An acclaimed critic argues that video games are the most vital art form of our time Video games have seemingly taken over our lives. Whereas gamers once constituted a small and largely male subculture, today 67 percent of American households play video games. The average gamer is now thirty-four years old and spends eight hours each week playing -- and there is a 40 percent chance this person is a woman. In Bit by Bit, Andrew Ervin sets out to understand the explosive popularity of video games. He travels to government laboratories, junk shops, and arcades. He interviews scientists and game designers, both old and young. In charting the material and technological history of video games, from the 1950s to the present, he suggests that their appeal starts and ends with the sense of creativity they instill in gamers. As Ervin argues, games are art because they are beautiful, moving, and even political -- and because they turn players into artists themselves.
Basic Books
|
9780465039708
|
Hardcover
Woody
By Evanier, David
In this first biography of Woody Allen in over a decade, David Evanier discusses key movies, plays and prose as well as Allen's personal life. Evanier tackles the themes that Allen has spent a lifetime sorting through in art: morality, sexuality, Judaism, the eternal struggle of head and heart. Woody will be the definitive word on a major American talent as he begins his ninth decade, and his sixth decade of making movies.
St. Martin's Press
|
9781250047267
|
Print book
Mercury Pictures Presents
By Marra, Anthony
The epic tale of a brilliant woman who must reinvent herself to survive, moving from Mussolini's Italy to 1940s Los Angeles - a timeless story of love, deceit, and sacrifice from the award-winning, New York Times bestselling author of A Constellation of Vital PhenomenaONE OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF 2022 - BookPageLike many before her, Maria Lagana has come to Hollywood to outrun her past. Born in Rome, where every Sunday her father took her to the cinema instead of church, Maria immigrates with her mother to Los Angeles after a childhood transgression leads to her father's arrest.Fifteen years later, on the eve of America's entry into World War II, Maria is an associate producer at Mercury Pictures, trying to keep her personal and professional lives from falling apart.
Publisher: n/a
|
9780451495204
|
Hardcover
Who Is Rich?
By Klam, Matthew
A provocative and hilarious satire of love, sex, money, and politics in our new gilded age - the long-awaited first novel from the the acclaimed author of Sam the CatEvery summer, a once-sort-of-famous forty-two-year-old cartoonist named Rich Fischer leaves his wife and two kids behind to teach a cartooning class at a week long summer arts conference in a charming New England beachside town. It's a place where every year students - nature poets and driftwood sculptors, widowed seniors, teenagers away from home for the first time - show up to study with an esteemed faculty made up of Nobel Prize-winning playwrights, actors, and historians; drunkards and perverts; members of the cultural elite; unknown nobodies, midlist somebodies, and legitimate stars, a place where drum circles happen on the beach at midnight, clothing optional. One of the attendees is a forty-one-year-old painting student named Amy O'Donnell. Amy is a mother of three, unhappily married to a brutish Wall Street titan who runs a multibillion-dollar investment fund and commutes to work via helicopter. Rich and Amy met at the conference a year ago, shared a moment of passion, then spent the winter exchanging inappropriate texts and emails and counting the days until they could see each other again. Now they're back. Once more, Rich finds himself in this seaside paradise, worrying about his family's nights without him, and trying not to think about his book, now out of print, or his mercenary existence as an illustrator at a glossy magazine about to go under, or his back taxes, or the shameless shenanigans of his colleagues at this summer make-out festival, or his own very real desire for love and human contact. He can't decide whether Amy is going to rescue or destroy him. Who Is Rich? is a warped and exhilarating tale of love and adultery, a study in midlife alienation, erotic pleasure, envy, and bitterness in the new gilded age that goes far beyond the humor and satire to address deeper questions: of family, monogamy, the intoxicating beauty of children, and the challenging interdependence of two soulful, sensitive creatures in a confusing domestic alliance.Advance praise for Who Is Rich?"It's amazing to wait so long for a book, and for it to be everything you wanted. The most singular quality of Matthew Klam's writing is how alive it is. I loved every page of this book. It got into my bloodstream - and kind of destroyed me." - Curtis Sittenfeld"By turns fierce, disturbing, and outright hilarious, Who Is Rich? is much more than a novel of midlife crisis; it's a frank exploration of what it feels like to struggle as an artist and a man. Klam writes like a surgeon, with the sharpest of scalpels, and cuts to the bone." - Jonathan Tropper"I've been eagerly awaiting another book by Matthew Klam - and here it is, and it's a stunner. This, his first novel, is funny, dark, big, and bold. I read it straight through, with great pleasure and awe at all he knows about art, money, family, sex, kids, mortality, and shame. Not to be missed." - Meg Wolitzer
Random House
|
9780812997989
|
Hardcover
Sundays with Sophie
By Flay, Bobby
Pull up a chair with Bobby Flay and his all-time favorite person to cook for, his daughter, Sophie, as they share favorite recipes from their family kitchen.Few things make Bobby Flay happier than cooking for his daughter, Sophie. A news reporter in Los Angeles and co-host of The Flay List on the Food Network, Sophie grew up around Bobby's restaurants and shares his passion for all things delicious.In Sundays with Sophie, the Flays invite you to pull up a chair at their family table to learn Bobby's secrets for delivering delicious, unbeatable meals for any night of the week. Bobby encourages you to cook with the spirit that Sunday brings: meals that include gathering around the table and sharing beautiful, easy-to-create dishes with family and friends, whether it's a weeknight or the end of a tough week.
Clarkson Potter
|
9780593232408
|
Hardcover
Is This Anything?
By Seinfeld, Jerry
Since his first performance at the legendary New York nightclub &;Catch a Rising Star&; as a twenty-one-year-old college student in fall of 1975, Jerry Seinfeld has written his own material and saved everything. &;Whenever I came up with a funny bit, whether it happened on a stage, in a conversation, or working it out on my preferred canvas, the big yellow legal pad, I kept it in one of those old school accordion folders,&; Seinfeld writes. &;So I have everything I thought was worth saving from forty-five years of hacking away at this for all I was worth.&;
Publisher: n/a
|
9781643587295
|
Large Print
Mercury Pictures Presents
By Marra, Anthony
The epic tale of a brilliant woman who must reinvent herself to survive, moving from Mussolini's Italy to 1940s Los Angeles - a timeless story of love, deceit, and sacrifice from the award-winning, New York Times bestselling author of A Constellation of Vital PhenomenaONE OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF 2022 - BookPageLike many before her, Maria Lagana has come to Hollywood to outrun her past. Born in Rome, where every Sunday her father took her to the cinema instead of church, Maria immigrates with her mother to Los Angeles after a childhood transgression leads to her father's arrest.Fifteen years later, on the eve of America's entry into World War II, Maria is an associate producer at Mercury Pictures, trying to keep her personal and professional lives from falling apart.
Hogarth
|
9780593583777
|
Hardcover
Dietrich & Riefenstahl
By Wieland, Karin
2015 Washington Post Notable Book Magisterial in scope, this dual biography examines two complex lives that began alike but ended on opposite sides of the century's greatest conflict.Born at the dawn of the twentieth century, Leni Riefenstahl and Marlene Dietrich both came of age in Weimar Berlin, a time of great political ferment. Glamour and decadence thrived beside abject poverty, and the German capital's outpouring of literature, fashion, and film marked it as the most vital European metropolis. As young women of this era, Dietrich and Riefenstahl lived so close to each other that Riefenstahl could see into Dietrich's apartment from the roof of her building. Both women seized upon the revolutionary energy of the 1920s, seeking careers on the stage and in film.
Liveright Publishing Corporation
|
9780871403360
|
Hardcover
The Men in My Life
By Bosworth, Patricia
Acclaimed biographer Patricia Bosworth recalls her emotional coming of age in 1950s New York in this profound and powerful memoir, a story of family, marriage, tragedy, Broadway, and art, featuring a rich cast of well-known literary and theatrical figures from the period.From Bosworth - acclaimed biographer of Montgomery Clift, Diane Arbus, Marlon Brando, and Jane Fonda - comes a series of vivid confessions about her remarkable journey into womanhood. This deeply-felt memoir is the story of a woman who defied repressive 1950s conventions while being shaped by the notable men in her life.Born into privilege in San Francisco as the children of famous attorney Bartley Crum and novelist Gertrude, Patricia and her brother Bart Jr. lead charmed lives until their father's career is ruined when he defends the Hollywood Ten. The family moves to New York, suffering greater tragedy when Bart Jr. kills himself. However, his loving spirit continues to influence Patricia as she fights to succeed as an actress and writer.Married and divorced from an abusive husband before she's twenty, she joins the famed Actors Studio. She takes classes with Lee Strasberg alongside Marilyn Monroe, Paul Newman, and others; she works on Broadway opposite Paul Muni, Helen Hayes, and Elaine Stritch; Gore Vidal and Elia Kazan become her mentors. Her anecdotes of theatre's Golden Age have never been told before. At the zenith of her career, about to film The Nun's Story with Audrey Hepburn, Patricia faces a decision that changes her forever.The Men in My Life is about survival, achieving your goals, and learning to love. It's also the story of America's most culturally pivotal era, told through the lens of one insider's extraordinary life.
Harpercollins
|
9780062287908
|
Print book
So Much I Want to Tell You
By Akana, Anna
From Internet sensation Anna Akana comes a candid and poignant collection of essays about love, loss, and chasing adulthood. In 2007, Anna Akana lost her teen sister, Kristina, to suicide. In the months that followed, she realized that the one thing helping her process her grief and begin to heal was comedy. So she began making YouTube videos as a form of creative expression and as a way to connect with others. Ten years later, Anna has more than a million subscribers who watch her smart, honest vlogs on her YouTube channel. Her most popular videos, including "How to Put On Your Face" and "Why Girls Should Ask Guys Out," are comical and provocative, but they all share a deeper message: Your worth is determined by you and you alone. You must learn to love yourself. In So Much I Want to Tell You, Anna opens up about her own struggles with poor self-esteem and reveals both the highs and lows of coming-of-age. She offers fresh, funny, hard-won advice for young women on everything from self-care to money to sex, and she is refreshingly straightforward about the realities of dating, female friendship, and the hustle required to make your dreams come true. This is Anna's story, but, as she says, it belongs just as much to Kristina and to every other girl who must learn that growing up can be hard to do. Witty and real, Anna breaks things down in a way only a big sister can.Advance praise for So Much I Want to Tell You"This book is filled with the kind of honesty, vulnerability, and determination that makes Anna such a captivating person. One warning: You'll want to hug her a lot while reading this." - Natalie Tran, actress and comedian "As a woman working in entertainment, Anna Akana is accustomed to feeling vulnerable. Which means that she's used to being brave. This book is a tribute to the duality of bravery and fear as told through Anna's experiences to date." - Hannah Hart, New York Times bestselling author of Buffering: Unshared Tales of a Life Fully Loaded "Frank advice on how to live a productive, happy life . . . written in tribute to a 'fearless, talented, and bold' sister." - Kirkus Reviews
Bit by Bit
By Ervin, Andrew
An acclaimed critic argues that video games are the most vital art form of our time Video games have seemingly taken over our lives. Whereas gamers once constituted a small and largely male subculture, today 67 percent of American households play video games. The average gamer is now thirty-four years old and spends eight hours each week playing -- and there is a 40 percent chance this person is a woman. In Bit by Bit, Andrew Ervin sets out to understand the explosive popularity of video games. He travels to government laboratories, junk shops, and arcades. He interviews scientists and game designers, both old and young. In charting the material and technological history of video games, from the 1950s to the present, he suggests that their appeal starts and ends with the sense of creativity they instill in gamers. As Ervin argues, games are art because they are beautiful, moving, and even political -- and because they turn players into artists themselves.
Woody
By Evanier, David
In this first biography of Woody Allen in over a decade, David Evanier discusses key movies, plays and prose as well as Allen's personal life. Evanier tackles the themes that Allen has spent a lifetime sorting through in art: morality, sexuality, Judaism, the eternal struggle of head and heart. Woody will be the definitive word on a major American talent as he begins his ninth decade, and his sixth decade of making movies.
Mercury Pictures Presents
By Marra, Anthony
The epic tale of a brilliant woman who must reinvent herself to survive, moving from Mussolini's Italy to 1940s Los Angeles - a timeless story of love, deceit, and sacrifice from the award-winning, New York Times bestselling author of A Constellation of Vital PhenomenaONE OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF 2022 - BookPageLike many before her, Maria Lagana has come to Hollywood to outrun her past. Born in Rome, where every Sunday her father took her to the cinema instead of church, Maria immigrates with her mother to Los Angeles after a childhood transgression leads to her father's arrest.Fifteen years later, on the eve of America's entry into World War II, Maria is an associate producer at Mercury Pictures, trying to keep her personal and professional lives from falling apart.
Who Is Rich?
By Klam, Matthew
A provocative and hilarious satire of love, sex, money, and politics in our new gilded age - the long-awaited first novel from the the acclaimed author of Sam the CatEvery summer, a once-sort-of-famous forty-two-year-old cartoonist named Rich Fischer leaves his wife and two kids behind to teach a cartooning class at a week long summer arts conference in a charming New England beachside town. It's a place where every year students - nature poets and driftwood sculptors, widowed seniors, teenagers away from home for the first time - show up to study with an esteemed faculty made up of Nobel Prize-winning playwrights, actors, and historians; drunkards and perverts; members of the cultural elite; unknown nobodies, midlist somebodies, and legitimate stars, a place where drum circles happen on the beach at midnight, clothing optional. One of the attendees is a forty-one-year-old painting student named Amy O'Donnell. Amy is a mother of three, unhappily married to a brutish Wall Street titan who runs a multibillion-dollar investment fund and commutes to work via helicopter. Rich and Amy met at the conference a year ago, shared a moment of passion, then spent the winter exchanging inappropriate texts and emails and counting the days until they could see each other again. Now they're back. Once more, Rich finds himself in this seaside paradise, worrying about his family's nights without him, and trying not to think about his book, now out of print, or his mercenary existence as an illustrator at a glossy magazine about to go under, or his back taxes, or the shameless shenanigans of his colleagues at this summer make-out festival, or his own very real desire for love and human contact. He can't decide whether Amy is going to rescue or destroy him. Who Is Rich? is a warped and exhilarating tale of love and adultery, a study in midlife alienation, erotic pleasure, envy, and bitterness in the new gilded age that goes far beyond the humor and satire to address deeper questions: of family, monogamy, the intoxicating beauty of children, and the challenging interdependence of two soulful, sensitive creatures in a confusing domestic alliance.Advance praise for Who Is Rich?"It's amazing to wait so long for a book, and for it to be everything you wanted. The most singular quality of Matthew Klam's writing is how alive it is. I loved every page of this book. It got into my bloodstream - and kind of destroyed me." - Curtis Sittenfeld"By turns fierce, disturbing, and outright hilarious, Who Is Rich? is much more than a novel of midlife crisis; it's a frank exploration of what it feels like to struggle as an artist and a man. Klam writes like a surgeon, with the sharpest of scalpels, and cuts to the bone." - Jonathan Tropper"I've been eagerly awaiting another book by Matthew Klam - and here it is, and it's a stunner. This, his first novel, is funny, dark, big, and bold. I read it straight through, with great pleasure and awe at all he knows about art, money, family, sex, kids, mortality, and shame. Not to be missed." - Meg Wolitzer
Sundays with Sophie
By Flay, Bobby
Pull up a chair with Bobby Flay and his all-time favorite person to cook for, his daughter, Sophie, as they share favorite recipes from their family kitchen.Few things make Bobby Flay happier than cooking for his daughter, Sophie. A news reporter in Los Angeles and co-host of The Flay List on the Food Network, Sophie grew up around Bobby's restaurants and shares his passion for all things delicious.In Sundays with Sophie, the Flays invite you to pull up a chair at their family table to learn Bobby's secrets for delivering delicious, unbeatable meals for any night of the week. Bobby encourages you to cook with the spirit that Sunday brings: meals that include gathering around the table and sharing beautiful, easy-to-create dishes with family and friends, whether it's a weeknight or the end of a tough week.
Is This Anything?
By Seinfeld, Jerry
Since his first performance at the legendary New York nightclub &;Catch a Rising Star&; as a twenty-one-year-old college student in fall of 1975, Jerry Seinfeld has written his own material and saved everything. &;Whenever I came up with a funny bit, whether it happened on a stage, in a conversation, or working it out on my preferred canvas, the big yellow legal pad, I kept it in one of those old school accordion folders,&; Seinfeld writes. &;So I have everything I thought was worth saving from forty-five years of hacking away at this for all I was worth.&;
Mercury Pictures Presents
By Marra, Anthony
The epic tale of a brilliant woman who must reinvent herself to survive, moving from Mussolini's Italy to 1940s Los Angeles - a timeless story of love, deceit, and sacrifice from the award-winning, New York Times bestselling author of A Constellation of Vital PhenomenaONE OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF 2022 - BookPageLike many before her, Maria Lagana has come to Hollywood to outrun her past. Born in Rome, where every Sunday her father took her to the cinema instead of church, Maria immigrates with her mother to Los Angeles after a childhood transgression leads to her father's arrest.Fifteen years later, on the eve of America's entry into World War II, Maria is an associate producer at Mercury Pictures, trying to keep her personal and professional lives from falling apart.
Dietrich & Riefenstahl
By Wieland, Karin
2015 Washington Post Notable Book Magisterial in scope, this dual biography examines two complex lives that began alike but ended on opposite sides of the century's greatest conflict.Born at the dawn of the twentieth century, Leni Riefenstahl and Marlene Dietrich both came of age in Weimar Berlin, a time of great political ferment. Glamour and decadence thrived beside abject poverty, and the German capital's outpouring of literature, fashion, and film marked it as the most vital European metropolis. As young women of this era, Dietrich and Riefenstahl lived so close to each other that Riefenstahl could see into Dietrich's apartment from the roof of her building. Both women seized upon the revolutionary energy of the 1920s, seeking careers on the stage and in film.
The Men in My Life
By Bosworth, Patricia
Acclaimed biographer Patricia Bosworth recalls her emotional coming of age in 1950s New York in this profound and powerful memoir, a story of family, marriage, tragedy, Broadway, and art, featuring a rich cast of well-known literary and theatrical figures from the period.From Bosworth - acclaimed biographer of Montgomery Clift, Diane Arbus, Marlon Brando, and Jane Fonda - comes a series of vivid confessions about her remarkable journey into womanhood. This deeply-felt memoir is the story of a woman who defied repressive 1950s conventions while being shaped by the notable men in her life.Born into privilege in San Francisco as the children of famous attorney Bartley Crum and novelist Gertrude, Patricia and her brother Bart Jr. lead charmed lives until their father's career is ruined when he defends the Hollywood Ten. The family moves to New York, suffering greater tragedy when Bart Jr. kills himself. However, his loving spirit continues to influence Patricia as she fights to succeed as an actress and writer.Married and divorced from an abusive husband before she's twenty, she joins the famed Actors Studio. She takes classes with Lee Strasberg alongside Marilyn Monroe, Paul Newman, and others; she works on Broadway opposite Paul Muni, Helen Hayes, and Elaine Stritch; Gore Vidal and Elia Kazan become her mentors. Her anecdotes of theatre's Golden Age have never been told before. At the zenith of her career, about to film The Nun's Story with Audrey Hepburn, Patricia faces a decision that changes her forever.The Men in My Life is about survival, achieving your goals, and learning to love. It's also the story of America's most culturally pivotal era, told through the lens of one insider's extraordinary life.
So Much I Want to Tell You
By Akana, Anna
From Internet sensation Anna Akana comes a candid and poignant collection of essays about love, loss, and chasing adulthood. In 2007, Anna Akana lost her teen sister, Kristina, to suicide. In the months that followed, she realized that the one thing helping her process her grief and begin to heal was comedy. So she began making YouTube videos as a form of creative expression and as a way to connect with others. Ten years later, Anna has more than a million subscribers who watch her smart, honest vlogs on her YouTube channel. Her most popular videos, including "How to Put On Your Face" and "Why Girls Should Ask Guys Out," are comical and provocative, but they all share a deeper message: Your worth is determined by you and you alone. You must learn to love yourself. In So Much I Want to Tell You, Anna opens up about her own struggles with poor self-esteem and reveals both the highs and lows of coming-of-age. She offers fresh, funny, hard-won advice for young women on everything from self-care to money to sex, and she is refreshingly straightforward about the realities of dating, female friendship, and the hustle required to make your dreams come true. This is Anna's story, but, as she says, it belongs just as much to Kristina and to every other girl who must learn that growing up can be hard to do. Witty and real, Anna breaks things down in a way only a big sister can.Advance praise for So Much I Want to Tell You"This book is filled with the kind of honesty, vulnerability, and determination that makes Anna such a captivating person. One warning: You'll want to hug her a lot while reading this." - Natalie Tran, actress and comedian "As a woman working in entertainment, Anna Akana is accustomed to feeling vulnerable. Which means that she's used to being brave. This book is a tribute to the duality of bravery and fear as told through Anna's experiences to date." - Hannah Hart, New York Times bestselling author of Buffering: Unshared Tales of a Life Fully Loaded "Frank advice on how to live a productive, happy life . . . written in tribute to a 'fearless, talented, and bold' sister." - Kirkus Reviews