Wurtzel pub. her groundbreaking memoir of depression, Prozac Nation, at the age of 26. It was a worldwide success, but no success could staunch her continuous battle with depression. The absence of fulfillment in the wake of success became yet another seemingly insurmountable hurdle. Her doctor prescribed Ritalin to boost the effects of her anti-depression medication, and it worked. But she reached the point where she couldn t go more than 5 minutes without a fix of Ritalin, then cocaine, & then more Ritalin. In this harrowing account, she contemplates what it means to be in love within something in your blood that takes over your body, becomes the life force within you -- & could kill you. Recounts a courageous fight back to a life worth living.

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Max Brod, a successful novelist, was a boyhood companion of Kafka's and remained closely tied to him until Kafka's death in 1924. He was undoubtedly the one man whom Kafka trusted more than any other, and it is to Brod, as his literary executor and editor, that we are indebted for rescuing and bringing to light Kafka's work. Out of a lifelong devoted friendship, Brod drew this account of Kafka's youth, family and friends, his struggle to recognize himself as a writer, his sickness, and his last days. Franz Kafka gives us not only a more vivid and lifelike picture of Kafka than that painted by any of his contemporaries, but also a fascinating portrayal of the complicated interaction between two writers of different temperaments but similar backgrounds who together helped shape the future of twentieth-century literature.

From the glittering salons of Venice to the grand opera houses of Vienna and the bustling streets of New York, Memoirs of Lorenzo Da Ponte offers a fascinating journey through the life of one of history’s most intriguing figures. Best known as Mozart’s librettist for Don Giovanni, The Marriage of Figaro, and Così fan tutte, Da Ponte was much more than a lyricist—he was a poet, priest, adventurer, and immigrant who reinvented himself time and again. In this candid and engaging autobiography, Da Ponte recounts his tumultuous life with wit and charm. Born a Jewish convert to Catholicism, he became a priest, only to be exiled from Venice due to scandal. He found fortune and fame in Vienna under Emperor Joseph II, collaborating with Mozart to create some of the most enduring works in opera. Yet his life was marked by upheaval—falling from grace, wandering through Europe, and eventually settling in America, where he became a bookseller, teacher, and even helped establish Italian opera in the New World. A tale of artistic genius, resilience, and reinvention, Memoirs of Lorenzo Da Ponte is a captivating firsthand account of an extraordinary life lived at the crossroads of history, music, and adventure.

"Telling Larry Charles's life story is telling the story of modern American comedy. Over the last 40 years, few comedians have been a part of so many iconic, beloved projects. Larry was one of the original writers and producers on the first five seasons of Seinfeld, directed over 20 episodes each of Curb Your Enthusiasm and Entourage, and served as the showrunner for Mad About You. His film directing credits include Borat, Bruno, and The Dictator, Bill Maher's Religulous, and Bob Dylan's Masked and Anonymous. In Comedy Samurai, Charles pulls back the curtain on the making of his successful projects, offering often sharp, never-before-told anecdotes about Jerry Seinfeld, Sacha Baron Cohen, Bill Maher, Nic Cage, Mel Brooks, Julia Louis-Dreyfuss, and Larry David, among many others. Perfect for fans of Seinfeldia and lovers of comedy in general, Larry promises to offer new insights into and about many of the most beloved shows, films, and actors of all time"--

When FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover reported to the Nixon White House in 1972 about the Bureau's surveillance of John Lennon, he began by explaining that Lennon was a "former member of the Beatles singing group." When a copy of this letter arrived in response to Jon Wiener's 1981 Freedom of Information request, the entire text was withheld—along with almost 200 other pages—on the grounds that releasing it would endanger national security. This book tells the story of the author's remarkable fourteen-year court battle to win release of the Lennon files under the Freedom of Information Act in a case that went all the way to the Supreme Court. With the publication of Gimme Some Truth , 100 key pages of the Lennon FBI file are available—complete and unexpurgated, fully annotated and presented in a "before and after" format. Lennon's file was compiled in 1972, when the war in Vietnam was at its peak, when Nixon was facing reelection, and when the "clever Beatle" was living in New York and joining up with the New Left and the anti-war movement. The Nixon administration's efforts to "neutralize" Lennon are the subject of Lennon's file. The documents are reproduced in facsimile so that readers can see all the classification stamps, marginal notes, blacked out passages and—in some cases—the initials of J. Edgar Hoover. The file includes lengthy reports by confidential informants detailing the daily lives of anti-war activists, memos to the White House, transcripts of TV shows on which Lennon appeared, and a proposal that Lennon be arrested by local police on drug charges. Fascinating, engrossing, at points hilarious and absurd, Gimme Some Truth documents an era when rock music seemed to have real political force and when youth culture challenged the status quo in Washington. It also delineates the ways the Reagan, Bush, and Clinton administrations fought to preserve government secrecy, and highlights the legal strategies adopted by those who have challenged it.

Full of photographs, interviews with the Stooges, and much, much more, The Three Stooges Scrapbook offers a fun look at this classic comedy team.

Seducing the Demon has introduced Erica Jong to readers who hadn't been born when Fear of Flying was published in 1973. Now one of her finest works of nonfiction -and a New York Times bestseller-is back in print with a new afterword. In Fear of Fifty , a New York Times bestseller when first published in 1994, Erica Jong looks to the second half of her life and "goes right to the jugular of the women who lived wildly and vicariously through Fear of Flying" ( Publishers Weekly ), delivering highly entertaining stories and provocative insights on sex, marriage, aging, feminism, and motherhood. "What Jong calls a midlife memoir is a slice of autobiography that ranks in honesty, self-perception and wisdom with [works by] Simone de Beauvoir and Mary McCarthy," wrote the Sunday Times (U.K.). "Although Jong's memoir of a Jewish American princess is wittier than either."

The acclaimed biographer offers a fresh, insightful view of Balzac’s life, time, and works through the lens of food. “Tell me where you eat, what you eat, and at what time you eat, and I will tell you who you are.” This is the motto of Anka Muhlstein’s erudite and witty book about the ways food and the art of the table feature in Honoré de Balzac’s The Human Comedy . Balzac uses them as a connecting thread in his novels, showing how food can evoke character, atmosphere, class, and social climbing more suggestively than money, appearances, and other more conventional trappings. Full of surprises and insights, Balzac’s Omelette invites you to taste anew Balzac’s genius as a writer and his deep understanding of the human condition, its ambitions, its flaws, and its cravings.

Maurois ends the enormous, sprawling life of Balzac with the question, ""But who would wish to be Balzac?"" A man's query perhaps. A woman might write to him admiringly, at first anonymously, as so many did then. What Maurois evokes here so strongly is the writer and the lover and the always hungry dreamer of fame, greatness and happiness. Balzac's feats were prodigious. Hounded by creditors throughout his life, he bought antiques and jewelled walking sticks, and indulged in one ruinous financial deal after another. He worked for months at a frenzied pace. With a passion for unity, he tried to make a comprehensive world from his many works-- ""La Comedie Humaine."" He was lover to many women but he loved only two-Madame de Berny, his mistress in youth and twenty years his senior, and Madame Hanska, whom he married just before his death. Most of the time the narrative is just shy of the many quotations. Maurois is a little like the wise ""friend of the family"" who tells the story with all the intimate speculations, small reproaches and loving (sometimes sentimental) praise one might expect. Names, places and figures abound, and while many of these particulars are only scantily examined, one doesn't mind. Such a French abundance of ""givens"" is in keeping with the rush and energy of Balzac's life. There are good but simple summaries of Balzac's thought but for the most part this close biography draws one headlong into a fantastic life. KIRKUS REVIEW

"Bruce Vilanch, a storyteller without peer, has written a tell-all . . . on himself! And it's hilarious! He's finally coming clean and owning up to his part in creating some of the worst television of the twentieth century, and that's saying a lot. There's no one like him. As they've been saying since I discovered him as a cub reporter at the Chicago Tribune , when you're in a pinch . . . Get Bruce!" --BETTE MIDLER Bruce Vilanch is known as a go-to comedy writer for award shows, sitcoms, and over-the-top variety specials, but he has also been responsible for quite a few of the most legendary disasters ever made. Some of his work lives in infamy-- The Star Wars Holiday Special , The Paul Lynde Halloween Special , Rob Lowe dancing with Snow White at the Oscars, and The Brady Bunch Variety Hour . How did these ever seem like a good idea? Well, everyone has screwed up a few times, or had their work screwed up by others. It Seemed Like a Bad Idea at the Time is a lifetime reflection of what Vilanch has experienced, learned, and forgotten in decades of working in show business, specifically the south forty acres known as comedy. It involves very famous people and people who were not very famous but should have been. It explains to the people in the audience who say to themselves, once they have gotten their jaw off the floor, "'How did this ever get made?" Don't we all want to know?

The oboist looks back at her twenty-five year career, offering a glimpse into the world of classical music and providing details of substance abuse and the practice of trading sexual favors for jobs.

"Step into the extraordinary life of Samuel Adler, one of the most celebrated composers and conductors of our time. From a childhood marked by the horrors of Nazi Germany to a career spanning over six decades in music, teaching, and composition, Adler's journey is a testament to resilience, creativity, and the unifying power of music"--

This book undoes 50 years of mythmaking about Stravinsky's life in music. During his spectacular career, Igor Stravinsky underplayed his Russian past in favor of a European cosmopolitanism. Richard Taruskin has refused to take the composer at his word. In this long-awaited study, he defines Stravinsky's relationship to the musical and artistic traditions of his native land and gives us a dramatically new picture of one of the major figures in the history of music. Taruskin draws directly on newly accessible archives and on a wealth of Russian documents. In Volume One, he sets the historical scene: the St. Petersburg musical press, the arts journals, and the writings of anthropologists, folklorists, philosophers, and poets. Volume Two addresses the masterpieces of Stravinsky's early maturityÑ Petrushka, The Rite of Spring, and Les Noces . Taruskin investigates the composer's collaborations with Diaghilev to illuminate the relationship between folklore and modernity. He elucidates the Silver Age ideal of "neonationalism"Ñthe professional appropriation of motifs and style characteristics from folk artÑand how Stravinsky realized this ideal in his music. Taruskin demonstrates how Stravinsky achieved his modernist technique by combining what was most characteristically Russian in his musical training with stylistic elements abstracted from Russian folklore. The stylistic synthesis thus achieved formed Stravinsky as a composer for life, whatever the aesthetic allegiances he later professed. Written with Taruskin's characteristic mixture of in-depth research and stylistic verve, this book will be mandatory reading for all those seriously interested in the life and work of Stravinsky.

When Alex Hightower's teenage sone, Faibian, dies in a car crash, she is devastated. Hurt as she is, Alex tries to accept that Fabian is gone forever. But then strange events begin to occur in her home: rooms turn freezing cold, furniture moves by itself and the bathroom begins to sweat. Worse follows: the words "Help me, Mother" appear on her computer screen, Fabian's face eerily shows up in photos developed after his death, and his voice speaks from the mouths of Alex's male guests. Terrified by these happenings, Alex consults a medium. A seance reveals that Fabian is an unhappy spirit who wants to come back to life. Haunted by her son's spirit, Alex is consumed by her search for answers. As she begins to uncover terrifying secrets about Fabian's past, she comes to realize that her own life is in danger. With horror, Alex discovers that somehow, she must free herself from her son's spirit--before it takes possession of her own.

Delve into the dazzling world of early 20th-century art and theatre with "Bakst: The story of Leon Bakst's life" by André Levinson. This meticulously prepared republication chronicles the life and career of Léon Bakst, the visionary artist who revolutionized stage and costume design for the Russian ballet. Explore Bakst's pivotal role in shaping the aesthetic of iconic productions. Levinson expertly details Bakst's contributions to art history, revealing the man behind the groundbreaking designs that captivated audiences worldwide. This book illuminates Bakst's innovative approach to visual storytelling. A captivating biography for enthusiasts of Russian ballet, stage design, and costume design. Discover the enduring legacy of Léon Bakst, whose artistic vision continues to inspire and influence the performing arts. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

. 1982clean copy, light wear to covers, no markings, Professional booksellers since 1981