Other books that might interest you

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  The Hit Charade - Lou Pearlman...

  Tyler Gray

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  Journalist Tyler Gray’s The Hit Charade is the true story of boy band manager Lou Pearlman’s epic rise and fall. 
   
  Without Lou Pearlman, there would have been no Backstreet Boys, no *NSYNC, and possibly no Justin Timberlake. In the late 1990s, Pearlman’s boy bands ushered out guitar-and-angst-driven grunge music and began to dominate the television and radio airwaves. At the core of this squeaky-clean pop revolution was a sinister international fraud conceived by Pearlman, a huckster who first honed his crooked business skills as a teenage math nerd and blimp enthusiast in Flushing, Queens. From the mid 1980s through 2007, he cheated hundreds of investors out of nearly $500 million. When they finally caught on to him and demanded their money, the “Sixth Backstreet Boy” had already fled to Germany and then to Indonesia, where he was eventually nabbed by authorities and charged with a historic federal fraud. 
   
  In The Hit Charade, Tyler Gray (the only journalist to speak with Pearlman while he was in jail) weaves together the fascinating behind-the-scenes story of the greedy desperation of this boy-band mogul and monumental scam artist. Gray unravels Pearlman’s twenty-year long Ponzi scheme and explores persistent rumors about alleged inappropriate behavior by Pearlman toward members of the boy bands and other young men. Along the way, former friends, family members, Pearlman business associates, and band members themselves reveal detailed accounts of everything from the heyday of their stardom to Pearlman’s more troubled times. 
   
  “Lou Pearlman’s schemes were so outlandish they can’t possibly have been real. But Tyler Gray exposes him as one of the most sinister scam artists in history.” —Joe Levy

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  Our Miss Brooks: Wishing Well...

  Al Lewis

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  There's going to be a Wishing Well Dance at Madison High, and everyone wants a lock of Miss Brooks' hair. To most of us a school dance isn’t the most exciting thing in the world but to our Miss Brooks, the one planned for last Friday night was a most welcome diversion.

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  These Fists Break Bricks - How...

  Chris Poggiali, Grady Hendrix

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  EXPLODING FISTS … BREAKING BOUNDARIES … DEFYING ODDS …BONE-BLASTING … SPINE-SHATTERING … BOX-OFFICE-BUSTING …When a Hollywood studio released Five Fingers of Death to thrill-seeking Times Square moviegoers in 1973, only a handful of Black and Asian audience members knew the difference between an Iron Fist and an Eagle’s Claw. That changed overnight as Five Fingerskicked off a kung fu craze that would earn millions at the box office, send TV ratings soaring, influence the birth of hip hop, reshape the style of action we see in movies today, and introduce America to some of the biggest non-white stars to ever hit motion picture screens.This book tells the spine-shattering story of how these films of fury came to America and raised hell until greed, infomercials, and racist fearmongering shut them down. It’s about an 11-year-old boy who not only created the first fan edit but somehow turned it into a worldwide moneymaker, CIA agents secretly funding a karate movie, the New York Times fabricating a fear campaign about black “karate gangs” out to kill white people, the history of black martial arts in America, the death of Bruce Lee and the onslaught of imitators that followed, and how a fight that started in Japanese internment camps during World War II ended in a ninja movie some 40 years later.It’s a battle for recognition and respect that started a long, long time ago and continues to this day in movies like The Matrix, Kill Bill, and Black Panther. Here, for the first time, is the full uncensored story.

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  I'd Rather Be Reading - A...

  Guinevere de la Mare

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  A compendium of delightful essays, poems, photos, quotations, and illustrations for book lovers. 
   
  For anyone who’d rather be reading than doing just about anything else, this ebook is the ultimate must-have. In this visual ode to all things bookish, readers will get lost in page after page of beautiful contemporary art, photography, and illustrations depicting the pleasures of books. Artwork from the likes of Jane Mount, Lisa Congdon, Julia Rothman, and Sophie Blackall is interwoven with text from essayist Maura Kelly, bestselling author Gretchen Rubin, and award-winning author and independent bookstore owner Ann Patchett. Rounded out with poems, quotations, and aphorisms celebrating the joys of reading, this lovingly curated compendium is a love letter to all things literary, and the perfect thing for bookworms everywhere.

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  Pussy Riot! - A Punk Prayer for...

  Riot Pussy

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  Letters from prison, songs, poems, and courtroom statements, plus tributes to the Russian punk band that shook the world. 
   
  On February 21, 2012, five members of a Russian feminist punk collective Pussy Riot staged a performance in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow. Dressed in brightly colored tights and balaclavas, they performed their “Punk Prayer” asking the Virgin Mary to drive out Russian president Vladimir Putin from the church. After just forty seconds, they were chased out by security. Once a retooled video of the events circulated on YouTube (edited to seem much longer than the actual performance), the state was riled into action. Three members of the collective, Maria Alyokhina, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, and Yekaterina Samutsevich, known as Masha, Nadya, and Katya, were arrested and charged with felony hooliganism motivated by religious hatred, an offense carrying a sentence of up to seven years. 
   
  As their trial unfolded, these young women became global feminist icons, garnering the attention and support of activists and artists around the world, including Madonna, Paul McCartney, and Sting, as well as contributors to this book: Yoko Ono, Johanna Fateman, Karen Finley, Justin Vivian Bond, Eileen Myles, and JD Samson. The Internet exploded with petitions, music videos, and calls to action, and as the guilty verdict was anticipated, Pussy Riot responded with articulate, unwavering courtroom statements, calling for freedom of expression, an end to economic and gender oppression, and a separation of church and state. They were sentenced to two years in prison, and inspired a global movement. Collected here are the words that roused the world.

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  Meeting of Minds - Volume III

  Steve Allen

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  By “             assembling”              some of the most fascinating figures in world history, Meeting of Minds provided a groundbreaking opportunity for audiences to be exposed to ideas by way of a medium not normally known for its intellectual vigor. Portrayed by actors, panelists engage in stimulating round-table discussions that were conducted like any other talk show but featured prominent influencers from bygone generations—             not just philosophers and politicians, but poets, playwrights, and presidents. From activists and artists to international leaders—             both famous and infamous—             these conversations are unfailingly witty, thought-provoking, and genuinely entertaining. An innovative series, Meeting of Minds remains one of the most delightful ways of gaining historical perspective ever devised, and these original soundtrack recordings capture the intellectual and spirited debates of the episodes hosted by Steve Allen. The panelists featured in this volume are English naturalist Charles Darwin, American poet Emily Dickinson, Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei, and feared conqueror Attila the Hun.

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