived a mass shooting on his school's campus then learned that his parents were getting divorced. His father, a prominent rocket scientist, abandoned the family, and their home was lost to foreclosure. Shubaly swore to avenge the wrongs against his mother but instead plunged into a magnificently toxic love affair with alcohol.

Yogi Berra is one of America's most beloved baseball players of all time, known as much for his wit and humor as he is for his exploits with the New York Yankees. In this new book, Yogi provides inspiring, funny, and surprisingly moving essays on life, happiness, and getting through the slumps.

Cute Poodles, Sweet Old Ladies & Hugs, Dr. Miller has assembled a "greatest hits" of veterinary tales. Cute Poodles, Sweet Old Ladies & Hugs provides a humorous look at what Dr. Miller went through to become a veterinarian and his daily life as a doctor, told only as a typical New Yorker could. Underneath the humor, Dr. Miller gives a glimpse of how strong and emotional the human-animal bond can be, becoming an instant must-listen for any aspiring veterinary professional or animal lover that wants to know what it is really like to be a veterinarian.

Phil Spector, born in the Bronx in 1940, grew up an outsider despised by his peers. But he formed a band, and had a number-one hit with "To Know Him Is to Love Him". He quickly became the top producer of early rock and roll and the originator of such girl groups as the Ronettes. Hit followed hit, and for all of them he used a new recording style called the "wall of sound". But the reign of the boy-man who owned pop music was doomed, and Spector spiraled into paranoid isolation and peculiar behavior.

In February 1969, the Beatles began working on what became their final album together. Abbey Road introduced a number of new techniques and technologies to the Beatles' sound and included "Come Together", "Something", and "Here Comes the Sun", which all emerged as classics. Womack's colorful retelling of how this landmark album was written and recorded is a treat for fans of the Beatles. Solid State takes listeners back to 1969 and into EMI's Abbey Road Studios, which boasted an advanced solid state transistor mixing desk.

In my book, you will meet a little girl named Viola who ran from her past until she made a life-changing decision to stop running forever. This is my story, from a crumbling apartment in Central Falls, Rhode Island, to the stage in New York City, and beyond. This is the path I took to finding my purpose but also my voice in a world that didn’t always see me.

Wildflower is a portrait of Drew's life in stories as she looks back on the adventures, challenges, and incredible experiences of her earlier years. It includes tales of living on her own at 14 (and how laundry may have saved her life), getting stuck in a gas station overhang on a cross-country road trip, saying good-bye to her father in a way only he could have understood, and many more adventures and lessons that have led her to the successful, happy, and healthy place she is today.

Amy Poehler is hosting a dinner party and you're invited! Welcome to the audiobook edition of Amy Poehler's Yes Please. The guest list is star-studded with vocal appearances from Carol Burnett, Seth Meyers, Michael Schur, Patrick Stewart, Kathleen Turner, and even Amy’s parents - Yes Please is the ultimate audiobook extravaganza.

Ryousuke Nanasaki married his husband in 2016 in the first religiously recognized same-sex wedding in Japanese history. This collection of essays follows Ryousuke's search for love on the journey to his extraordinary marriage. From unrequited junior high crushes to awkward dating sites to finally finding a community, Ryousuke's heartfelt reflections on his coming-of-age as a young gay man in Hokkaido will touch listeners all over the world.

For fans of Tune In, an anthology of essays from 30 luminaries about their favorite Beatles songs. Blauner anthologizes essays from 30 authors, actors, and musicians reflecting on their favorite Beatles songs, creating a monument to the enduring impact of the most popular band of all time. The diversity of favorite tracks and the variety of reasons contributors love them speak to the range of the Beatles' song catalog and the power their music still has more than 50 years after they arrived in the United States.

In the years after the Civil Rights Act of 1964, women in the workplace still found themselves relegated to secretarial positions or locked out of jobs entirely. This was especially true in the news business, a backwater of male chauvinism in which a woman might be lucky to get a foothold on the “women’s pages”. But when a pioneering nonprofit called National Public Radio came along in the 1970s and the door to serious journalism opened a crack, four remarkable women came along and blew it off the hinges.

The Kids in the Hall: One Dumb Guy spans the entirety of the Kids' storied career, from their early club shows in Toronto to their recent live reunion tours across North America-and everything in between. Along for the ride are a plethora of fans, peers, and luminaries to celebrate the career and legacy of Canada's most subversively hilarious comedy troupe. You'll hear tributes from Seth Meyers, Judd Apatow, Garry Shandling, Paul Feig, Mike Myers, David Cross, Michael Ian Black, Brent Butt, Jonah Ray, Dana Gould, Bob Odenkirk, Andy Richter, and Baroness Von Sketch.

In 1963, 30-year-old Friedman - who had recently quit his job as a Boston advertising executive and returned to his hometown of New York to become a theatrical producer - opened a coffee house for Broadway performers called the Improvisation. His goal? Simply to make a living, and if all went according to plan, to also make enough professional contacts to be able to mount his first Broadway show within a year's time. Later shortened to the Improv, its first West 44th Street location was in a seedy section of Manhattan's Hell's Kitchen.

Why play to 12,000 people when you can play to 12? In Autumn 2021, Robin Ince's stadium tour with Professor Brian Cox was postponed due to the pandemic. Rather than do nothing, he decided instead to go on a tour of over a hundred bookshops in the UK, from Wigtown to Penzance; from Swansea to Margate. Packed with witty anecdotes and tall tales, Bibliomaniac takes the listener on a journey across Britain as Robin explores his lifelong love of bookshops and books—and also tries to find out just why he can never have enough of them.

The most compelling figures in the Warner Bros. story are the sagacious Mo Ostin and the unlikely crew of hippies, eccentrics, and enlightened execs who were the first in the music business to read the generational writing on the wall in the mid-1960s. By recruiting outsider artists and allowing them to make the music they wanted, Ostin and his staff transformed an out-of-touch company into the voice of a generation. Along the way, they revolutionized the music industry and, within just a few years, created the most successful record label in the history of the American music industry.

On Christmas morning in the year 800, Pope Leo III placed the crown of imperial Rome on the brow of a Germanic king named Karl - a gesture that enabled the man later hailed as Charlemagne to claim his empire and forever shape the destiny of Europe. Becoming Charlemagne tells the story of the international power struggle that led to this world-changing event, illuminating an era that has long been overshadowed by myth.