Showing results by publisher "Audible Studios" in Entertainment & Celebrities

In a book that inspired the Amazon original series starring Gael Garcia Bernal and Malcolm McDowell, oboist Blair Tindall recounts her decades-long professional career as a classical musician, from the recitals and Broadway orchestra performances to the secret life of musicians who survive hand to mouth in the backbiting New York classical music scene, trading sexual favors for plum jobs and assignments in orchestras across the city.

Rula Lenska's is an extraordinary life. Born in Britain to Polish aristocrats, refugees from the Nazis and then the Soviets, Rula found fame in the 1970s as Q in the TV series Rock Follies. Shortly afterwards she accidentally conquered America with the infamous VO5 hair advert, prompting Johnny Carson to ask, 'Who the hell is Rula Lenska?'

"Her technique was simple: aim for the top", an envious colleague wrote of Clare Boothe Luce. No American woman of the twentieth century aimed so accurately or rose so far as this legendary playwright, politician, and social seductress.

Bryce Harper's unprecedented ascent to the major leagues, from a 17-year-old first overall draft pick to a headline-creating, 19-year-old rookie center fielder for the Washington Nationals, dropped him into the middle of the best season of D.C. baseball since the Great Depression. Washington Post sports reporters chronicled each moment on and off the field, from his first press conference in Washington, to watching him wash dishes after dinner at his parents' house, to his debut at Dodger Stadium.

I Probably Shouldn't Have Done That chronicles the series of vast, at times incomprehensible, mistakes that Jules makes in an attempt to get over her first "serious" boyfriend. It follows her through drunken nights, drunker nights, bad dates, worse dates, encounters with her ex, and a very few glistening moments of hope and self-realization. It is a thoroughly sad break-up story, an occasionally naive love story, and a comical train wreck throughout.

Born into slavery in Kentucky, raised on the Western frontier on the farm adjacent to Daniel Boone’s, “rented” out in adolescence to a succession of steamboat captains on the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, the young man known as “Sandy” reinvented himself as “William Wells” Brown after escaping to freedom. He lifted himself out of illiteracy and soon became an innovative, widely admired, and hugely popular speaker on antislavery circuits (both American and British) and went on to write the earliest African American works in a plethora of genres....

My Old Neighborhood Remembered is a lyrical remembrance of neighborhood life that has vanished from the culture. Best-selling author Avery Corman vividly recreates the vibrant, colorful neighborhood where he grew up - in the Bronx of the 1940s and 1950s. He recalls candy stores and bookmakers, egg creams and double feature movies, street games like stickball and Johnny- on-the-pony, school days of a different era, social mores that have disappeared.

A decorated soldier. A pioneering scientist. A bestselling novelist. A beloved world leader. To remember a year is to remember those remarkable people the world lost, and to acknowledge their legacies. In 21 Lives, The Washington Post collects a selection of its most resonant obituaries from 2013 into one compilation.

Talking on Air: A Broadcaster's Life in Sports highlights the 40-year career of Ken Coleman. The audiobook details a broadcasting life seen not only from inside the booth, but also from inside the minds and throughout the experiences of many of sports' greatest names.

Beloved stage and screen actor Danny Aiello’s big-hearted memoir reveals a man of passion, integrity, and guts - and lays bare one of the most unlikely success stories ever told. Danny Aiello admits that he backed into his acting career by mistake. That’s easy to see when you begin at the beginning: Raised by his loving and fiercely resilient mother in the tenements of Manhattan and the South Bronx, and forever haunted by the death of his infant brother, Danny struggled early on to define who he was and who he could be.

As the eldest daughter of a prolific letter writer, Jane Torday received hundreds of letters from her father over the years. From irreverent advice and hilarious family anecdotes to moments of great poignancy, Roger Mortimer‘s missives are a touching and witty portrait of his life and relationships over the years. Dearest Jane begins with Roger’s time as a young army officer in Egypt, and then as a POW in the Second World War, where his sense of humour endured despite the conditions.

Music supervisor Bruce Gilbert (Orange is the New Black, Children's Hospital) reveals the back story of how music became a critical element for the evolution of Transparent. He goes into detail on how he chooses the right song for the right scene, the importance of creating playlists and mixtapes for the cast and crew, and his early childhood attempts at music supervision that paved the way for his future.

Jim Frohna, Transparent’s veteran Director of Photography, shares uncommon insight into what it’s like to literally step into a dramatic character’s shoes with a camera on your back. Frohna also describes those thrilling moments when it seems like the universe is perfectly aligned and the perfect shot is created by circumstance.

Award-winning indie film director Jay Duplass is "Josh", music producer and middle Pfefferman child. Here, he discusses his character's difficulty adjusting to his father's transition and what it's like to go from relaxed dude to chair-throwing rage in under 60 seconds.

Amy Landecker is "Sarah", the oldest Pfefferman child, who rethinks her family life and her sexuality when she reconnects with her old girlfriend Tammy.

A heartwarming true-life fable from the Radio City Christmas Spectacular Santa - including his personal journey of discovering the magic of Christmas. Every year, over a million people attend the Radio City Christmas Spectacular, where they have the pleasure of seeing Charles Edward Hall don a traditional red suit and become the world's most famous Santa Claus - a role he has played for twenty-seven straight years. But Hall wasn’t always such a jolly old soul. Believe it or not, this Santa was once a Scrooge.

Mat Devine, lead singer of the band Kill Hannah, inadvertently began his own popular advice column after Fuse TV asked him to blog about his life on tour. Mat's humorous and touching column, aptly titled "The Raccoon Society", gained a lot of traction as his fans sought advice on serious issues such as alcoholism, bullying, and self-mutilation, while also touching upon lighter subjects like dealing with siblings, fashion, and going to prom.

Drawing on interviews with family members, managers, promoters, and the jazz musicians who worked with her, as well as contemporary newspaper articles and reviews, Late Life Jazz tells the unsung story of one of America's finest singers, Rosemary Clooney. Ken Crossland and Malcolm Macfarlane trace Rosemary's life from her hardscrabble beginnings in Maysville Kentucky, through her first performances singing with the Barney Rapp Band in Cincinnati, through her rise to pop stardom in the early 1950s.

Part documentary, part reality-television, the story of the Deadliest Catch’s Alaskan crab fishermen risking their lives in the Bering Sea to make a buck and feed their families has captivated the world. Giving the Finger follows the life of the spirited young captain who has emerged as one of the most talked-about figures on the show: Scott Campbell, Jr., who leads the crew of the Seabrooke. As this book - a prequel to Junior’s ascent to fame - shows, the trials of crabbing are not limited to living at sea and working the most dangerous job on the planet, but carry over to family and friends.

When people think about Marlon Brando they think of the movie star; the hunk; the scandals. Susan L. Mizruchi finds the Brando others have missed: the man who collected 4,000 books; the man who rewrote scripts, trimming his lines to make them sharper; the man who consciously used his body and employed the objects around him to create believable characters; the man who used his fame to foster Indian and civil rights.