Showing results by publisher "Blackstone Audio, Inc." in Entertainment & Celebrities

During the 1930s at Oxford, C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Charles Williams - remarkable friends, writers, and scholars - met regularly to discuss philosophy and literature and to read aloud from their own works in progress. Calling themselves the Inklings, their circle grew. It was in this company that such classics as The Lord of the Rings, The Screwtape Letters, and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe first found an audience.

A frank, smart, and captivating memoir by the daughter of Apple founder Steve Jobs. Small Fry is Lisa Brennan-Jobs' poignant story of a childhood spent between two imperfect but extraordinary homes. Scrappy, wise, and funny, young Lisa is an unforgettable guide through her parents' fascinating and disparate worlds. Part portrait of a complex family, part love letter to California in the '70s and '80s, Small Fry is an enthralling audiobook by an insightful new literary voice.

In this intimate biography of the Prince of Soul, David Ritz provides a candid look at a star and a friend. Ritz had been collaborating with Marvin Gaye on his story for several years before the singer's tragic death and had conducted a series of extraordinary interviews in which Gaye discussed his deepest secrets. What emerges is a full-scale portrait of a charming but tortured artist, a brilliant singer with a divided soul.

He was the unlikeliest of presidential candidates - dismissed by opponents as a movie actor, a right-winger trying to undo the work of liberals stretching back to Franklin Roosevelt. Yet Ronald Reagan made it to the White House, taking office in a time of economic turmoil, waning prestige abroad, and a general dampening of the American spirit. Reagan's patriotism, wit, and optimism lifted the nation and brought it through several crises.

Acclaimed best-selling author Francine Prose offers a listen of Guggenheim's life that will enthrall enthusiasts of 21st-century art as well as anyone interested in American and European culture and the interrelationships between them. The lively and insightful narrative follows Guggenheim through virtually every aspect of her extraordinary life, from her unique collecting habits and paradigm-changing discoveries to her celebrity friendships, failed marriages, and scandalous affairs.

More than seven years after his death, Michael Jackson continues to fascinate the world. Shana Mangatal was one of Jackson's only constant and true rocks of stability for nearly two decades. Their relationship was quiet and sweet and real - a closely guarded secret, known only to a few trusted employees and friends. Shana is now coming forward to tell their love story. Her story is rich with every little detail.

In 1994, Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson were brutally murdered at her home in Brentwood, California. O. J. Simpson was tried for the crime, but was ultimately found not guilty of criminal charges. The victims' families brought civil cases against Simpson, in which he was found liable for willfully and wrongfully causing the deaths of Ron and Nicole by committing battery with malice and oppression. The Goldman family views this book as Simpson's confession.

Howard Hughes lived one of the greatest, most heroic, misunderstood, mysterious, bizarre, and tragic lives in American history. In this brilliantly documented biography, the mythology that surrounded that life is disentangled from the truth.

The classic and fascinating story of Jack Kerouac, "King of the Beats" and American literary legend, recorded through the voices of his friends and lovers. Authors Barry Gifford and Lawrence Lee retraced Kerouac's life at home and on the road and talked with the prophets, musicians, poets, socialites, and working people who knew him. Some are famous (Allen Ginsberg, Gore Vidal, William Burroughs); some are not (Jack's boyhood buddies, his lovers, his barroom companions). All have contributed to a remarkably vibrant, riveting portrait of a life.

Anthony Trollope is most famous for his portrait of the professional and landed classes of Victorian England, especially in his Palliser and Barsetshire novels. But he was also the author of one of the most fascinating autobiographies of the nineteenth century. Trollope was born in 1815, the product of a formidable mother and a tragically unsuccessful father who was socially ambitious for his sons. He was the victim of vicious bullying at Harrow and Winchester. But he had inherited his mother's determination, and managed later to carve out a successful career in the General Post Office while devoting every spare moment to writing. How he paid his groom to wake him every morning at 5:30 a.m. and disciplined himself to write 250 words every fifteen minutes has become part of literary legend. His efforts resulted in over sixty books, a sizable fortune, and fame, and his autobiography. Trollope looks back on his life with satisfaction. Perhaps as interesting as the facts he reveals and the opinions he records about Dickens and George Eliot, politics and the civil service are the judgments he passes on his own character.

Historically, major women artists have been excluded from the mainstream art canon. Aligned with the resurgence of feminism in pop culture, Broad Strokes offers an entertaining corrective to that omission. Art historian Bridget Quinn delves into the lives and careers of 15 brilliant female artists in this smart, feisty, educational, and enjoyable book.

Master Italian sculptor, goldsmith, and writer Benvenuto Cellini is best remembered for his magnificent autobiography. In this work, which was actually begun in 1558 but not published until 1730, Cellini beautifully chronicles his flamboyant times. He tells of his adventures in Italy and France, and his relations with popes, kings, and fellow artists.

On New Year's Eve in 2012, Matthew Schrier was headed home from Syria, where he'd been photographing the country's civil war. Just 45 minutes from the safety of the Turkish border, he was taken prisoner by the al-Nusra Front. Over the next seven months he would endure torture and near starvation in six brutal terrorist prisons. And, eventually, he would escape. In this gripping, raw, and surprisingly funny memoir, Schrier details the horrifying and frequently surreal experience of being a slight, wisecracking Jewish guy held captive by the world's most violent Islamic extremists.

This book is part memoir, part philosophical text, part study in human behavior, from one of America's greatest literary treasures. Narrated masterfully by Bronson Pinchot, this audiobook also includes Twain’s popular short story, "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County".

Reggae superstar Bob Marley is one of the world’s most important and influential artists. Exodus, named by Time magazine as “Album of the Century,” is Bob Marley’s masterpiece of spiritual exploration. Recorded in London after an assassination attempt on his life sent Marley into exile from Jamaica, Exodus is the most lasting testament to his social conscience. Now, in The Book of Exodus, Goldman chronicles the making of this album, from its conception in Jamaica to the raucous but intense all-night studio sessions in London.

Ted Hughes married Sylvia Plath in 1956, at the outset of their brilliant careers. Plath's suicide six-and-a-half years later, for which many held Hughes accountable, changed his life, his closest relationships, his standing in the literary world, and brought new significance to his poetry.

She was known for her outrageous one-liners, her ruthless theater criticism, her clever verses and bittersweet stories. But there was another side to Dorothy Parker, a private life set on a course of destruction.

A misfit kid at the best of times, Mishka Shubaly had his world shattered when, in a 24-hour span in 1992, he survived a mass shooting on his school's campus then learned that his parents were getting divorced. His father, a prominent rocket scientist, abandoned the family, and their home was lost to foreclosure. Shubaly swore to avenge the wrongs against his mother but instead plunged into a magnificently toxic love affair with alcohol.

When Lisa Najeeb Halaby was 26, her father introduced her to King Hussein of Jordan. Within a year, she became his fourth wife. Born in 1951 to a distinguished Arab-American family, Lisa was unsure what her role would be. King Hussein was not only the head of state in Jordan but also considered the spiritual leader of all Muslims. This memoir provides a vital perspective on 30 years of turbulent world history from the Arab point of view.

A moving, compelling memoir about growing up and escaping the tragic legacy of mental illness, suicide, addiction, and depression in one of America's most famous families: the Hemingways.