A visionary who took no prisoners and a billionaire at least twice over, Izzy Asper ran his empire out of his briefcase. He was constantly in flight and flux, each of his improbable ventures feeding on the next. What made him so special was his ability to create warm, electric moments with his friends and loyalists, while inspiring loathing among his critics and enemies. Asper was always ahead of the pack, creating the country’s largest communications empire while remaining a certified outsider, more feared than loved for besting his peers at their power games. Peter C. Newman deconstructs the passionate life and turbulent times of the man who once confessed that he didn’t get ulcers, he gave them. Newman dissects Izzy’s feuds and friendships with some of Canada’s most powerful big-league players, including Conrad Black, with whom he frequently and violently jousted. But even as his political and business ventures swirled around him, Izzy would relax by playing jazz piano in lounges, whenever he could get a gig. In Izzy, Newman paints a portrait of a Canadian business tycoon the likes of which this country will never see again.

From February 1942 to July 1944, Oskar Rosenfeld served in the statistics department of the Lodz ghetto. A playwright and journalist, he kept his own notes on life and conditions in the ghetto for a fictionalized account he hoped to write one day. Though Rosenfeld eventually perished at Auschwitz, In the Beginning Was the Ghetto projects his voice at last to the wider world.

Omer Fast is one of the most distinctive film and video artists of the younger generation. In his award-winning four-channel video with multiple projections, Fast investigates how experience is transformed by memory. He refuses to frame memories according to the conventions of historical reconstruction just to turn them into a consumable narrative.Born 1972 in Jerusalem and living in Berlin, Omer Fast has achieved acclaim in exhibitions at internationally renowned museums, reaping honors including the prestigious Bucksbaum Award from the Whitney Museum of American Art in 2008. Fast is nominated for the 2009 Berlin Nationalgalerie Prize for Young Art.

Why I Left America and Other Essays by Oliver W. Harrington edited, with an introduction, by M. Thomas Inge To American black newspapers of the 1930s and 1940s "Ollie" Harrington was a prolific contributor of humorous and editorial cartoons. He emerged as an artist during the Harlem Renaissance and created Bootsie, the popular cartoon figure that became a fixture in black newspapers. Langston Hughes praised Harrington as America's greatest black cartoonist. After serving as a war correspondent in Italy, he returned to his homeland and the impediment of racism that pervaded American life. As director of public relations for the NAACP, he crusaded against America's policies of institutionalized racism, openly supporting leftist reform leaders. Upon hearing in this era of "red-baiting" that he was targeted for investigation, Harrington left America. In the culturally rich American community on the Left Bank in Paris that would come to include Chester Himes, James Baldwin, and Richard Wright, he became a fixture. In 1961 he found himself trapped behind the Berlin Wall, but he chose to remain in East Germany. His cartoons appeared in East German magazines and in the American Communist newspaper The Daily World. Although he became a favorite with Eastern Bloc students and intellectuals, in America Harrington was mainly forgotten. The autobiographical pieces included in Why I Left America and Other Essays, written mainly during the 1960s and 1970s, detail Oliver W. Harrington's experiences as an African American artist in exile. One theme that persists in these writings and his cartoons is his intolerance of racism. Hence, as an artist, he has found it impossible not to be political. One essay, from Ebony magazine, fuels speculation about the mysterious circumstances in the death of his friend Richard Wright. In another piece Harrington details how he created the celebrated Bootsie. He writes in others of his life in New York during the Harlem Renaissance and in Paris with fellow black expatriate figures. Why did this African American choose to live in exile for over forty years? In an affectionate foreword to this volume Richard Wright's daughter Julia gives clues to the answer. Her insights, along with M. Thomas Inge's introductory essay about Harrington's life and achievements, bring special focus to the experiences of an outstanding African American artist and social critic who has been virtually without recognition in his homeland. Oliver W. Harrington (1912-1995), cartoonist and political satirist, was an outspoken advocate for civil rights. He lived in exile in East Berlin for many years. M. Thomas Inge is the Robert Emory Blackwell Professor of Humanities at Randolph-Macon College.

Norman Levine's Canada Made Me , first published in England in 1958, is a bitter, critical reassessment of the moral and cultural values of Canada. His account of his three-month journey from Halifax to Ucluelet, a fishing village on the west coast, is an unconventional portrait of Canada's underbelly. The book ends with the words: `I wondered why I felt so bitter about Canada. After all, it was all part of a dream, an experiment that could not come off. It was foolish to believe that you can take the throwouts, the rejects, the human kickabouts from Europe and tell them: Here you have a second chance. Here you can start a new life. But no one ever mentioned the price one had to pay; how much of oneself you had to betray.' Canada Made Me was regarded as so controversial that it did not appear in a Canadian edition until 1979. Critical opinion, however, has slowly swung around to the point the book was recently described in the Globe and Mail as a `laconic classic'. For this new edition Norman Levine has written an introduction which traces the book's publishing history and reputation.

The Art of Youth is a moving inquiry into the nature of artistic prodigies who did their major work at an early age. Renowned novelist Nicholas Delbanco gives us a triptych of indelible portraits: the American writer Stephen Crane (immortalized by The Red Badge of Courage ); British artist Dora Carrington (called "the most neglected serious painter of her time"); and the legendary composer George Gershwin ( Rhapsody in Blue , Porgy and Bess ). All three lived colorful, productive lives before dying early, at an average age of thirty-five. In this learned and elegant book, Delbanco discovers what it is we mourn in authors who pass away so young, and muses on his own life--one marked by both early success and longevity.

This is a reproduction of the original artefact. Generally these books are created from careful scans of the original. This allows us to preserve the book accurately and present it in the way the author intended. Since the original versions are generally quite old, there may occasionally be certain imperfections within these reproductions. We're happy to make these classics available again for future generations to enjoy!

"Here is a singular story of survival, an earthly miracle wrought by family devotion, gardens, horses, guts. A compelling read."—Carolyn Heilbrun In July 1998, when Maxine Kumin's horse bolted at a carriage-driving clinic, she was not expected to live. Yet, less than a year later, her progress pronounced a miracle by her doctors, she was at work on this journal of her astonishing recovery. She tells of her time "inside the halo," the near-medieval device that kept her head immobile during weeks of intensive care and rehabilitation, of the lasting "rehab" friendships, and of the loving family who always believed she would heal. "[S]he resonates wisdom while announcing a triumph of body and soul."—Anne Roiphe, New York Times Book Review "Maxine Kumin brings the sensitivity and imagination of a poet to her extraordinary ordeal."—Richard Selzer, author of Mortal Lessons: Notes on the Art of Surgery "From a singular experience she has created a lesson that is universal, which, it seems to me, is the essence of being a poet."—Abraham Verghese, author of The Tennis Partner

Journalist Max Lerner writes a stunningly honest account of the feelings and thoughts that marked his battle with two successive cancers and a heart attack. Journal entries from this extraordinary ordeal show how mind and body interweave in the healing process. A worthy companion to Anatomy of an Illness.--Kirkus Reviews.

"This is a beautiful book, full of ideas that could help restore America’s genius for freedom and promise.” — Thomas Moore, New York Times bestselling author of Care of the Soul A lifelong Emerson lover, teacher, and spiritual seeker reveals how American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson’s twelve essential teachings hold the answer to living an authentic and fulfilling life, one that is in har[Bokinfo]

Good Girls on Bad Drugs portrays the shattered lives of girls next door who became crack, coke, opioid, and heroin addicts, and who in their hustle for drugs became streetwalkers and internet escorts. In jailhouse journals and interviews, they confess with candor and courage to their sex work and drug crimes amid two Connecticut mega-casinos and the three nearby small cities. Doomed by their addictions, most girls never recover, while others die young from AIDS, OD, or murder. Here a spotlight is shined upon 22 lives. One chapter, one life. And sometimes one death. Living and dying on the fringes of society, four fatally overdosed, one of them a 17-year-old internet escort whose death exposed a prostitution ring. Three were murdered by johns. One was an accessory to two murders. Another, after her prison break, was hunted in two states. Another robbed six banks in three states in six consecutive days. All their photos and interviews are included in these dramatic true crime stories about some guys' lust for sex and these girls' thirst for drugs. .................... CONTENTS: ..... Part One - The UNDERWORLD; 01 - MARIE - A Shadowy Figure Afoot Flashes "The Look"; 02 - LINDA - Mr Crack Introduces Ms Jane to Mr John; ...... Part Two - The INTERNET ESCORTS; 03 - NORWICH and the Bad Bets on the Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun Casinos; 04 - LADY LUCK - The Escorts' Guide to the Casinos; 05 - THE THREE GRACES - Outcasts on Outcalls; 06 - DEVON - Casino Escort of Last Resort; 07 - OLIVIA - The Baby Girl; 08 - KATRINA - Life as Hurrica≠ 09 - HOPE - Topless Dancer in a Bottomless Pit; 10 - LYNNE - The Crackhead Addicted to Prostitution; ...... Part Three - The STREETWALKERS; 11 - NEW LONDON - A Whale of a Tale and a Tail of a Wha≤ 12 - COPS & RUBBERS - The Streetwalkers' Guide to the City; 13 - HEATHER - The Seriously Serial Bank Bandit; 14 - RENEE - A Connecticut Lawyer in Judge Arthur's Court; 15 - TRISH - Off to See the Wizard of Poz; 16 - JESSICA - The Prodigal Mom; 17 - DARLENE - Escape to Never-Never L∧ ...... Part Four - The HEROIN HEROINES; 18 - WILD and ANTIC WILLIMANTIC - The Riddle of the Syrin≥ 19 - JOE the JOHN - And Now a Word from Our Sponsors; 20 - LIZ - Woman Who Runs with the Werewolves; 21 - JENNIFER - Beauty and the Beasts; 22 - BONNIE - She Takes the High Road and He Takes the Low Road; 23 - AMBROSIA - Walking through the Valley of the Shadow of Death; ...... Part Five - ANOTHER WORLD; 24 - ROBIN - The Prosthetic Prostitute; 25 - SEX for HIGHER - A Eulogy; ...... APPENDICES; Documentation; Further Reading; List of Photographs; Acknowledgments; Glossary of Street Slang

In 1942, on the recommendation of 26-year-old Bob Santamaria, Australia's Catholic bishops created a clandestine church organisation to smash the Communist Party's massive trade union base. Soon, The Movement, working closely with ASIO, became a sophisticated intelligence agency that would influence every corner of politics. Santamaria based his Movement (also called The Show) completely on the Communist Party, copying its spectacularly successful union-organising machinery. Within a decade, it had defeated communist power in many major unions. He also adopted the communists' strategy of infiltrating the Labor Party, and embarked on an aggressive program to transform it into a Catholic political machine, helping spark the great Labor Split of the mid-1950s. Ironically, in modelling the Movement on his enemy, Santamaria imported its most odious characteristic: Stalinism. He rapidly embraced the characteristics of a Stalinist leader, actively cultivating his own 'cult of personality'. Over time, this infected The Movement, as it adopted authoritarian practices and imposed anti-democratic policies on the unions it controlled, mirroring the communists' modus operandi . As in the Communist Party, this inevitably caused internal battles and catastrophic splits that undermined and, eventually, destroyed The Movement. Weaving together a rich story from previously secret archives of both The Movement and the Communist Party, ASIO's massive files, and extensive oralhistory interviews, The Show exposes a previously unseen side of Santamaria's Catholic Movement.

When Luke Ford, the youngest son of a heretical Seventh Day Adventist theologian, converted to Judaism in 1992, he burned his pornography collection, but his curiosity about the forbidden did not disappear in the flames. In the fall of 1995, Ford began investigating the San Fernando Valley's hardcore industry. On his website www.lukeford.com, he broke stories about HIV-infection, Mafia control, and pay-for-placement porn journalism. As his name began showing up in the newspapers and his face on television, Ford received an ultimatum from his rabbi--give up investigating porn or give up the synagogue. XXX-Communicated: A Rebel Without a Shul explores the tensions between freedom and friends, faith and reason, reality and religion.

""What Hitler Wants"" is a political analysis written by Leon Trotsky in 1933, shortly after Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party came to power in Germany. The book explores the motivations, goals, and strategies of the Nazi regime, particularly in regards to its expansionist ambitions and its hostility towards the Soviet Union. Trotsky argues that Hitler's regime is driven by a desire for territorial conquest and domination, fueled by a toxic blend of racism, nationalism, and anti-communism. He also critiques the policies of the Western powers, particularly their appeasement of Hitler and their failure to recognize the threat posed by fascism. The book is a powerful warning against the dangers of fascism and the need for international solidarity in the face of authoritarianism.This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the old original and may contain some imperfections such as library marks and notations. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions, that are true to their original work.

Kim Chernin is renowned for her prolific writing -- including fiction and memoir -- on issues affecting women's lives, ranging from eating disorders and sex to relationships. In The Woman Who Gave Birth to Her Mother, she offers readers a culmination of that work -- a fully integrated vision that will help women resolve their lifelong struggles with their mothers and become fully independent, capable people. Exploring six compelling case histories of women who have resolved these issues in unique and creative ways, Chernin offers her own insights based on years of working with women in therapy, and on her own problematic relationship with her daughter. A tour de force of analysis, compassion, and erudition, this exciting, important work is further evidence that Chernin is "blessed with the eloquence of a poet and the gifts of a born therapist" (San Francisco Chronicle).

My Night With Orson is the story of Oscar nominated screenwriter and playwright Julian Barry's forty year journey through the wilds of the American and English theatre as well as the movie business. Julian worked with numerous actors, producers and writers and shares his insightful, comical interactions with many of them - allowing readers to see these celebrities in a whole new light. This engaging book reads like you are in the room with Julian and he is discussing the stories with you. The "cast" of the book includes Actors: Orson Welles, Mel Gibson, Dustin Hoffman, Richard Burton, Jose Ferrer, Mandy Patinkin, Jane Alexander, Sissy Spacek, Faye Dunaway, Tommy Lee Jones, Tony Bennett and Eddie Izzard; Directors Sir Peter Hall, Bob Fosse, Marty Ritt, Tom O'Horgan and Mel Brooks; the Composer Marvin Hamlisch; a weekend in Vermont with our first Poet Laureate Robert Penn Warren and an unforgettable afternoon in Las Vegas with Frank Sinatra.