Popular Art

We have entered an age where we now have instant, unlimited, free access to the history of recorded music. We have the ability to listen across genres and eras. This is a world-wide phenomenon. This book is a guide to taking advantage of this astonishing new power. This book is also a way to appreciate one of our great cultural legacies; one that is very alive today. It is about American popular song and the body of work referred to as the Great American Songbook. These tunes are appreciated and treasured by listeners all over the world. This book is an effort to introduce you to the songs,...

In Pimpology, star of the documentaries Pimps Up, Ho's Down and American Pimp and Annual Players Ball Mack of the Year winner Ken Ivy pulls a square's coat on the unwritten rules that took him from the ghetto streets to the executive suites. Ken's lessons will serve any person in any interaction. Whether at work, in relationships, or among friends, somebody's got to be on top. To be the one with the upper hand, you've got to have good game, and good game starts with knowing the rules.

In The Comedians, comedy historian Kliph Nesteroff brings to life a century of American comedy with real-life characters, forgotten stars, mainstream heroes and counterculture iconoclasts. Based on over 200 original interviews and extensive archival research, Nesteroff's groundbreaking work is a narrative exploration of the way comedians have reflected, shaped, and changed American culture over the past 100 years.

A New Yorker Best Book of the Year, New York Times "Editors Choice," and Los Angeles Times "Must Read Book" "This is the biography of Clint Eastwood we've been waiting for." — Sir Christopher Frayling, author of Sergio Leone From the acclaimed film critic and New York Times bestselling...

A REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “Are you ready for the roller coaster ride that is The Club? . . . A beautifully written, densely plotted murder mystery that takes place at a private club off the coast of England. Read about a luxurious, celeb-only island during a...

Named a Best Book of 2017 by NPR and GQ Joining the ranks of the classics Please Kill Me, Our Band Could Be Your Life, and Can’t Stop Won’t Stop, an intriguing oral history of the post-9/11 decline of the old-guard music industry and rebirth of the New York rock scene, led by a group of...

The Disneyland Story: The Unofficial Guide to the Evolution of Walt Disney's Dream is the story of how Walt Disney's greatest creation was conceived, nurtured, and how it grew into a source of joy and inspiration for generations of visitors. Despite his successors' battles with the whims of history and their own doubts and egos, Walt's vision maintained momentum, thrived, and taught future generations how to do it Walt Disney's way.

#1 New York Times bestseller! Becky Albertalli and Adam Silvera reunite to continue the story of Arthur and Ben, the boys readers first fell for in the bestselling rom-com What If It’s Us. Ben survived freshman year of college, but he’s feeling more stuck than ever. His classes are a slog...

Universal Studios never really wanted to get into the theme park business. They wanted to be the anti-Disney. But when forced to do so, they did it in a big way. Despite the fits and starts of multiple owners, the parks have finally gained the momentum to mount a serious challenge to the Walt Disney Company. How did this happen? Who made it happen? What does this mean for the theme park industry?

An Esquire Best Book of 2022! Written with inside access, comprehensive research, and a down-to-earth perspective, Phasers on Stun! chronicles the entire history of Star Trek, revealing that its enduring place in pop culture is all thanks to innovative pivots and radical change. For over five...

Fight Like a Physicist provides an in-depth, sometimes whimsical look into the physics behind martial arts for sport and self-defense. Whether you are an experienced martial artist or a curious enthusiast, this book can give you an "unfair advantage" by unraveling the complex science of effective fighting techniques and examining the core principles that make them work.

Take your martial arts training to the next level with this audiobook! Taekwondo: A Practical Guide to the World's Most Popular Martial Art is written by Bill and Katie Pottle, owners of the Korean Academy of Taekwondo in Aurora, CO. Their school has worked with students of all ages and abilities, from 2-year-olds to Olympians to senior citizens. The audiobook contains sections on kicks, forms, one steps, history and philosophy, mechanics of board breaking, increasing power and speed, and much more.

More than 60,000 books have been published on the Civil War. Most Americans, though, get their ideas about the war why it was fought, what was won, what was lost not from books but from movies, television, and other popular media. In an engaging and accessible survey, Gallagher guides listeners through the stories told in recent film and art, showing how they have both reflected and influenced the political, social, and racial currents of their times.

Fourteen thousand years ago, someone scraped out a young man's rotten molar with a sharpened flint. We know because the scratch marks are still there — less than four micrometres deep — and in 2015 a team of researchers measured them. That is older than agriculture, older than pottery, older than writing by eight thousand years. It is also nowhere in the history of dentistry most people have absorbed. WRITTEN IN ENAMEL is a global history of what human beings have actually done about their mouths, and an argument about why that history has been told so badly. The answer has less to do ...

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of The Butchering Art by Lindsey Fitzharris, read by Sam Woolf. In The Butchering Art, historian Lindsey Fitzharris recreates a critical turning point in the history of medicine, when Joseph Lister transformed surgery from a brutal, harrowing practice to...

Cuando El chavo del ocho se estrenó en los años 70, el programa ofrecía un retrato poco común de la vida de la clase trabajadora que resonó en la gente de toda América Latina. En el pico de su popularidad, 350 millones de personas lo sintonizaban cada semana. Y durante casi 50 años, el legado de “el chavo” se mantuvo vivo a través de una creciente base de fans multigeneracional y sus retransmisiones diarias. Hasta 2020, cuando El Chavo dejó de emitirse repentinamente.

Sociology celebrates the popular arts! TV, Sunday comics, monster movies, professional wrestling, dumpstering, college football, bathroom graffiti, strippers, telephone pranksters, Peeping Toms, class clowns, the college sorority, the streetcorner preacher, the drive-in movie, good and evil, and more — see familiar, everyday people and things in an offbeat, surprising way, and blow your mind to what sociologists have discovered about how you shape the world, and how the world shapes you.

In her book Self-Inflicted Wounds, comedian, actress, and cohost of CBS’s daytime hit show The Talk, Aisha Tyler recounts a series of epic mistakes and hilarious stories of crushing personal humiliation, and the personal insights and authentic wisdom she gathered along the way. The essays in...

120 Famous Easy Piano Songs for Beginners is more than a songbook, it's a step-by-step piano course with lessons and music theory, based on famous tunes and simplified classical pieces. It's perfect for ages 11 and up, and for adults of any age, even without prior musical experience.

I could play and read tabs - but I didn't really understand what I was doing. It doesn't have to take you that long! You can learn the basics here in just a few minutes! This book is here to make things simple! I'm going to break things down and make it so simple, that you’ll understand the basics of guitar theory from day one!