Showing results by publisher "Simon & Schuster Audio" in Arts & Entertainment

This Old House meets #HomeImprovementFails in this collection of laugh-out-loud essays, perfect for fans of Nick Offerman, CarTalk, or The Red Green Show. Filled with unforgettable true stories from the everyday life of an average guy just trying to save a few bucks, The Cheap Handyman is a delightful tribute to anyone who has ever thought, "Sure! I can do that!"

Audience-ology takes you to one of the most unknown places in Hollywood - a place where famous directors are reduced to tears and multi-millionaire actors to fits of rage. A place where dreams are made and fortunes are lost. This book is the chronicle of how real people have written and rewritten America’s cinematic masterpieces by showing up, watching a rough cut of a new film, and giving their unfettered opinions so that directors and studios can salvage their blunders, or better yet, turn their movies into all-time classics.

Hardship, sacrifice, determination, and ultimate triumph make up Blind Faith, the frank and compelling biography of Lula Hardaway, mother of superstar musician and singer Stevie Wonder. A motherless child born in a sharecropper's shack in Alabama, Lula was passed from relative to relative, unwanted and unloved. As a teenager she was sent to Chicago where she married a much older man who abused her and forced her to work as a prostitute. Determined to build a better life for her children, she eventually made her escape to Detroit.

The Black Guy Dies First explores the Black journey in modern horror cinema, from the fodder epitomized by Spider Baby to the Oscar-​winning cinematic heights of Get Out and beyond. This eye-opening book delves into the themes, tropes, and traits that have come to characterize Black roles in horror since 1968, a year in which race made national headlines in iconic moments from the enactment of the 1968 Civil Rights Act and Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination in April. This timely book is a must-listen for cinema and horror fans alike.

A memoir by the legendary television executive detailing his pioneering work on Saturday Night Live, Sunday Night Football, the Olympics, the NBA, music videos, late night, and more.

Phil Lesh first met Jerry Garcia in 1959 in the clubs of Palo Alto, California. At Garcia's suggestion, Lesh learned to play the electric bass and joined him in a new group that blended R&B, country, and rock 'n' roll with an experimental fervor never before heard.

We all know and love The Sopranos, one of the most important television dramas to ever hit the small screen, having run for six seasons on HBO. The story of the Italian-American mobster Tony Soprano balancing his family life with his role as the leader of a criminal organization pioneered decades of genre-bending "peak TV". Now, Off the Back of a Truck takes you one step further into the world of Tony Soprano and his families, offering an Italian potluck of fresh and fun takes that any true fan can get lost in for hours.

The Klingon Way is a guide to the wisdom of Klingon warriors, including proverbs and quotes from some of its greatest thinkers. Featuring Michael Dorn and Roxann Dawson - in both English and Klingon!

A look inside the fairness doctrine and its impact on politics and free speech in American talk radio.

For everyone who's had their fill of politicians, TV trials and the daily events seen on the evening news, Simon & Schuster Audio offers some relief with this collection of the funniest opening monologues from Comedy Central's hit show, Politically Incorrect starring Bill Maher.

One of the most influential, admired, and innovative women of our time: fashion designer, philanthropist, wife, mother, and grandmother, Diane von Furstenberg shares stories about becoming the woman she wanted to be. Diane von Furstenberg started out with a suitcase full of jersey dresses and an idea of who she wanted to be - in her words, "the kind of woman who is independent and who doesn’t rely on a man to pay her bills."

No writer followed the building of the Freedom Tower more closely than Esquire’s Scott Raab. Between 2005 and 2015, Raab published a landmark 10-part series about the construction. He shadowed both the suits in their boardrooms and the hardhats in their earthmoving equipment, and chronicled it all in exquisite prose. While familiar names abound - Andrew Cuomo, Chris Christie, Mike Bloomberg and Larry Silverstein, the real estate developer who only a few weeks before 9/11 signed a 99-year, $3.2 billion lease on the World Trade Center - just as memorable are the not-so-famous.

From one of rap’s most evocative writers comes a stirring memoir and “masterpiece of a book” (Snoop Dogg) about how Boosie Badazz, one of the industry’s most controversial figures, was able to overcome insurmountable odds to make his music dreams a reality.

The author of the acclaimed Advice for Future Corpses (and Those Who Love Them) brings “her singular sensibility, her genius for language, her love of our deeply imperfect world” (Karen Karbo, author of In Praise of Difficult Women) to this insightful exploration of reality TV and the shifting definitions of truth in America.

This powerful essay collection is a natural extension of the #MeToo movement, revealing the interior experience of women after they’ve inevitably been underestimated or hurt—the epiphany that the world is different than they thought it to be—and how they’ve used this knowledge to make change.

Dave and Mike Stangle thought nothing of it when they boozily decided to turn to the "activity partners" section of Craigslist to solicit dates to their cousin's wedding. The hilarious, out-of-this-world ad that they came up with - featuring a picture of the two brothers as centaurs - immediately went viral, eventually landing these Wayfarers-wearing, moped-riding, completely reckless but ultimately loveable bros in the annals of the "Internet famous".

Released in 1998, Lauryn Hill’s first solo album is often cited by music critics as one of the most important recordings in modern history. Artists from Beyoncé to Nicki Minaj have claimed it as an inspiration, and it was recently included in the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress, as well as named the second greatest album by a woman in history by NPR (right behind Joni Mitchell’s Blue). Award-winning feminist author and journalist Joan Morgan delivers an expansive, in-depth, and heartfelt analysis of the album and its enduring place in pop culture.

Country music had brought Randall and her activist mother together and even gave Randall a singular distinction in American music history: she is the first Black woman to cowrite a number one country hit, Trisha Yearwood’s “XXX’s and OOO’s”. Randall found inspiration and comfort in the sounds and history of the first family of Black country music: DeFord Bailey, Lil Hardin, Ray Charles, Charley Pride, and Herb Jeffries who, together, made up a community of Black Americans rising through hard times to create simple beauty, true joy, and sometimes profound eccentricity.

By the early 1960s nearly everybody paying attention to country music agreed that George Jones was the greatest country singer of all time. After taking honky-tonk rockers like “White Lightning” all the way up the country charts, he revealed himself to be an unmatched virtuoso on “She Thinks I Still Care,” thus cementing his status as a living legend. That’s where the trouble started.

In How You Get Famous, journalist Nicole Pasulka raucously documents the rebirth of the New York drag scene, following a group of iconoclastic performers with undeniable charisma, talent, and a hell of a lot to prove. In the past decade, drag has become a place where edgy, competitive showoffs can find security in a callous and over priced city, a shot at real money, and a level of recognition queer people rarely achieve. But can drag keep its edge as it travels from the backroom to the main stage?