Other books that might interest you

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  Led Zeppelin IV

  Barney Hoskyns

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  The revealing back-story of the album with-no-name that spawned 'When The Levee Breaks', 'Black Dog,' 'Stairway To Heaven' and 'Rock 'n' Roll' Four tracks each side; eight killers, no fillers. This is how they did it.

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  Kanye West's My Beautiful Dark...

  Kirk Walker Graves

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  In the first decade of the twenty-first century, Kanye West created the most compelling body of pop music by an American artist during the period. Having risen from obscurity as a precocious producer through the ranks of Jay Z's Roc-A-Fella records, by the time he released My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (MBDTF) in late 2010, West had evolved into a master collagist, an alchemist capable of transfiguring semi-obscure soul samples and indelible beats into a brash and vulnerable new art form.A look at the arc of his career, from the heady chipmunk soul exuberance of The College Dropout (2004) to the operatic narcissism of MBDTF, tells us about the march of pop music into the digital age and, by extension, the contradictions that define our cultural epoch. In a cloud-based and on-demand culture – a place of increasing virtualization, loneliness, and hyper-connectivity – West straddles this critical moment as what David Samuels of The Atlantic calls ""the first true genius of the iPhone era, the Mozart of contemporary American music."" In the land of taking a selfie, honing a personal brand, and publicly melting down online, Kanye West is the undisputed king. Swallowing the chaos wrought by his public persona and digesting it as a grandiose allegory of self-redemption, Kanye sublimates his narcissism to paint masterstroke after masterstroke on MBDTF, a 69-minute hymn to egotistical excess. Sampling and ventriloquizing the pop music past to tell the story of its future – very much a tale of our culture's wish for unfettered digital ubiquity – MBDTF is the album of its era, an aesthetic self-acquittal and spiritual autobiography of our era’s most dynamic artist.

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  Stan and Ollie - The Roots of...

  Simon Louvish

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  Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy have remained, from 1927 to the present day, the screen's most famous and popular comedy double act, celebrated by legions of fans.  But despite many books about their films and individual lives, there has never been a fully researched, definitive narrative biography of the duo, from birth to death.  Louvish traces the early lives of Stanley Jefferson and Norvell Hardy and the surrounding minstrel and variety theatre, which influenced all of their later work. Louvish examines the rarely seen solo films of both our heroes, prior to their serendipitous pairing in 1927, in the long-lost short "Duck Soup." The inspired casting teamed them until their last days. Both often married, they found balancing their personal and professional lives a nearly impossible feat.  Between 1927 and 1938, they were able to successfully bridge the gap between silent and sound films, which tripped up most of their prominent colleagues. Their Hal Roach and MGM films were brilliant, but their move in 1941, to Twentieth Century Fox proved disastrous, with the nine films made there ranking as some of the most embarrassing moments of cinematic history.In spite of this, Laurel and Hardy survived as exemplars of lasting genius, and their influence is seen to this day.  The clowns were elusive behind their masks, but now Simon Louvish can finally reveal their full and complex humanity, and their passionate devotion to their art.  In Stan and Ollie: The Roots of Comedy: The Double Life of Laurel and Hardy, Louvish has seamlessly woven tireless and thorough research into an authoritative biography of these two important and influential Hollywood pioneers.

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  How Chanel Miller took her story...

  PBS NewsHour

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  For years, she was known to the world as Emily Doe, the survivor of a sexual assault that garnered national attention in part because her attacker served only three months in prison, a sentence that sparked outrage. This week, Chanel Miller is stepping into the spotlight with a new memoir, Know My Name. Miller sits down with Amna Nawaz to tell her story.

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  My Word is My Bond - A Memoir

  Roger Moore

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  “Like his James Bond movies . . . Moore’s autobiography . . . [has] a lead character who doesn’t take himself too seriously . . . full of humor.” —New York Post  
   
  One of the most recognizable big-screen stars of the twentieth century, Sir Roger Moore played the role of James Bond longer than any other actor. Beginning with the classic Live and Let Die, running through Moonraker and A View to a Kill, Moore brought his finely honed wit and wry charm to one of Hollywood’s most beloved and long-lasting characters. Still, James Bond was only one in a lifetime of roles stretching back to Hollywood’s studio era, and encompassing stardom in theater and television on both sides of the Atlantic. From The Saint to Maverick, Warner Brothers to MGM, Hollywood to London to locations the world over, Roger Moore’s story is one of the last of the classic Hollywood lives as yet untold. 
   
  Until now. From the dying days of the studio system and the birth of television, to the quips of Noël Coward and David Niven, to the bedroom scenes and outtakes from the Bond movies, Moore has seen and heard it all. Nothing is left out—especially the naughty bits. The “special effects” by which James Bond unzipped a dress with a magnet; the spectacular risks in The Spy Who Loved Me’s opening scene—the stories in My Word is My Bond are priceless. 
   
  Moore hobnobbed with the glamorous and powerful, counting Elizabeth Taylor, Jane Seymour, and Cary Grant among his contemporaries and friends. As much as it is Moore’s own exceptional story, My Word is My Bond is a treasure trove of Hollywood history. 
   
  “Charming.” —Kirkus Reviews

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  Furari Flores - a multisensory...

  Cara-Ann Simpson, Dr Louise...

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  'Furari Flores' is a multisensory arts project celebrating the wonder of plants from regional Queensland artist, Cara-Ann Simpson. 
  Featuring essays by Dr Louise Martin-Chew, Dr Prudence Gibson, Cat Jones, A/Prof Kyle Jenkins and Cara-Ann Simpson. 'Furari Flores' explores the themes of environmental art, data visualisation, technology, geometry and meditation. Enter a world of multisensory botanical magic and join Cara-Ann on a journey of deep listening, Earth admiration and plant love.

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