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

Monologist Mike Daisey presents a dazzling new work: four "bio-logues" about megalomania and desire constructed from the interleaved life stories of Bertolt Brecht, P.T. Barnum, Nikola Tesla, and L. Ron Hubbard. P.T. Barnum was a gifted entrepreneur, showman, raconteur, hoaxster, and freakshow and circus promoter who changed the face of 19th century America through blatant, shameless lying.

Monologist Mike Daisey presents a dazzling new work: four "bio-logues" about megalomania and desire constructed from the interleaved life stories of Bertolt Brecht, P.T. Barnum, Nikola Tesla, and L. Ron Hubbard. In Part 1, he focuses on Bertolt Brecht - playwright, poet, lover of women, and certifiable cad who escaped Nazi Germany, sympathized with the Communists, failed in Hollywood, was persecuted by McCarthy, and redefined world theater.

In his latest collection, I Love You More Than You Know, Ames proves once again his immense talent for turning his own adventures, neuroses, joys, heartaches, and insights into profound and hilarious tales. Alive with love and tenderness for his son, his parents, his great-aunt, and even strangers in bars late at night, in I Love You More Than You Know Ames looks beneath the surface of our world to find the beauty in the perverse, the sweetness in loneliness, and the humor in pain.

Nathanael West: novelist, screenwriter, playwright, devoted outdoorsman was one of the most gifted and original writers of his generation, a comic artist whose insight into the brutalities of modern life proved prophetic. He is famous for two masterpieces, Miss Lonelyhearts (1933) and The Day of the Locust (1939). Seventy years later, The Day of the Locust remains the most penetrating novel ever written about Hollywood.

On July 14, 1895, Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 59 years old and deeply in debt, boarded a night train to Cleveland, launching a performance tour designed to alleviate his financial woes, and, more importantly, resuscitate his alter ego, Mark Twain. The journey took him to Fiji, Australia, New Zealand, India, and South Africa, and led to the resurrection of Twain as a celebrity. Equal parts travelogue, social history, and biography, Around the World with Mark Twain paints a decidedly different portrait of Clemens: a more tragic, darker figure who faced financial ruin and personal loss throughout his life.

It takes a certain kind of woman to have the courage to defy societal conventions. In an era when her female counterparts were still expected to marry early and have children, Tania Grossinger set out on her own. This is her story. When you reach the age where there is more to look back at than forward to, what do you regret, if anything? One woman’s brave memoir about a life well lived. It takes a certain kind of woman to have the courage to defy societal conventions. In an era when her female counterparts were still expected to marry early and have children, Tania Grossinger set out on her own.

Young Max Gross truly was hapless in a big city. He was seemingly without luck or hope. He had bedbugs, a bad break-up, and an audit by the IRS that threatened to break his soul. But he had heart (as well as two nagging parents). When Gross saw the smash comedy Knocked Up, he realized his day might have arrived. All these years of being a world-class schlub would finally pay off. Thinking quickly, Gross wrote an article about the phenomenon and soon found true love.

In this deeply moving and resourceful memoir, beloved actor-director and New York Times best-selling author Joe Pantoliano takes aim at the stigma attached to what he calls “brain dis-ease” by writing candidly and humorously about his own journey through clinical depression and addiction.

Born in 1940, one of eight children, Maxine Hong Kingston is the daughter of Chinese immigrants to America. Her father, a scholar in China, ran a laundry business and a gambling house in California; her mother, a doctor in China, helped with the laundry and worked in the fields. Maxine won scholarships to the University of California at Berkeley, where she returned to teach as Senior Lecturer in the Department of English.

Several years after his playing career was cut short by injury before it had a chance to really begin, John Madden was hired as an assistant coach by the Oakland Raiders, one of professional football's most iconoclastic franchises. Two years later he was named the team's head coach and proceeded to lead the Raiders to five championship games in his first seven seasons. Following years of heartbreaking losses in some of history's most memorable games.

These four short biographical stories of teenage delusions mainly recount the early days in actor, film director, and writer Griffin Dunne's life. Whether he's filling someone else's shoes in a new job, trying to impress an older girlfriend, or attempting to get noticed by a President, Dunne's stories are sure to engage and entertain.

In 1948, New Orleans veteran trumpeter and singer Louis Prima stumbled into a young girl named Keely Smith. She was barely a performer at all, almost half his age, destined for a relatively quiet life; their encounter was pure coincidence. But they went on to invent The Wildest, the most exciting and successful lounge act Las Vegas has ever seen, an act that became one of the hottest in the U.S. in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

Without sparing the embarrassing details, Balbirer chronicles the two decades she spent as a struggling actress in the trenches of show business. From the searing purist tutelage of David Mamet at NYU Drama School ("In show business, women who are lucky enough to find employment are asked to do only two things in every role they ever play: take your shirt off and cry") to her bizarre 1 AM Saturday Night Live audition for Lorne Michaels, Balbirer recounts her sometimes disappointing, sometimes painful, and always bizarre adventures.

Monologist Mike Daisey presents a dazzling new work: four "bio-logues" about megalomania and desire constructed from the interleaved life stories of Bertolt Brecht, P.T. Barnum, Nikola Tesla, and L. Ron Hubbard. L. Ron Hubbard was a bigamist, occultist, and charismatic science-fiction author-turned-guru who took 1950s popular psychiatry by storm and went on to create the Church of Scientology: the most celebrity-driven and litigious organization on Earth.

Red Diaper Baby includes three comic autobiographical monologues by performer Josh Kornbluth: "The Mathematics of Change", "Haiku Tunnel", and the title piece. Together, and with the author's introduction, the monologues compose a bildungsroman that is both comic and poignant. Kornbluth shows a deep affection for the wild, eccentric characters who people his universe. With a few deft strokes he paints unforgettable portraits, as true as they are funny.

Following his mother's death, in 2004, Tyler Trafford discovers an album of old letters and creased photographs that reveal a mother he never knew, a man he's never heard of, and a love affair doomed by class and circumstance. The letters are from Jens Mller, a Norwegian pilot who trained in Canada during the early days of World War II, one of only three prisoners who would make it home after The Great Escape.

Before the heyday of the Food Network, there was Chef Tell - TV persona of Friedemann Paul Erhardt, America's first TV showman chef. Big on personality and flavor, Chef Tell was once called by Philadelphia magazine the "affably roguish Bad Boy of the Philadelphia restaurant world." Chef Tell explores how a young German American chef became America's biggest TV celebrity chef of his time. Most of Chef Tell's forty million baby boomer viewers - a number comparable to Julia Child's - never knew his fascinating, hardscrabble life story. Until now.

Miriam Therese Winter, an award-winning musician and four-time Catholic Book Award-winner, shares her experiences of becoming a Sister, working with starving children in Ethiopia and with refugees in Cambodia, of exploring the mysteries of India and the wonders of God in her own backyard, of having breast cancer and having hope. She also illumines new aspects of community, Eucharist, the word and spirit, water and the stars, spiritual blessedness, and much more.

Yo quiero! The heartwarming true story of the camera-ready Chihuahua who became a pint-sized superstar. Her name was Gidget. To the world, she was the Taco Bell dog. This is the extraordinary story of an irresistible pup's life, and that of her devoted trainer, Sue Chipperton. It is not only the story of an adorable television star, but also that of Sue's successful training techniques, and her fascinating stories of working with both human and animal stars.

One of the top bobsledders in the world and leader of the four-man American team, Steven Holcomb had finished sixth in the 2006 Olympics and medaled in nearly every competition he entered. He was considered a strong gold contender for the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Winter Games. Talented, aggressive, and fearless, he was at the top of his game. But Steven Holcomb had a dangerous secret. Steven Holcomb was going blind....