Creator: Mary Woods
Edition: Unabridged
Publication date: 2000-09
Dewey code: 790
List Price: $76.95
Price: $48.48
Review The Unruly Life of Woody Allen / Blackstone Audiobooks:Based on interviews with dozens of people who know him, both friend and foe, this biography examines the life and career of Woody Allen, the Oscar-winning actor-writer-director of Sleeper, Annie Hall, Crimes and Misdemeanors, and Deconstructing Harry. Woody Allen once controlled the press like his actors-and as critic Andrew Sarris observed, Woody "is almost a ventriloquist and all his actors are marionettes. It's his nature. He has to be on top. " The Soon-Yi scandal cost him $7 million and his protected reputation, and now we've got Marion Meade's unblinking look at his blighted life (superior to John Baxter's Woody Allen, not quite as good as Meade's Dorothy Parker: What Fresh Hell Is This?). The son of a loveless dad and mom who respectively ignored and beat him daily, Woody grew up mean, scarred, and scared: he slept with a night-light until his early 40s and considered suicide daily until at least age 51. His uncanny gift for comedy gave him no comfort, but movies did. His most autobiographical character is Cecilia in The Purple Rose of Cairo, who took refuge in theaters from "the ugly light" of real life. Boy, does Meade cast ugly light on Woody and his work. His best role for a woman, Annie Hall, is "basically stupid," as Diane Keaton said. [+]In life and art, Woody sought leading ladies he could dominate. He stalled Mia forever before granting her the right to keep her shampoo at his apartment "alongside toiletries belonging to Diane Keaton, preserved there like so many fossilized relics in King Tut's tomb for more than a decade. " Mia was horrified that he spilled her family's nasty secrets in Hannah and Her Sisters, and fretted over his obsession with Keaton and her sisters, Mariel Hemingway's sister, and Mia's own sister Steffi-whose photos she discovered (shades of Soon-Yi!) in his apartment. Woody's lovable persona was as fake as his transplanted, dyed hair. And Mia's no sweetheart herself: having caught her scuzzy dad with Ava Gardner one night as a child, she married Ava's squeeze Frank Sinatra at 19, and then stole her friend Dory Previn's husband, André, saying, "You don't fight what feels good. " If Meade's sour, thorough tome is true, nobody in Hollywood fights what feels good, and they all come out looking pretty bad. -Tim Appelo.
Creator: Ian Holm
Edition: Abridged
Publication date: 1997-09-25
Price: $44.35
Review Going Solo / Jonathan Cape Ltd:A companion cassette to "Boy", this second instalment of Roald Dahl's life on audiotape includes his escapades in East Africa and fighter pilot missions during World War Two.
Creator: Roe Kendall
Edition: Unabridged
Publication date: 1998-12
Dewey code: 920
List Price: $69.95
Price: $44.07
Review The Real Diana / Blackstone Audiobooks:The unexpected passing of Princess Diana left us only to wonder what she was really like and what the future held for her-until now. Finally, telling the story Lady Di wanted her to tell, Lady Colin Campbell uncovers the real Diana, complex, conflicted, and always intriguing. From before her marriage to Prince Charles up until her tragic death alongside Dodi Fayed, Campbell-with access to the most informative source of all: Diana-paints a revealing portrait of the woman who captivated the world for nearly twenty years. In this extraordinary account, Campbell exposes these and other fascinating truths: -Lady Di had an abortion while married to Prince Charles because the child she carried wasn't his baby. -Though she played the part of an innocent, Di was actually not a virgin when she married Prince Charles at 19. -Diana's shaky mental state: the onset of her bulimia, her obsession with her body, and her near emotional breakdown just before her marriage. -Di and Dodi were planning to spend their lives together-they had already purchased a ring and looked at real estate together. Find out more shocking facts about the woman you thought you knew! Say what you will about the author of The Real Diana, but Lady Colin Campbell certainly is no practitioner of noblesse oblige. This is a book for those who like their gossip explicit and in large quantities, and who aren't bothered by little details like verifiable attribution. (The vast majority of quotes in this book are from "a member of the Wales household," "a lady-in-waiting," "a courtier," and most ironically of all, "a friend. [+]") Lady Campbell claims to be the person whom Diana first approached to write the tell-all biography that Andrew Morton was later to author. And though she turned down that opportunity, this is her second publication to cash in on her "insider status" (Diana in Private was her first), which is seemingly a reference to her title by marriage and a casual acquaintance with the princess. With its paucity of named sources, it's probably impossible to authoritatively separate fact from fiction in The Real Diana, though it does seem that what with affairs, petty vengeances, and temper tantrums, Di would have had little time left for her courtly duties. Campbell's style is lively enough, and she has some interesting insights into the modern British aristocracy and its unconventional values. But are you truly curious to learn not only the details of the late princess's lovers' techniques, but also the names of the two therapists Diana went to for colonic irrigation? -John Longenbaugh.
Creator: Michael Tudor Barnes
Publication date: 2003-01
List Price: $49.95
Price: $43.86
Review Memoirs of an Orphan Boy / Ulverscroft Large Print:
Creator: Richard Matthews
Edition: Unabridged
Publication date: 2002-05
Dewey code: 920
List Price: $40.00
Price: $48.00
Review Winston Churchill / Books on Tape:One of the greatest historians writing today gives us a defining portrait of the incomparable Churchill Acclaimed historian John Keegan offers a very human portrait of one of the twentieth century’s enduring symbols of heroic defiance. From Churchill’s youth as a poor student to his leadership during World War II, Keegan reveals a man whose own idea of an English past—eloquently embodied in his speeches—allowed him to exhort a nation to unprecedented levels of sacrifice. The result is a uniquely discerning look at one of the most fascinating personalities in history. He was something of a bully, something of a blowhard, without friends and always in search of a sympathetic audience for his monologues. Yet, writes John Keegan in this slender but thorough portrait, Winston Churchill was unquestionably the right man for the time. Few biographers are better equipped than Keegan, the eminent military historian, to write of Churchill as a wartime leader. Indeed, Keegan suggests, Churchill was never more at ease than when confronting some fierce enemy, whether across the English Channel or a range of Afghan hills; it was from the saddle that he developed his "vision of how an enlightened empire might transform the future of mankind. " The rise of other, less enlightened empires helped put an end to his own, but Churchill steadfastly insisted on a strong role for Great Britain in the postwar world-in which he succeeded, even if voters turned him out of office almost as soon as the war ended. Keegan's respectful portrait assesses Churchill's many accomplishments (and a few noteworthy failures) as he sought, in Churchill's ringing words, to "resist oppression, to protect the weak, to vindicate the profound but unwritten Law of Nations. " Admirers of Churchill and students of his time will find much of value in these pages. [+]-Gregory McNamee.
Creator: Frederick Davidson
Edition: Unabridged
Publication date: 1995-06
Dewey code: 920
List Price: $69.95
Price: $44.07
Review The Confessions, Part 2 / Blackstone Audiobooks:Widely regarded as the first modern autobiography, "The Confessions" is an astonishing work of acute psychological insight. Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-78) argued passionately against the inequality he believed to be intrinsic to civilized society. In his "Confessions", he relives the first fifty-three years of his radical life with vivid immediacy - from his earliest years, where we can see the source of his belief in the innocence of childhood, through the development of his philosophical and political ideas, his struggle against the French authorities and exile from France following the publication of Aemile. Depicting a life of adventure, persecution, paranoia, and brilliant achievement, "The Confessions" is a landmark work by one of the greatest thinkers of the Enlightenment, which was a direct influence upon the work of Proust, Goethe and Tolstoy among others.
Price: $44.34
Review Strawberries and Cream / EMI Music Publishing:Sir Harry Secombe was one of Britain’s best loved entertainers. After his death in April 2001, at the age of 79, the former Prime Minister John Major paid tribute to him as: "one of the loveliest of men and a comic genius who gave pleasure to millions. " In this second volume of autobiography, the sequel to his highly praised Arias and Raspberries, he covers his life from 1951. He tells wonderful behind-the-scenes stories of the legendary Goon Shows with Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers, and Michael Bentine, with several hilarious excerpts from the original recordings. He recalls marvelous anecdotes about his role as Mr Bumble in the film Oliver! and his title role in the stage musical Pickwick, his numerous radio and television shows, and his family life in Cheam.
Edition: Unabridged
Publication date: 1997-08
List Price: $69.95
Price: $44.07
Review Right from the Beginning / Blackstone Audiobooks:Warm and self-deprecating, surprisingly witty, honest to a fault about his political views. Mr. Buchanan has a secret weapon: Charm. -The New York Times.
Edition: Unabridged
Publication date: 1998-01
Dewey code: 920
List Price: $89.95
Price: $43.74
Review Jefferson and the Ordeal of Liberty, Vol. 3 / Blackstone Audiobooks:The third volume in Dumas Malone's distinguished study of Thomas Jefferson and his time deals with one of the most fascinating and controversial periods of Jefferson's life. It includes the story of the final and most crucial phase of his secretaryship of state, his retirement to Monticello, his assumption of the leadership of the opposition party, and the crisis during the half-war with France when the existence of political expression was threatened and the freedom of individuals imperiled.
Run time: 585 min.
Creator: Grover Gardner
Edition: Unabridged
Publication date: 2001
Review At the Altar of Speed : The Fast Life and Tragic Death of Dale Earnhardt / Chivers North America:6 cassettes; approx. 9 hours and 45 minutes runtime. Author is senior writer for SPORTS ILLUSTRATED.
Creator: Michael Prichard
Edition: Unabridged
Publication date: 2001-10
Dewey code: 920
List Price: $120.00
Price: $92.00
Review Crusade in Europe / Books on Tape:Five-star General Dwight D. Eisenhower was arguably the single most important military figure of World War II. For many historians, his memoirs of this eventful period of U. S. history have become the single most important record of the war. Crusade in Europe tells the complete story of the war as Eisenhower planned and lived it. Through his eyes, the enormous scope and drama of the war - strategy, battles, moments of fateful decision - become fully illuminated in all their fateful glory. Yet this is also a warm and richly human account. Ike recalls the long months of waiting, planning, and working toward victory in Europe. His personal record of the tense first hours after he had issued the order to attack - and there was no turning back - leaves no doubt of Eisenhower's travail and reveals this great man in ways that no biographer has ever surpassed.
Creator: Sairah Shah
Edition: Abridged
Publication date: 2003-07-08
Dewey code: 910
List Price: $20.65
Price: $44.58
Review The Storyteller's Daughter / Penguin Audiobooks:Saira Shah always felt like an outsider. As a child growing up in Britain, she was told that she came from a far away Eastern land, a magical place that her father, the storyteller, would bring exotically to life. When, at the age of twenty-one, Saira set out to discover this magic land for herself, she found a devastated country quite unlike that of her father?s stories. Worse, as a modern Western woman, she felt despised and powerless. Yet despite the brutal shattering of her dream, Saira came to feel that her own heartfelt story belonged to this troubled land.
Creator: To be announced (Narrator)
Edition: Unabridged Library
Publication date: 2008-10-01
Dewey code: 306
List Price: $59.95
Price: $41.03
Review Stubborn Twig: Three Generations in the Life of a Japanese American Family / Blackstone Audiobooks, Inc.:Japanese immigrant Masuo Yasui arrived in America in 1903 with nothing but big dreams. He went on to become a successful orchardist and raise a large family. But World War II would change their lives forever.
Creator: Jeff Riggenbach
Publication date: 2000-07
Dewey code: 791.430233092
List Price: $69.95
Price: $44.07
Review The Dark Side of Genius: The Life of Alfred Hitchcock / Blackstone Audiobooks:This is the definitive life story of Alfred Hitchcock, the enigmatic and intensely private director of Psycho, Vertigo, Rear Window, The Birds, and more than forty other films. While setting forth every stage of Hitchcock’s long life and brilliant career, Donald Spoto also explores the roots of the director’s obsessions with blondes, food, murder, and idealized love—and he traces the incomparable, bizarre genius from Hitchcock’s English childhood through the golden years of his career in America as one of the greatest directors in the history of filmmaking.
Publication date: 1989-01
List Price: $69.95
Price: $44.07
Review Chronicles of Wasted Time, Chronicle 1: The Green Stick / Blackstone Audiobooks:Through scores of intellectual, social, political, and religious endeavors, Muggeridge's life touched the heart of twentieth-century history. In this volume, Muggeridge chronicles the time he wasted in the leftist intellectual pursuits of his youth. We agree with the Daily Times (London) when it called this memoir, "fit to be mentioned in the same class as Carlyle or Rousseau. ".
Publication date: 1990-06
List Price: $69.95
Price: $44.07
Review Jack C S Lewis and His Times / Blackstone Audiobooks:Jack sheds new light on Lewis's academic career, discusses his religious experience, and deals frankly with his romantic relationships. 10 cassettes.
Edition: Unabridged
Publication date: 2003-07
Dewey code: 920
List Price: $69.95
Price: $51.06
Review Viva El Vet / Chivers Audio Books:In 1973, vet David Grant spent time in Medellin, Colombia, expecting the experience to prove instructive. It was, but not in the way David thought it would be. Read how David learnt to pay his own way and that of his nurse by pampering the pets of rich clients, while children and beggars starved.
Creator: William F. Buckley
Edition: Unabridged
Publication date: 2005-08
Dewey code: 920
List Price: $95.95
Price: $43.40
Review Miles Gone by: A Literary Biography Library Edition / Blackstone Audiobooks:
Publication date: 1997-08
Dewey code: 320
List Price: $69.95
Price: $44.07
Review Reflections of a Neoconservative / Blackstone Audiobooks:This important work, by the "godfather" of neoconservatism, is more or less a political autobiography which shows the development of the neoconservatist mind. 10 cassettes.
Creator: Joe Barrett
Edition: Unabridged
Publication date: 2008-10-31
Dewey code: 920
List Price: $59.95
Price: $43.76
Review In Search of Captain Zero: A Surfer's Road Trip Beyond the End of the Road, Library Edition / Blackstone Audiobooks:A chronicle of surfer and photojournalist Weisbecker's two-year journey south from the Mexican border to solve the mystery of a friend's disappearance. In 1996, Allan Weisbecker sold his home and his possessions, loaded his dog and surfboards into his truck, and set off in search of his lifelong surfing companion, Christopher, who had vanished into the wilds of Central America. Weisbecker traveled south from Mexico through seven countries before discovering his friend in a primeval rain forest, living a shockingly corrupt antithesis of their mutual dream of an Endless Summer perfect-wave paradise. Intimately describing the people he befriended, the bandits he evaded, the waves he caught and lost en route to finding Christopher, In Search of Captain Zero is the story of Weisbecker's quest. This rollicking memoir of friendship and adventure is one part Road Fever and one part Heart of Darkness: a nonstop tale of territorial local surf-gang wars and all-gear-and-no-skill European dilettantes, of daring sea rescues, twentieth-century piracy, and a jungle road trip to the place that lies beyond the end of the road. In 1966, Allan Weisbecker "made a Manhattan run from the landlocked suburbs" to take in a siren-song movie called The Endless Summer, a documentary that depicted the carefree life of two beach bums who roamed the world in quest of the perfect wave. Weisbecker was hooked, and he became a hardcore wave rider, a fixture on the Long Island surf scene. With a friend, Christopher, he also undertook illegal ways to finance his passion, transporting drugs from exotic countries, a business only briefly interrupted when Christopher went off to Vietnam. There he took fire and came home scarred; something in him changed, and one day he simply vanished. Weisbecker's book, a sort of gonzo detective story blended with travelogue and peppered with hang-10 jargon, does many things, all of them very well indeed. [+]It offers up a vision of innocent times brought to ruin by war and drugs; it recounts his search for his lost friend, whose life had gone from bad to worse far away from home; and it affords a look inside the strange culture of surfing, whose masters "understood, in a visceral and soulful and inexpressible way, the machinations of the sea, and, by subtle inference, the universe at large. " Full of regret and exhilaration, Weisbecker's memoir is a fine chronicle of a dream gone sour and a friendship redeemed. -Gregory McNamee.
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The Unruly Life of Woody Allen, Going Solo, The Real Diana, Memoirs of an Orphan Boy, Winston Churchill, The Confessions, Part 2, Strawberries and Cream, Right from the Beginning, Jefferson and the Ordeal of Liberty, Vol. 3, At the Altar of Speed : The Fast Life and Tragic Death of Dale Earnhardt, Crusade in Europe, The Storyteller's Daughter, Stubborn Twig: Three Generations in the Life of a Japanese American Family, The Dark Side of Genius: The Life of Alfred Hitchcock, Chronicles of Wasted Time, Chronicle 1: The Green Stick, Jack C S Lewis and His Times, Viva El Vet, Miles Gone by: A Literary Biography Library Edition, Reflections of a Neoconservative, In Search of Captain Zero: A Surfer's Road Trip Beyond the End of the Road, Library EditionTop headlines: Expecting parents: What is a doula?: Greek for "a woman who serves," a doula can help comfort, inform and encourage a laboring woman, satisfying needs that hospital staff and family can't always tend to. 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An excerpt. ›20:03 19 Nov, Wed WHO: More research on foodborne ills needed: Foodborne diseases appear to be on the rise in both rich and poor countries, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday. ›18:20 20 Nov, Thu Opinion: Cancer's not the only smoking risk: Cancer is the disease most often associated with cigarettes. Yet there is something far more common, more lethal , and more avoidable linked to cigarettes the heart attack. ›13:55 20 Nov, Thu John McCain fights back vs. Jackson Browne: John McCain may have lost the presidential election to Barack Obama, but his campaign seems absolutely determined not to lose to Jackson Browne. ›14:10 20 Nov, Thu Burger King limits sodium in kids meals: Burger King Corp. said it is cutting the amount of sodium in its kids meals and promoting menu combinations with less than 650 calories as part of a push to emphasize nutrition. ›15:23 19 Nov, Wed Citigroup eyeing options, including a merger: Citigroup Inc is reportedly looking at breaking up and selling parts of the company, or a merger with another firm, after its stock fell 50 percent this week. ›13:43 Arms dealer guilty in terrorist conspiracy: A wealthy arms dealer long suspected of aiding militants in some of the world's bloodiest conflicts was convicted Thursday of conspiring to sell weapons to informants who posed as arms suppliers for terrorists willing to kill Americans. ›20:57 20 Nov, Thu Graffiti triggers crime, littering, study shows: The mere presence of graffiti doubles the number of people littering and stealing in a neighborhood, new research suggests. ›19:32 20 Nov, Thu |
