Other books that might interest you

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  I'm Still Here - My 90 Years

  Amanda Barrie, Hilary Bonner

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  'I have 90 years to share: 90 years of joy and sorrow, triumph and disaster, love and loss, laughter and tears; 90 years of watching the world change around me beyond my wildest imagination. Ninety years and still counting...' 
   
  Amanda Barrie, the iconic Cleo in Carry on Cleo and much-loved Alma in Coronation Street, was born in 1935, above her grandfather’s tailor’s shop in Ashton Under Lyne, during a ferocious thunderstorm. And ever since her journey through life has been a stormy one. 
   
  This book will tell the whole story for the first time, from her expulsion from two schools and running away from home aged 13 to be a Soho showgirl, to rising from the chorus to star in the West End, to Carry On Cabby and Carry On Cleo, to Corrie, Bad Girls and more. Amanda has become something of a national treasure, entertaining us all, whilst not hesitating to speak up for herself and others on national television, including on celebrity editions of Hell's Kitchen and Big Brother. 
   
  Having performed in her teenage years alongside fellow national icon Barbara Windsor, Amanda’s life has in many ways followed a similar trajectory to become a huge household name. 
   
  Amanda will pay particular attention to the whole new life she has led since she left Coronation Street in 2001. Packed with anecdotes and memories of her nine decades on stage and screen, she will share the moments that came to define her life. 
   
  She will fully explore her struggle to come to terms with who she was, relating in painful detail the traumas faced by a young gay woman in the 1950s and early 60s. She will explain why she kept that side of her a secret for most of her adult life, and how she feared that she would lose her job and her home if the truth became known. 
   
  For the first time, she will tell the full story of how she met her wife, novelist Hillary Bonner, fell in love, overcame all manner of difficulties, and built a new life together.

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  Drawing Cartoons Step-by-Step -...

  Jerry King

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  If you want to learn cartooning from one of the modern-day masters, Drawing Cartoons Step by Step will help you take your drawing to whole new levels! Featuring 200 tutorials from Jerry King, a Reuben Award-winning cartoonist and illustrator, this beginner-friendly guide takes you from your very first steps into cartooning and holds your hand through the entire process. If you've got lots of illustration ambition in your future, you can even use the tutorials within to tackle an entire graphic novel. Open the pages to discover everything from guides on drawing houses and people to animals and more. Drawing Cartoons Step by Step features fun "drawing prompts" and written instructions that make every new lesson a pleasure. It doesn't matter when you're starting—if you're completely new to cartooning or exploring something more ambitious—because Drawing Cartoons Step by Step will give you everything you need to start cartooning with skills you didn't know you had.
  

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  Descending Thirds

  Nicole Conn

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  Descending Thirds is an epic tale of love, ambition, and betrayal set against the lush world of classical music in 1965 New York—a searing triangular love affair that unfolds like a symphony of passion and suspense, culminating in two intriguing twists. 
  At the world’s most prestigious piano competition, three lives collide: Alexandra von Triessen, a gifted but emotionally guarded pianist, is torn between two extraordinary brothers: Sebastian D’Antonio, the devastatingly handsome showman who lights up every room he enters, and Conrad D’Antonio, the mysterious other-worldly genius whose music seems to rise from another realm. 
  What begins as artistic rivalry transforms into a spellbinding triangle of desire, ambition, and betrayal. Each encounter, each performance, builds like a crescendo toward heartbreak, redemption, and the haunting question: How much would you sacrifice for love… and for greatness? 
  Musical score snippets and original compositions woven throughout the narration give this story an elevated, cinematic dimension—allowing listeners to hear the emotions thrumming beneath every glance and confession. The result is a sensual, transcendent experience that merges romance and art into one unforgettable performance. 
  Inspired by Conn’s own mother—a pianist battling End Stage Parkinson’s who continues to play despite her failing hands—Descending Thirds resonates on a profoundly human level. It’s a story of love tested by ambition, of devotion to both people and art, and of beauty’s inevitable cost. 
  For listeners who crave intense, character-driven romance, sweeping emotion, and a touch of musical magic—Descending Thirds is a page-turner that delivers a concerto of heartache and passion you’ll feel long after the final note fades.

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  Duran Duran's Rio

  Annie Zaleski

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  In the '80s, the Birmingham, England, band Duran Duran became closely associated with new wave, an idiosyncratic genre that dominated the decade's music and culture. No album represented this rip-it-up-and-start-again movement better than the act's breakthrough 1982 LP, Rio. A cohesive album with a retro-futuristic sound—influences include danceable disco, tangy funk, swaggering glam, and Roxy Music's art-rock—the full-length sold millions and spawned smashes such as ""Hungry Like the Wolf"" and the title track.However, Rio wasn't a success everywhere at first; in fact, the LP had to be buffed-up with remixes and reissued before it found an audience in America. The album was further buoyed by colorful music videos, which established Duran Duran as leaders of an MTV-driven second British Invasion, and the group's cutting-edge visual aesthetic. Via extensive new interviews with band members and other figures who helped Rio succeed, this book explores how and why Rio became a landmark pop-rock album, and examines how the LP was both a musical inspiration—and a reflection of a musical, cultural, and technology zeitgeist.

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  Animating the Victorians -...

  Patrick C. Fleming

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  Many Disney films adapt works from the Victorian period, which is often called the Golden Age of children's literature. Animating the Victorians: Disney's Literary History explores Disney's adaptations of Victorian texts like Alice in Wonderland, Oliver Twist, Treasure Island, Peter Pan, and the tales of Hans Christian Andersen. Author Patrick C. Fleming traces those adaptations from initial concept to theatrical release and beyond to the sequels, consumer products, and theme park attractions that make up a Disney franchise. During the production process, which often extended over decades, Disney's writers engaged not just with the texts themselves but with the contexts in which they were written, their authors' biographies, and intervening adaptations. 
  Linking the Disney Princess franchise to Victorian ideologies shows how gender and sexuality are constantly being renegotiated. Disney's animated musicals, theme parks, copyright practices, and even marketing campaigns depend on cultural assumptions, legal frameworks, and media technologies that emerged in nineteenth-century England. By applying scholarship in Victorian studies to a global company, Fleming shows how institutions mediate our understanding of the past and demonstrates the continued relevance of literary studies in a corporate media age.

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  Franz Marc 1880-1916

  Franz Marc, Klaus H. Carl

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  Franz Marc (1880-1916) was a key figure in the German Expressionist movement of the early 20th century. Marc was a founding member of the expressionist group Der Blaue Reiter along with other great artists of the time: Wassily Kandinsky, August Macke, and Alexej von Jawlensky. A brilliant use of colour along with stark futurist and cubist styles create the distinct qualities that make Marc a master of modern art. Symbolising masculinity, femininity, and violence among his calm and bucolic animal subjects, Marc's unique and creative use of colour and meaning will forever have a firm place in art history.

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