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

No smartphones, no internet, no internships, no ambition, no plans, no money. Just lots of pot and cheap beer and a half-baked desire to become a hippie. Welcome to the end of the 60’s era. In 1972, David Noonan dropped out of college for no good reason, worked nights in a gas station and days in a cemetery, then quit both jobs to hitchhike west and meet up with his brother John, a natural-born rambler and a certified member of the counterculture.

Reading was so important to Marcel Proust that it sometimes seems he was unable to create a personage without a book in hand. Everybody in his work reads: servants and masters, children and parents, artists and physicians. In this wonderfully entertaining audiobook, scholar and biographer Anka Muhlstein, the author of Balzac’s Omelette, draws out these themes in Proust's work and life, thus providing exciting highlights of some of the finest work in French literature.

The King and I tells the story of Harry Mount's fixation with Elvis over 35 years; how it changed from mild interest as a child, via self-mocking adolescent fandom to full-blown obsession at university, before settling into relatively sane reverence today. What happens to our teenage obsessions when we grow up? How do they help - or harm - us? In this moving, funny memoir, Harry Mount reveals how Elvis released him from the bookish shyness of his sheltered childhood, and provided a magical escape route from his conventional, cloistered public school background.

In the 1950s, at the age of 14, Little Freddie King hopped a southbound freight train in McComb, Mississippi, fleeing the life of a sharecropper’s son in what was then the "worst part of the most intransigent state" in Jim Crow-era Dixie. Landing in New Orleans, he taught himself to play blues guitar, then found work performing at the city’s corner nightclubs, including one nicknamed the Bucket of Blood for its nightly eruptions of violence. Dodging bullets and drinking with abandon, he became a fixture in the subterranean blues scene.

The long-awaited autobiography of entertainment icon Jerry Blavat, You Only Rock Once is the wildly entertaining and unfiltered story of the man whose career began at the age of 13 on the TV dance show Bandstand and became a music legend. Lifelong friendships with the likes of Sammy Davis Jr. and Frank Sinatra, a controversial relationship with Philadelphia Mafia boss Angelo Bruno that resulted in a decade-long FBI investigation, and much more colors this amazing journey from the early 60s through today.

Just after noon on a spring day in 2006, aspiring singer-songwriter Hilary Williams and her sister Holly - the granddaughters of country legend Hank Williams and daughters of country music star Hank Williams, Jr. - were driving through Mississippi down a rural stretch of Route 61 on their way to their grandfather’s funeral. Suddenly, the front wheel of the truck became caught in one of the many deep ruts and gravel lining the road, causing the vehicle and its passengers to flip over several times, crushing steel and breaking fragile bones as it crashed.

Judy: A Legendary Film Career tells the story of Garland’s movie work in unprecedented detail. Hundreds of never-before-published photos, newly-assembled contemporary reviews, insight from her costars and coworkers, and production histories are provided for each film in which she appeared. Highlighting and complimenting the feature films is a definitive biography; an examination of Judy’s short subjects; details of the movies she did not complete; and an enthralling compendium of film projects for which she was considered or rumored.

At the time of his death, Louis Auchincloss - enemy of bores, self-pity, and gossip less than fresh - had just finished taking on a subject he had long avoided: himself. His memoir confirms that, despite the spark of his fiction, Auchincloss himself was the most entertaining character he has created. No traitor to his class but occasionally its critic, he returns us to his Society which was, he maintains, less interesting than its members admitted. You may differ as he unfurls his life with dignity, summoning his family (particularly his father who suffered from depression and forgave him for hating sports) and intimates.

Lovers of the printed book, arise! Thirty of today’s top writers are here to tell you you’re not alone. In Bound to Last, an amazing array of authors comes to the passionate defense of the printed book with spirited, never-before-published essays celebrating the hardcover or paperback they hold most dear - not necessarily because of its contents, but because of its significance as a one-of-a-kind, irreplaceable object.

Beth Lisick started out as a homecoming princess with a Crisco-aided tan and a bad perm. And then everything changed. Plunging headlong into America's deepest subcultures, while keeping both feet firmly planted in her parents' Leave It to Beaver values, Lisick makes her adult home on the fringe of mainstream culture and finds it rich with paradox and humor. Fans of David Sedaris and Sarah Vowell will relish Lisick's scathingly funny, smart, very real take on the effluvia of daily living.

Peering into life's cringe-worthy moments, best-selling author Beth Lisick excavates territory that most would rather ignore. Funny, odd, deeply personal, yet somehow universal, these are the kind of memories that haunt us all, the small awful moments of shame and humiliation that we'd rather forget than relive. Beth Lisick has made a career of opening her life to her readers in all of its messy, smart hilarity, but this type of story doesn't usually find its way into a memoir.

Chairs. Neat people. Ugliness. War. Over six decades of intrepid reporting and elegant essays, Andy Rooney has proven a shrewd cultural analyst. Andy Rooney: 60 Years of Wisdom and Wit brings together the best of more than a half-century of work (including long-out-of-print pieces from his early years) in an unforgettable celebration of one of America’s funniest men. Like Mark Twain, Finley Peter Dunne (Mister Dooley) and Will Rogers, Andy Rooney is a classic chronicler of America, a writer for the ages.

Screw Everyone is comedian Ophira Eisenberg's wisecracking account of how she spent most of her life saying "yes" to everything - and everyone - and how that attitude ultimately helped her overcome her phobia of commitment. Skeptical about long-term relationships, Eisenberg approached dating as a sort of research experiment from early on: She spent her twenties traveling from futon to futon and gathering data, figuring that one day she'd put it all together somehow and build her own perfect Frankenmate.

Since John Lennon composed "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" in early 1967, fans and music critics alike have argued over the meaning of the song. Is it about drugs? Is it just a lyrical response to a drawing given Lennon by his 4-year-old son Julian? Is there some deeper meaning? Professor Tim Kasser goes beyond speculative explanations by applying innovative psychological methods to the song's lyrics and music. He deeply analyzes the song's linguistic structure, its basic theme, and the way its words and music had been used by Lennon in earlier songs.

In Being Oscar,one of America’s most celebrated criminal defense attorneys recounts the stories and cases of his epic life. The Mafia’s go-to defender, he has tried an estimated 300 criminal cases, and won most of them. His roster of clients reads like a history of organized crime: Meyer Lansky, Nicky Scarfo, and "Lefty" Rosenthal, as well as Mike Tyson and boxing promoter Don King, along with a midget, a dentist, and a federal judge. After 35 years as a defender, he ran for mayor of Las Vegas, and America’s greatest Mob lawyer became the mayor of its sexiest city.

American Libraries editor in chief Leonard Kniffel offers a compelling collection of interviews with prominent figures--all of whom have special connections to libraries. From President Barack Obama to actress Julie Andrews; from basketball star Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to former First Lady and librarian Laura Bush and many others, stars of literature, politics, entertainment, and the public arena speak with Kniffel about the ways libraries have been critical in their lives.

In Beat the Devil, addict, alcoholic and best-selling Kindle Singles author Mishka Shubaly returns to battle his ultimate demon: his obsession with rock 'n' roll. Over three decades, his affliction has spawned immeasurable chaos and destruction (and, yes, maybe some debauched good times). While his rivals have graced the covers of Spin and Rolling Stone, Shubaly's projects have always flamed out in the 11th hour. At 36, sober and stable, Shubaly is poised to finally achieve the rock 'n' roll glory he has lusted after for years... or walk away from his lifelong dream forever.

Steeped in sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll, Lick Me takes the reader on a juicy journey through the life and times of the infamous Cherry Vanilla. A wunderkind on Madison Avenue in the swinging sixties, Cherry soon found fame as a DJ in clubs in Manhattan and on the French Riviera. She starred in Andy Warhol’s play Pork in London while gaining notoriety as a groupie, sleeping with musicians ranging from Leon Russell to Kris Kristofferson.

In late 1971 John Lennon left London behind and moved to New York, eager to join a youth movement rallying for social justice and an end to the Vietnam War. Lennon was quickly embraced by radicals and revolutionaries, the hippies and Yippies at odds with the establishment. Settling in Greenwich Village, the heart of Manhattan's counterculture, the former Beatle was soon on the frontlines of the antiwar movement and championing a range of causes and issues.

In this gripping account of one of the most important steps in the history of American desegregation, Jules Tygiel tells the story of Jackie Robinson's crossing of baseball's color line. Examining the social and historical context of Robinson's introduction into white organized baseball, both on and off the field, Tygiel also tells the often neglected stories of other African-American players - such as Satchel Paige, Roy Campanella, Willie Mays, and Hank Aaron - who helped transform our national pastime into an integrated game.