Other books that might interest you

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  Hollywood’s Favorite Screwball...

  Editors Charles River

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  “If I couldn't laugh, I'd rather die.” – Claudette Colbert 
  The 1930s were the height of the classical Hollywood era, known for lavish studio productions by heavyweights like MGM, RKO, Warner Brothers, Paramount, and 20th Century Fox, which were operating at the height of their powers. Every major studio possessed a long roster of contract players, and films were released at such a rapid pace that it made for an especially competitive environment within the industry. Even while America remained in the throes of the Great Depression, the film industry continued to flourish, and movies easily supplanted the theater as the main attraction for American entertainment. Indeed, it would be no exaggeration to claim that the film industry reached its zenith during the decade precisely because it offered an affordable (if very temporary) escape from the anxieties of the economic woes of the era. 
  When the American Film Institute ranked its top 50 screen legends of the 20th century, many of the people named had careers spanning several decades, but one of them managed the feat despite living less than three decades. Ranked as the 22nd greatest actress of the 20th century, Jean Harlow was on the screen for less than 10 years, but in that time the “Blonde Bombshell” became the most popular actress of the 1930s, eclipsing superstars like Joan Crawford and Norma Shearer along the way. In fact, the platinum blonde accomplished that feat as a leading lady for just five years before her premature death of renal failure at the age of 26. 
  Carole Lombard has been memorialized in many fitting ways as an actress, and one of her biggest contributions to Hollywood was the blond archetype that the film industry used successfully for decades in screwball comedies, paving the way for the success of women like Marilyn Monroe. Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of that fact is that it was actually based on Carole’s gushing personality. 

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  Secrets of the Sprakkar -...

  Eliza Reid

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  For the past twelve years, the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap Report has ranked Iceland number one on its list of countries closing the gap in equality between men and women. What is it about Iceland that makes many women's experience there so positive? Why has their society made such meaningful progress in this ongoing battle, from electing the world's first female president to passing legislation specifically designed to help even the playing field at work and at home? And how can we learn from what Icelanders have already discovered about women's powerful place in society and how increased fairness benefits everyone? 
   
   
   
  Eliza Reid, the First Lady of Iceland, examines her adopted homeland's attitude toward women—the deep-seated cultural sense of fairness, the influence of current and historical role models, and, crucially, the areas where Iceland still has room for improvement. Reid's own experience as an immigrant from small-town Canada who never expected to become a first lady is expertly interwoven with interviews with dozens of sprakkar ("extraordinary women") to form the backbone of an illuminating discussion of what it means to move through the world as a woman, and how the rules of society play more of a role in who we view as "equal" than we may understand.

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  On the Duty of Civil Disobedience

  Henry David Thoreau

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  Henry David Thoreau's essay, On the Duty of Civil Disobedience, is a masterful exploration of the moral imperative to resist unjust laws and unjust governmental systems. By deploying a carefully crafted philosophical argument, Thoreau contends that citizens have an obligation to disobey any law that violates their conscience or enshrines injustice. Read in English, unabridged.

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  Heaven

  Emerson Whitney

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  Emerson Whitney writes, "Really, I can't explain myself without making a mess." What follows is that mess-electrifying, gorgeous, defiant.
   
  At Heaven's center, Whitney seeks to understand their relationship to their mother and grandmother, those first windows into womanhood and all its consequences. Whitney retraces a roving youth in deeply observant, psychedelic prose-all the while folding in the work of thinkers like Judith Butler, Donna Haraway, and C. Riley Snorton-to engage transness and the breathing, morphing nature of selfhood.
   
  An expansive examination of what makes us up, Heaven wonders what role our childhood plays in who we are. Can we escape the discussion of causality? Is the story of our body just ours? With extraordinary emotional force, Whitney sways between theory and memory in order to explore these brazen questions and write this unforgettable book.

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  Apocalypse of Mark

  Caleb Deassis

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  The Apocalypse of Mark is a Christian book written in the ancient style of apocalyptic literature designed to read like a short narrative book one would find in the Bible, like Job, Ruth, or Esther. Narrator John Mark presents a linear retelling of the Biblical meta-narrative, heavily quoting from and alluding to the Biblical text. Beginning prior to creation and ending in the "new heavens and earth" incorporating enigmatic Biblical passages, it demonstrates how they are indispensable to the overall redemption story. The text also offers the reader hope by exposing the Gospel of Jesus as the central focus of God's relational plan. The text is packed with theological teachings and shows how they are all interconnected. The author began the project by trying to solve the question, "Where do demons come from?" Bolstered by years of research, he presents his findings in a creative and engaging narrative style.

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  The Prison of Perspective

  Rudolph Bader

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  A chance encounter, a road accident, an air crash, a hold-up at a bank:How do such events connect people?How do people see the situations from their different perspectives?Three narrative strands follow the lives of three individuals – Peter, Cathy and Ivan – through the second half of the 20th century, from post-war austerity and mediocrity in the 1950s and 1960s to the fast-moving life-style of the present decade, whereby the plot is embedded in real events of the period. The three biographies intersect at crucial points, which reveals their internal landscapes and the different ways of understanding reality. Things are not always what they seem, and we do not always know the whole truth.Playing with various time-levels, this novel of the mind deals primarily with potential fallacies of perception, sexual awakening, emotional exploitation and the proximity of death.How do we store the memorable events in our lives?And how do we cope with these memories as we grow older?

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