(Applause Books). David Merrick is the most astonishing showman of our time, and perhaps of all time. No other producer, not even Florenz Ziegfeld nor the combined lights of the Shubert brothers, has equalled his percentage of hits or his demonic flair for publicity. In this first-ever biography, Howard Kissel from his decade-long investigation reveals the man, the mask, and the myth of David Merrick. The charismatic and reclusive mogul emerges as a Broadway version of Howard Hughes, with his own panoply of eccentricities, genius and neuroses. Merrick's much publicized and oftentimes staged battles and feuds are re-ignited here full force with such major personalities as Barbra Streisand, Jackie Gleason, Ethel Merman, Lena Horne, Woody Allen, Peter Ustinov, Andy Griffith, Anthony Newley, Peter Brook, and Carol Channing. Over a hundred interviews with the major players in Merrick's drama from his pre-Merrick St. Louis childhood as David Margoulies to his latest divorce has yielded the first serious interrogation of a life that until now has been the sole creation of Merrick's own invention and press wizardry.

Winner of the 2020 Prix du Meilleur Livre Etranger, France's best foreign book of the year. 'Astounding' Sebastian Barry 'A masterpiece' Ayad Akhtar 'This little book is ruminative, humane, and gorgeously precise' Jonathan Lethem In this genre-defying book, best-selling memoirist and critic Daniel Mendelsohn explores the mysterious links between the randomness of the lives we lead and the artfulness of the stories we tell. Combining memoir, biography, history, and literary criticism, Three Rings weaves together the stories of three exiled writers who turned to the classics of the past to create masterpieces of their own-works that pondered the nature of narrative itself. Erich Auerbach, the Jewish philologist who fled Hitler's Germany and wrote his classic study of Western literature, Mimesis, in Istanbul. Francois Fenelon, the seventeenth-century French archbishop whose ingenious sequel to the Odyssey,The Adventures of Telemachus - a veiled critique of the Sun King and the best-selling book in Europe for one hundred years - resulted in his banishment. And the German novelist W. G. Sebald, self-exiled to England, whose distinctively meandering narratives explore Odyssean themes of displacement, nostalgia, and separation from home. Intertwined with these tales of exile and artistic crisis is an account of Mendelsohn's struggles to write two of his own books-a family saga of the Holocaust and a memoir about reading the Odyssey with his elderly father-that are haunted by tales of oppression and wandering. As Three Rings moves to its startling conclusion, a climactic revelation about the way in which the lives of its three heroes were linked across borders, languages, and centuries forces the reader to reconsider the relationship between narrative and history, art and life.

The history of big business unfolds in a definitive biography of the wealthiest of American families that profiles personalities as well as chronicling the growth of the Mellon Bank, Alcoa, Koppers, and the Gulf Company

A journalistic tour de force, this wide-ranging collection by the author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning biography Stilwell and the American Experience in China is a classic in its own right. During the summer of 1972—a few short months after Nixon’s legendary visit to China—master historian Barbara W. Tuchman made her own trip to that country, spending six weeks in eleven cities and a variety of rural settlements. The resulting reportage was one of the first evenhanded portrayals of Chinese culture that Americans had ever read. Tuchman’s observations capture the people as they lived, from workers in the city and provincial party bosses to farmers, scientists, and educators. She demonstrates the breadth and scope of her expertise in discussing the alleviation of famine, misery, and exploitation; the distortion of cultural and historical inheritances into ubiquitous slogans; news media, schools, housing, and transportation; and Chairman Mao’s techniques for reasserting the Revolution. This edition also includes Tuchman’s “fascinating” ( The New York Review of Books ) essay, “If Mao Had Come to Washington in 1945”—a tantalizing piece of speculation on a proposed meeting between Mao and Roosevelt that would have changed the course of postwar history. “Shrewdly observed . . . Tuchman enters another plea for coolness, intelligence and rationality in American Asian policies. One can hardly disagree.”— The New York Times Book Review

Rabbi Nachman of Breslov is a figure of enigma and mystery. It may therefore come as a surprise to find how much detailed information has survived about his life. Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan s biography is the fruit of meticulous research into all the surviving source material, including the oral tradition of the Breslover Chassidim themselves. The work is accompanied by a rich array of supplementary material covering Rabbi Nachman s family and leading followers, other key personages in his life and period, contemporary historical trends, and the towns and cities which figure in his career. With a leader of Rabbi Nachman s stature a biographical approach of interpretation and evaluation is likely to be more misleading than illuminating. Rabbi Nachman s Torah, his teachings and his spiritual exploits were his life: to attempt to explain them from an extraneous perspective is to miss the point. Until the Mashiach presents the facts, leaving the reader free to reach his own conclusions about Rabbi Nachman's significance. What emerges is a picture of a leader who, while passionately concerned about the currents of his time, rose way above to become a torch to all the ensuing generations. His challenge to us is to free ourselves and prepare to greet the Mashiach. For my fire will burn until the Mashiach will come." Features an extensive historical overview, detailed maps, and full appendices listing significant towns and cities, biographical data, and anecdotes about Rebbe Nachman's family, followers and other contemporary figures, with full source references throughout. An essential reference work for every student of Breslov.

Offers an absorbing contemplation of the fabled city which for the Western mind remains as much a myth as a physical reality - Jerusalem. This biography of Jerusalem gives an insight into the kaleidoscopic culture of this eternally magical city.

Everyone knows Dr. Ruth as the most famous and trusted sex therapist, but few people know she narrowly escaped death from the Holocaust, was raised in an orphanage in Switzerland, or that she was a sniper during Israel's War of Independence. After years spent as a student in Paris, Dr. Ruth came to America dreaming of a new life though never expecting the dramatic turns that would take place. And at the age of eighty-seven, she is as spirited as ever. Through intimate and funny stories, Dr. Ruth sheds light on how she's learned to live a life filled with joie de vivre. And she shows readers how they too can learn to deal with tragedy and loss, challenges and success, all while nourishing an intellectual and emotional spark, and, above all, having fun! Hilarious, inspiring, and profound, The Doctor Is In will change the way you think about life and love, in all their limitless possibilities.

From a popular senior writer for Sports Illustrated comes this high-stakes, boys-on-the-road story about the most unlikely of phenoms--a heavyset, bipolar, and endlessly charming pool hustler named Kid Delicious In most sports the pinnacle is Wheaties-box notoriety. But in the world of pool, notoriety is the last thing a hustler desires. Such is the dilemma that faces one Danny Basavich, an affable, generously proportioned Jewish kid from Jersey, who flounders through high school until he discovers the one thing he excels at--the felt--and hits the road. Running the Table spins the outrageous tale of Kid Delicious and his studly--if less talented--set-up man, Bristol Bob. Never was there a more entertaining or mismatched pair of sidekicks, as together they go underground into the flavorfully seamy world of pool to learn the art of the hustle and experience the highs and lows of life on the road. Their four-year odyssey takes them from Podunk pool halls to slick urban billiard rooms across America, as they manage one night to take down as much as $30,000, only to lose so much the next night that they lack gas money to get home. With every stop, the action gets hotter, the calls get closer, and Delicious's prowess with a cue stick becomes known more and more widely. Ultimately, Delicious sheds his cover once and for all and becomes professional pool's biggest sensation since Minnesota Fats. In a book sure to appeal to fans of Bringing Down the House and Positively Fifth Street, Wertheim evokes a subculture full of nefarious but loveable characters and illuminates America's fascination with games and gambling. He also paints a lasting portrait of an insanely talented and magnetic hustler, who is literally larger than life.

Noted authority selects 12 greatest players—Capablanca, Alekhine, Lasker, Fischer, Botvinnik, Petrosian, Tal, Smyslov, Spassky, Bronstein, Rubinstein and Nimzowitsch—and presents 115 memorable games that show these masters at their most brilliant. Games include author’s choice of the greatest game ever played. 12 photos. Indexes. Bibliography.

This portrait of Nixon provides an understanding of what led to the Watergate scandal, and a perspective on the past 20 years of America's history. Nixon has recently emerged as an elder statesman in the USA, and the author had access to previously unavailable papers.

"This book explores the themes of exile and wandering, homecoming and fated closures in literature-but also in real life and history-by invoking Homer's Odyssey. Focusing on crucial moments in the lives and careers of three scholar/writers-Erich Auerbach, François Fénelon, and W. G. Sebald-all of whom were inspired by Homer's epic, Three Rings uses "ring composition" (Homer's dominant narrative technique) to tell the stories of the three writers' lives"--

A "collection of essays from ... Annabelle Gurwitch about her own family of scam artists and hucksters, as well as the sisterhoods, temporary tribes, communities, and cults who have become surrogates along the way"--Amazon.com.

National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist A New York Times Notable Book A Best Book of the Year — Austin American-Statesman Includes a new, previously uncollected piece: "My Internet" In The Ecstasy of Influence , the incomparable Jonathan Lethem has compiled a career-spanning collection of occasional pieces—essays, memoir, liner notes, fiction, and criticism—which also doubles as a novelist’s manifesto, self-portrait, and confession. The result is an insightful, charming, and entertaining grab bag that covers everything from great novels to old films to graffiti to cyberculture.

June 1, 1967, is a landmark moment not just for the Beatles but also for the world of rock and roll as it marks the release date for one of the most famous albums in the history of modern music. The Beatles and Sgt. Pepper: A Fans' Perspective is about Sgt. Pepper; written by fans for fans. In addition to essays written by Spizer, Al Sussman, Frank Daniels, Piers Hemmingsen, and Bill King. Included are dozens of fan recollections that add a personal touch demonstrating the true impact of the Beatles. This book is a celebration of the most famous band in modern music history and their album, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is considered by many to be the most famous record of rock and roll.

In this groundbreaking biography of Edward Kennedy, historian and journalist Burton Hersh combines a lifetime of research and reporting with a lively mixture of never–before–told anecdotes (including the definitive version of the incident at Chappaquiddick, the details of which Kennedy himself filled in for Hersh shortly after it occurred) to create a broad yet unfailingly intimate portrait of the politician who would be universally acknowledged as one of the twentieth century's greatest American legislators. Hersh was acquainted with Kennedy since his college days, and the result here is a unique series of revelations that serve to reinterpret the senator's public and private personas. Conditioned by deep–seated fears that he was an afterthought within his own powerful family, Kennedy developed a genius for conciliation and strategizing that made him a dramatically more effective political figure than either of his older brothers. In addition to this biography's account of the Chappaquiddick incident, Hersh also delivers the first full report of the vendetta between Kennedy and Richard Nixon, exposing the behind–the–scenes manipulations to which Kennedy resorted to drive Nixon from office during the Watergate scandal.

A unique combination of philosophy, biography, and art history. The philosopher, the priest, and the painter investigates the remarkable individuals and the circumstances behind a small portrait.

This book is the first full length biography of Spinoza written in English. In this work, the author examines the various ethnic, political, and intellectual factors that influenced Spinoza and his philosophy.

Revealing how an obscure young assistant coach, in less than a decade, progressed to become a head coach, general manager, league commissioner, and controlling partner of the Oakland Raiders franchise, this biography pays tribute to the late Al Davis. Contrary to Davis's notoriously quirky and reclusive reputation, this account is based on the inside scoop he personally gave the author, lending his full cooperation to relate the account of his life and career. With a treasure trove of previously untold anecdotes, personal reminiscences, and highlights of Davis's leadership of the Raiders as professional football became America's premier spectator sport, this chronicle details the major impact this maverick owner had--not only on professional football but also on America's sports scene as a whole. The subject's influence on the merger of the American and National Football Leagues into the greater NFL is also reviewed as is his election to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.