Lists and Suggestions

An intimate and deeply original exploration of the life and work of the television pioneer, the First Lady of Comedy, Lucille Bal--A.K.A. Lucy. With stories illuminating the many different facets of the woman, [this book] details how Ball transformed the face of comedy and the entertainment industry. --

An invitation to the private world of Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman, one of America's most iconic couples, in a lavishly illustrated oversize photo book affectionately curated by their daughter Melissa Newman. Their love story is the stuff of Hollywood legend. Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman became not only movie stars and stage actors, but also artistic collaborators, political activists, and philanthropists whose legacies are expansive and enduringly modern.

From his experimental shorts of the 1960s to feature films like Eraserhead, The Elephant Man, Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive — not forgetting the award-winning TV series Twin Peaks — David Lynch, pop culture icon, cult figure, film industry outsider and master filmmaker, has pushed the boundaries of cinematic storytelling. He is a true artist in a realm of pretenders — an American great — who can take his place alongside Jackson Pollack, Andy Warhol or Steven Spielberg.

"Organized chronologically and covering every short film, television episode, and blockbuster movie that Steven Spielberg has ever directed, Steven Spielberg All the Films tells the behind-the-scenes stories of how each project was conceived, cast, and produced; from the creation of the costumes to the search for perfect locations.

Dame Joan Collins has always believed that one should retain some mystery in life and hide a knowing smile behind one's shoulder pads. In her new book, she returns in dazzling form to share her most memorable moments from her eclectic and vibrant life--in and out of the limelight. Behind the Shoulder Pads will take you on a spectacular journey from her early years as a young star in Hollywood to stamping her stilettos in Dynasty; from the glittering heights of Saint-Tropez to the busy Oscars seasons in LA over the years.

In the aftermath of World War Two, Charlie Chaplin was criticized for being politically liberal and internationalist in outlook. He had never become a US citizen, something that would be held against him as xenophobia set in when the postwar Red Scare took hold. Politics aside, Chaplin had another problem: his sexual interest in young women.

In 2018, the critical and financial success of Crazy Rich Asians ignited new fires in Hollywood to create and back Asian-centric stories. Since then, the number of movies featuring Asian Americans, either in front or behind the camera, has boomed and ushered in a new era of filmmaking. But many films, like The Joy Luck Club in 1993, paved the way for Asian American-led films before Crazy Rich Asians and to today. The Golden Screen is an in-depth look at those films, and the factors that played into their success.

Have you noticed something about every "100 Greatest Movies Ever Made" list? The people in those movies ... they're almost all straight, white men. With so much incredible cinema to choose from, those lists only begin to peer into the cinematic and wider world. It's time to push past the gatekeepers of what makes a movie "great" or "culturally significant" and get a broader view of what's out there. Kyle Turner has selected 100 of cinema's greatest queer films that are often overlooked but foundational to the art form and the wider culture. Starting in early cinema with trailblazers like Making a Man of Her and Different from Others, the list progresses through the eras, from Hitchcock's Rope to cult classic The Rocky Horror Picture Show to today's fast-growing list of queer films, including Carol, The Duke of Burgundy, and Moonlight. From lesser-known names to Academy Award winners, The Queer Film Guide offers a fresh take on what defines great cinema, lending a voice to the diverse creators and characters who've shaped the art form.

"Do you know where you should always move first in Tic Tac Toe? Understand the betting cube in backgammon? Want to know the best property in Monopoly? Did you know that the African game Mancala might have led one of its players to make an early approximation of the number pi? Or that the nigh-magical Golden Ratio can help you win at Rock Paper Scissors?

"Pulp will change your mind about fruit. It's not just for eating out of hand, baking into a pie, or preserving into a jam or jelly. Roasted fruit can enhance a pork chop or add tartness and fleshy heft to grains. Apricots can be tucked into the most delicious grilled cheese, their brilliant flavor and hue the irresistible stars of the sandwich. Infinitely delicious, endlessly adaptable fruit can center a meal.

"From the acclaimed author of To Asia, With Love, a loving homage to her father, a Chinese immigrant in Australia, told in 150 flavorful, vegetarian recipes. Heritage and food have always been linked for Hetty McKinnon. Growing up as part of a Chinese family in Australia, McKinnon formed a deep appreciation for her bi-cultural identity, and for her father, who moved to Sydney as a teenager and learned English by selling bananas at a local market.

"A hilarious and poignant memoir grappling with family, disability, and coming of age in two closets--as a gay man and as a man living with cerebral palsy. Greg Marshall's early years were pretty bizarre. Rewind the VHS tapes (this is the nineties) and you'll see a lopsided teenager limping across a high school stage, or in a wheelchair after leg surgeries, pondering why he's crushing on half of the Utah Jazz. Add to this home video footage a mom clacking away at her newspaper column between chemos, a dad with ALS, and a cast of foulmouthed siblings.

"For over a decade, Taylor Lorenz has been the authority on internet culture, documenting its far-reaching effects on all corners of our lives. Her reporting is serious yet entertaining and illuminates deep truths about ourselves and the lives we create online. In her debut book, Extremely Online, she reveals how online influence came to upend the world, demolishing traditional barriers and creating whole new sectors of the economy.

"What if you woke up one morning and found you'd acquired another self--a double who was almost you and yet not you at all? What if that double shared many of your preoccupations but, in a twisted, upside-down way, furthered the very causes you'd devoted your life to fighting against?

"Latino" is the most open-ended and loosely defined of the major race categories in the United States. Our Migrant Souls: A Meditation on Race and the Meanings and Myths of "Latino" assembles the Pulitzer Prize winner Héctor Tobar's personal experiences as the son of Guatemalan immigrants and the stories told to him by his Latinx students to offer a spirited rebuke to racist ideas about Latino people.

"In the weeks after Japan finally surrendered to the Allies, the world turned to the question of how to move on from years of carnage and destruction. For Harry Truman, Douglas MacArthur, and their fellow victors, the questions of justice seemed clear: Japan's leaders needed to be tried and punished for the surprise attack at Pearl Harbor; war crimes against citizens in China, the Philippines, Korea, and elsewhere; and rampant abuses of POWs.

Vividly written and exhaustively researched, Jonathan Eig's King: A Life is the first major biography in decades of the civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr.--and the first to include recently declassified FBI files. In this revelatory new portrait of the preacher and activist who shook the world, the bestselling biographer gives us an intimate view of the courageous and often emotionally troubled human being who demanded peaceful protest for his movement but was rarely at peace with himself.

"A riveting account of the extraordinary abolitionist, liberator, and writer Thomas Smallwood, who bought his own freedom, led hundreds out of slavery, and popularized the term "underground railroad," from Pulitzer Prize-winning author and journalist, Scott Shane. Flee North tells the story for the first time of an American hero all but lost to history. Born into slavery, Thomas Smallwood was free, self-educated, and working as a shoemaker a short walk from the U.S. Capitol by the 1840s.

"From award-winning journalist Meg Kissinger, a searing memoir of a family besieged by mental illness, as well as an incisive exploration of the systems that failed them and a testament to the love that sustained them. Growing up in the 1960s in the suburbs of Chicago, Meg Kissinger's family seemed to live a charmed life. With eight kids and two loving parents, the Kissingers radiated a warm, boisterous energy.

"Magic Johnson is one of the most beloved, and at times controversial, athletes in history. His iconic smile lifted the dowdy sport of American pro basketball from a second tier sport with low ratings into the global spotlight, a transformation driven by his ability to eviscerate opponents with a style that featured his grand sense of fun. He was a master entertainer who directed Los Angeles Lakers "Showtime" basketball to the heights of both glory and epic excess, all of it driven by his mind-blowing no-look passes and personal charm.

"From Emmy-award winning actor, author, comedian, producer, and director Henry Winkler, a deeply thoughtful memoir of the lifelong effects of stardom and the struggle to become whole. Henry Winkler, launched into prominence as "The Fonz" in the beloved Happy Days, has transcended the role that made him who he is. Brilliant, funny, and widely-regarded as the nicest man in Hollywood (though he would be the first to tell you that it's simply not the case, he's really just grateful to be here), Henry shares in this achingly vulnerable memoir the disheartening truth of his childhood, the difficulties of a life with severe dyslexia, the pressures of a role that takes on a life of its own, and the path forward once your wildest dream seems behind you.

"The #1 New York Times bestselling author of Think Again illuminates how we can elevate ourselves and others to unexpected heights. We live in a world that's obsessed with talent. We celebrate gifted students in school, natural athletes in sports, and child prodigies in music. But admiring people who start out with innate advantages leads us to overlook the distance we ourselves can travel.

"In June 2011, just days before his sixty-ninth birthday, Jonathan Raban was sitting down to dinner with his daughter when he found he couldn’t move his knife to his plate. Later that night, at the hospital, doctors confirmed what all had suspected: that he had suffered a massive hemorrhagic stroke, paralyzing the right side of his body.

When Stephanie Land set out to write her memoir Maid, she never could have imagined what was to come. Handpicked by President Barack Obama as one of the best books of 2019, it was called "an eye-opening journey into the lives of the working poor" (People). Later it was adapted into the hit Netflix series Maid, which was viewed by 67 million households and was Netflix's fourth most-watched show in 2021, garnering three Primetime Emmy Award nominations. Stephanie's escape out of poverty and abuse in search of a better life inspired millions.

"Nineteen eighties Detroit was a volatile place to live, but above the fray stood a safe haven: Chung's Cantonese Cuisine, where anyone--from the city's first Black mayor to the local drag queens, from a big-time Hollywood star to elderly Jewish couples--could sit down for a warm, home-cooked meal.

"Who are you? You are data about data. You are a map of connections--a culmination of everything you have ever posted, searched, emailed, liked, and followed. In this groundbreaking work of narrative nonfiction, Kerry Howley investigates the curious implications of living in the age of the indelible. Howley's subjects face a challenge new to history: they are imprisoned by their past selves, trapped for as long as the Internet endures.

"In May 2016, the city of Fort McMurray in Alberta, Canada, burned to the ground, forcing 88,000 people to flee their homes. It was the largest evacuation ever of a city in the face of a forest fire, raising the curtain on a new age of increasingly destructive wildfires. This book is a suspenseful account of one of North America's most devastating forest fires--and a stark exploration of our dawning era of climate catastrophes"--

"'My job is to go to places where people die. I pack my bags, talk to the survivors, write my stories, then go home to wait for the next catastrophe. I don't wait very long.' Journalist Patricia Evangelista came of age in the aftermath of a street revolution that forged a new future for the Philippines.

"When the Rosens moved to New Rochelle in 1973, Jonathan Rosen and Michael Laudor seemed destined to become inseparable. The boys, both children of college professors, grew up on the same street in intellectually vibrant homes shaped by ideas, liberal Jewish culture, the trauma of the Holocaust, and a shared love of basketball and standup comedy.

In 1995, Hadley Freeman wrote in her diary: "I just spent three years of my life in mental hospitals. So why am I crazier than I was before????" From the ages of fourteen to seventeen, Freeman lived in psychiatric wards after developing anorexia nervosa. Her doctors informed her that her body was cannibalizing her muscles and heart for nutrition, but they could tell her little why she had it, what it felt like, what recovery looked like.