Entertainment Books

Beach Boys fans and collectors, take note: Brad Elliott's "Surf's Up!" is no longer out of print. It's available again, reprinted in paperback by Surf's Up Books. The new printing, which includes everything found in previous editions, is available from Amazon.com. Search on the book's new ISBN - 0972768610 - to locate the listing.

Every recording done by the Beach Boys, their friends and relations through 1981 is documented in this textbook. Cross-referenced by song, title, performer, this work includes session logs, chart positions, bootleg information, and enough background material to make a fan's head swim.

Who recorded "Had To Phone Ya" first - The Beach Boys or Spring? Who sang lead on "Sail On Sailor"? What songs were recorded for "SMiLE" but never released? The answers are all here.

Brad Elliott knows the works of the Beach Boys inside and out. This book is not for the casual "sun n fun" fan, but for the dedicated Beach Boys scholar. A must-have that is well worth the price.

I recommend this book for all collector's of Beach Boy music. It is very scholarly and well-researched.

It is full of facts about the various discs, even foreign discs and rare records. There is no price-guide - which may be a problem for some readers. But if you are after a guide that lists every record that you can buy then this is the one for you.

Beach Boys fans and collectors, take note: Brad Elliott's "Surf's Up!" is no longer out of print. It's available again, reprinted in paperback by Surf's Up Books. The new printing, which includes everything found in previous editions, is available from Amazon.com. Search on the book's new ISBN - 0972768610 - to locate the listing.

This is a great calender.
Each day you rip off a page. Except on weekends there is one page that says SAT/SUN. Each page has a picture and a fact or Trivia question. It's great getting to read the facts and the trivia questions. You can save the pages if you want too.

I really liked this calender because it has a full color picture on almost every page. The only bad part is that saturday and sunday are combined and that some days have no pictures at all!! I even noticed printing errors. On a couple Survivor 2 pages, it had the Survivor 1 background and logo. This calender is really fun to look at. I never throw away the pages when the day is gone.

this Calender has good Pictures I really like Jan 24th!!

This is a great calendar, that has a picture for everyday of the week. There is a page for every day, except the Saturday and Sunday is only one page. Each page has interesting facts that every Survivor Fanatic must need to know! It also hass trivia questions, and the riddles to almost every reward challenge and immunity. It also has everybody's final words, all in this 365 day calendar. I highly recommend this for anyone who loves the show, or just wants to be organized!

I wish I had found this book 35 years ago.
No ifs, ands or buts - This is exactly what every guitar player should study and learn - no matter what style of music he/she leans toward.
Its written by a top player who knows what you need and knows how to teach you in a simple straight forward manner. Get it.

This book focuses purely on the topic of its title, i.e. big band swing guitar. The beauty of this book is that the author doesn't just tell you what a swing guitarist does, he gives you the thought process behind it. It is a concise but thorough review of big-band swing style and very effective at teaching what it proposes. The excercises are well-conceived and progressively challenging. I've been working with the book for about a month now and have vastly improved my understanding of swing rhythm style. No tab, but even a little music reading/theory is plenty to get you started here. I was a folky guitarist coming in from another style, and it's been just what I needed.

Here's a book I really wish I had back in high school jazz band. I used to go nuts with the charts back then, trying to figure out voicings and get all the notes in where the arranger wrote "Gb#11b13+" or some such, when that's really the last think you should be trying to do in a big band. But a good rhythm guitarist- as I leanred later- should concentrate on *rhythm*, using minimal voicings to develop a line that really acts like a counterpoint to the bass line. Forget all the altered tones; stick with 3rds and 7ths and develop good movement- think Freddie Greene in Count Basie's band. Simple voicings and solid rhythm.

This book is all about learning those voicings, learning where to subsctitute, and where to simplify to build interesting, musical lines. At that it succeeds marvelously. It doesn't assume any prior skill or knowledge, other than being generally familair with the guitar, knowing some basic chords and having some familiarity with the swing style. All chords are diagrammed as well as written out, so it's easy and convenient for both reader and non-reader alilke.

It's is a great tool for the beginning swing guitarist, the high school or college jazz band player looking for an organized way to approach rhythm guitar, or an experienced guitarist looking to expand his or her style. I've given it four stars instead of five as I think it could be organized a little bit better, and with a little more explanation in parts, but overall it's an excellent book.

If you are interested in learning how to play swing rhythm guitar-buy this book. Freddie Green was the master of swing rhythm guitar and the author took his chair in the Count Basie band when Freddie retired. The author breaks down his style in an accesible way, step-by-step. The audio examples are very helpful and of high quality-no cheesy synth rhythm section. The chord voicings,inversions, and substitutions are explained in detail as well as a chapter on how to expand or reduce the harmony of a tune. I've bought two other swing guitar instrucitonal books before I found this one and it is far better than the others.

This book is delightful. It is a must for every theater goer, folk music lover. I think it should be required reading for ALL drama students and students in general. It is a rollicking story of a lifetime spent being in the present moment, facing all forms of worldly turmoil from a childhood in Vienna as a jewish boy to manhood and family in America.
It is the loving story of a man choosing to fight for human rights with only his guitar as a weapon.
From his days in Israeli theater and on to England in Repertory theater to appearing on American stage, movie screen and television to activism of all colors, this story reveals a man whose quest for LIFE brings him into our lives. And we are all the better for it.

SHalom and God speed to a wonderful character in my life.
Mrs. Leslie Van de Ven, RN, BA

"Theo" is a wonderful journey through the life of an interesting, entertaining, many faceted person. You'll be facinated to follow him from his birth place in Vienna, through his many travels and career to his comments on the present day world conditions.

He is a jack of all trades and master of all!

Theodore Bikel's name is syynonymous with the Arts. His autobiography detailing his years on the London and Broadway stage and his Hollywood film career is stuffed with anecdotes about actors and legends. It brings a real sense of living that charmed life. I enjoyed every minute of his story.

His experiences escaping the Nazis as a child, his passion for folk music, and his stewardship of actors' and civil rights show him as a champion of the less fortunate and a righteous individual. This is the story of a totally expansive life and in spite of my earlier knowledge and enthusiasm for his work and music, I came away with greater insights and understanding of the man's drive and achievement. It's a great book. I recommend it to every theator-goer, activist, music lover, and any soon-to-be fan of Theo Bikel.

I first discovered Theo when I was in college -- and a friend of mine found some folk music records of his at a campus record store.

Then I discovered he's an actor. And a writer. He's written some wonderful books on folk music, with the stories that go with the music. He wrote the back jacket copy for the records, and it opened gateways into the music and out of the music into the world that music came from.

He's appeared on almost all the major hit TV series. Most memorable for me is that he is/was Ivanova's Uncle on Babylon 5 and Worf's human father on Star Trek: DS9 etc.

You surely know who he is -- you've seen him again and again.

But only a true die-hard fan like me -- who goes to his concerts whenever I can -- picks up enough about his life history to get a feel for where this immense talent comes from.

Theo is one of the major influences that led me to become a professional sf writer. Today, I play his CD's and tapes made from the old vinyl in my car -- and it gives me the strength and energy to keep on. Keeping-on has begun to pay-off! Just today, I have another new title now available on amazon.[com], The Unity Trilogy.

The story of Theo's life is the story of Art. And here and there you get to peek into the world as it was during some terrible war times -- and what it meant to escape all that horror.

This is a book to treasure. It should be available as an ebook download forever!

Live Long and Prosper,
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

This is a beautiful coffee table book on the Radio's Golden Age. The book provides a comprehensive historical overview of commercial radio from its infancy to the 1960s, when the radio was replaced by the television as the family's entertainment center.

"This Was Radio" presents the history of Radio from the beginning with Marconi's production of the wireless telegraph sound system in 1895. The author reviews radio programming in the 1920's and the establishment of the great radio networks - the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) and the Mutual Broadcasting System (MBS).

The book includes a detail discussion of the variety of programs offered during the Golden Age of Radio (early 1930 until 1960). Specific chapters detail the radio personalities and their mysteries, adventure, horror, suspense, westerns, comedy, music, children's programs, daytime serials, panel, quiz and talk shows. The author also discusses the importance of radio during World War II and several unforgettable radio moments.

The book comes with two compact discs that include excerpts such as Fibber McGee's Closet, Jack Benny's violin; Baby Snooks (Fanny Brice) takes a piano lesson from Daddy (Hanley Stafford); famous sign-offs and much, much more. You can hear the famous voices, the inventors, the network founders, the shows and the events that made up the Golden Years of Radio.

The author, Ronald Lackmann, has written thirty-four books on various aspects of the entertainment industry, including "Remember Radio" and "Encyclopedia of American Radio." He is a former actor who worked on the radio in the 1950's and was the voice of several animated cartoon characters. Mr. Lackmann was also a secondary school and college Speech, Drama and English teacher. He was the host of "Education in Action".

I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in the history of radio and information on the personalities and programs that comprised Radio's Golden Age!

In the past, I have reviewed many a set of old-time radio show sets from Radio Spirits but only one or two books about that subject. I noticed in the Radio Spirits catalogue a book called "This Was Radio," became interested, got a copy, and was favorably impressed enough to want to tell you about it.

Measuring about 14 1/4" long and 11 1/4" high, this attractive volume of only 57 pages (plus an index) gives a very nice introduction to what radio was all about in the pre-television days and provides plenty of pictures to let you know what the stars looked like. Now the important word is "introduction." I must make it clear that you will have to turn to other books for fuller details; but author Ronald Lackmann does what he set out to do very well. He gives you an outline, not a full history, of that phenomenon that was part of so many lives in my generation.

The contents are divided like this. Chapter 1: The Beginning, 2: Mystery, adventure, horror, suspense, westerns, 3: Comedy, 4: Music programs, 5: Popular children's programming, 6: Daytime programming for the ladies, 7: Panel, quiz and talk shows, 8: Radio news brings World War II home, 9: Unforgettable radio moments, 10: The golden age of radio lives on.

Just as important are the two CDs that accompany the text, letting you hear the actual sounds of many of the programs mentioned in the text and many important moments from our history such as the Hindenburg disaster and Churchill's "Finest Hour" speech. Among the less important but still memorable selections are the sketch that got Mae West banned from radio and the voices of Marilyn Monroe and Marlin Brando.

But I must register a strong reprimand to whoever gave the first CD only two tracks and the second one only four. So while the book gives a complete list of the selections on the discs, you would have a very hard time locating any given one of them-which makes their classroom value nearly nil. Perhaps this can be remedied (although I doubt it) and replacement CDs sent to purchasers.

Nevertheless, the discs are fine if you play them straight through; and the text and pictures are well worth the price.

As a teacher I am always in hot pursuit of books that can help add to a unit or to my personal library. This book tackles both! Full of wonderful photographs from the early days of radio, Lackman's book is a historical account of the glory days of Old Time Radio. The book also contains two narrated cds with excerpts from many comedy shows, drama, mystery and news broadcasts. Those are very helpful in introducing old time radio to my students. If there was ever a book with visual and audio recollections, this is the one to buy!

This has to be one of the best books on old radio I've ever seen. The collection of rare photographs was amazing and the audio selection was fantastic.

This is a fascinating look at a long-gone time. Mr. Blake's book not only gives the reader great insight into the artistry and work of Lon Chaney, it is a peak into the past, of the days of silent film.

Beyond the other rave reviews for this book relative to the artist, what made this book all the more valuable to me was Mr. Blake's description on movie-making at the turn of the 20th century. We can hear, feel and almost smell the greasepaint of that time, the hard work, the ramshackle artistry of these cinema pioneers.

This is one of the best books on early film, and a credit to the magic of Lon Chaney.

Before reading this book, I knew almost nothing of Lon Chaney except his reputation as a horror actor. I was amazed to discover exactly how misleading that title actually was. Blake's work introduced a genius at makeup and pantomime who was capable of playing any role convincingly. Through it, I gained a respect for a great but seldom-discussed actor.

This is one sequel that is worth waiting for! Armed with new information from the files of Lon Chaney's former business manager, Blake has written a worthy follow-up to his first book on the famous actor. This time, Blake covers Chaney's performances and the making of many of his films in the reader-friendly tone he established in his first book. Blake has broken new ground in film history, revealing that it was Chaney's idea to make "Hunchback of Notre Dame", NOT Universal's studio head, Irving Thalberg!! It is just amazing what new nuggets of information Blake dug up, including lengthy interviews with probably the only surviving crew memeber from Chaney's MGM days and a nurse who attended him during his last trip to New York where he sought a cure of his cancer. He also debunks the myth that Chaney would have played the title role in "Dracula". It is heavily illustrated with many super rare photos. This book is just as good, if not better, than Blake's first effort. Both are a MUST if you're an admirer of Lon Chaney.

Michael F. Blake's second book on Lon Chaney, A Thousand Faces: Lon Chaney's Unique Artistry in Motion Pictures, is a worthy and much-welcome companion volume to the author's first book: Lon Chaney: The Man Behind The Thousand Faces. This book serves a two-fold purpose: First, Blake reveals a lot of new information he uncovered about the actor's life and films since his first book. Second, this time around biography takes a backseat to a detailed look at the films themselves (although there is still plenty to be learned of Chaney's life).

Being THE acknowledged Chaney authority and having acted himself at an early age, Blake is able to provide a knowledgeable and well-balanced analysis/commentary of Chaney's films (at least those that are not "lost"). While certainly the biggest fan of Lon Chaney, Blake maintains the needed objectively to fairly critique each film and performance. As with his first book, a big highlight here is the wealth of rare photos presented (including Lon both in and out of make-up), as is the always fascinating information on how Chaney, a make-up master, created those amazing characters. Blake is to be lauded for his vast efforts in keeping alive the legacy of one of the greatest talents of the silent era. Thanks to author Blake, all the many fans of Lon Chaney can be assured that Chaney's many talents and contributions to the world of film (and film make-up!) will never be forgotten.

Bud Paxson is responsible for shaping the way America buys things through television and from the looks of this book he'll change the type of programming we see too. His can do spirit is inspirationally portrayed in this book which is easily read, informative and fun to read. A must read for anyone interested in learning how the TV game is played.

Your Book is Living Proof that Character and Morality is Everything!

"Threading the needle" is a swift reading book,whose title refers to the Biblical passage (Luke 18:25)in which a wealthy young man questions Jesus on how to have eternal life. Jesus answers, "sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come follow me", When the man heard this, he became very sad, because he was a man of great wealth. Jesus looked at him and said "How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God! Indeed it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." As a founder of Home Shopping Network, Bud Paxson has enjoyed amazing financial success, but despite his riches, his life was devoid of the love and mercy that only can come from a relationship with Jesus Christ. Paxson's determination to have a strong relationship with God and business success, is a model for every business person, born-again, or not. As a Jewish believer in Christ, I intend to use "Threading the needle" as a guide to growing my own business success and will recommend it to all whom I do business with.

I work for Mr. Paxson's PAX NET organization. Knowing him in person is truly an honor for me. Business success aside, Mr. Paxson is a true family man and a real down to earth person. PAX NET, now is PAX TV, receives overwhelming support from viewers all over America... PAX TV, a vision of Bud Paxson, as wonderfully told in "Threading The Needle".

I liked this book very much. My favorite part was the character bios. The "Killeer Deck" wasnt as cool as I thought it would've been though.

If you are looking for a particular subject ONLY, you might be disappointed. However, if you are looking for general coverage with very good coverage in each area, this is a very good book.

You are introduced to the Yu-Gi-Oh characters and given details about their personalities. You are given good card / deck intros and strategies. You are given a list of cards with their attributes and descriptions.

All of it is easy reading and written well in proper English. Definitely a gotta-get for Yu-Gi-Oh fans.

I saw this book at the store. It looked really detailed so I bought it.

It has bios from the manga & anime. It has reviews of cartoons that were never shown in the U.S.

And there's a ton of cool stuff about the CCG. There's a lot of Top 10 Lists & Killer Decks. About 80 pages of this book deal with the Card Game.

There's also stuff on the Video Games. I'm not a big fan of 3D, but the book does have eight 3D images & 3D glasses inside.

All in all, if you are into the YuGiOh anime, manga, or Card Game. This book is a must have. It's a great resource! I learned a lot about the history of YuGiOh that we might not ever see in the U.S.

This book is my favorite Yu-gi-oh thing that I own. Even if it's unofficial I still love it.
This book has stuff about:
the characters
The comics
The unseen episodes{ the REAL first season}
The upcoming episodes
The card game
And don't forget agobut the 3-d section
This is probely one of the best things you could get information from about Yu-gi-oh {besides the internet.

This is a wonderful biography of a fascinating and engaging personality. Sheridan is a fine poet and an honorable politician (a nearly impossible achievement in the eighteenth-century as it is today), a genuine wit, he was also one of the greatest playwrights in the London theater of his day.

Sheridan was a man of fashion and society, but not a fop. He wrote clever, romantic comedies, liked to live on the edge and yet always held fast to his principles -- supporting the American colonists, for instance, in their struggle for independence -- while refusing to be bought at any price.

He lived in grand style from the first moment that he arrived in London (despite having nothing but his wife's dowry), spending all of the money that he made as quickly as he earned it -- sometimes MORE quickly than he earned it. He was passionate about few women but appreciative of the beauty of many, and he was a devoted and caring father. (His poem "If a Daughter You Have" is a small gem.)

When he came home one night to find his theater burning as a result of a fire (probably set by his enemies in parliament), he calmly sat and sipped some wine, explaining to shocked witnesses: "Surely a man can have a glass of wine by his own fire."

Toward the end of his life, although he was burdened by crippling debts, he refused an offer of a large sum of money in compensation for his support offered by the American colonists. He explained that his support had been a matter of principle.

Read this biography and anything by Sheridan himself.

It's enough to say that a major artist has met with a superb biographer and this happy marriage has produced a very moving and absorbing account of this great man's life. Thank you Mr O' Toole!

Sheridan (1751-1816) is best known for a few plays, superficially comedies of manners and morals, mainly The Rivals and The School for Scandal. O'Toole's work explores beneath the surface of these and other literary works, showing them as the products of Sheridan's personal and political life.

Widely praised in the English and American press, this biography portrays Sheridan as a passionate (and compassionate) politician. He was a major player in a struggle for various complicated and sometimes seemingly contradictory causes and parliamentary power in the era of the American Revolution, King George III's intermittent madness, the French Revolution, and troubles in the British empire.

Sheridan is shown to be a humanitarian, and, less convincingly, an Irish patriot in the guise of an English politician who happened to be Irish by birth at a time when Ireland was at times openly rebellious toward England. The family heritage in Ireland was actually Protestant, but tolerant of Catholicism to the point of having Jacobite tendencies, i.e. favoring the return of the Stuart monarchy that had ended with James II in the so-called Glorious Revolution of 1688. Sheridan's father, Thomas, was a man of the theatre, and also a scholar, concerned particularly with propriety in matters of language and spoken discourse. Richard was not his father's favorite and his mother, herself a writer, died while Richard was still a young boy.

O'Toole's biography manages to relate the playwright's works to his family circumstances without indulging in psychological speculation. For example, the memorable character Mrs. Malaprop, in The Rivals, (immortalized by our word "malaprop" or "malapropism") is shown to be in part based on Thomas, who had pedantic tendencies. (Malaprops are best when they come from pretenders to perfection in language. An especially good one appeared a few years ago in The Smithsonian magazine when James J. Kilpatrick, a conservative political commentator and sometimes word policeman, referred to a mistake in diction as a "solipsism" instead of a "solecism".)

The many portrayals of hypocrisy and venality in Sheridan's plays are well explained by reference to the politics and society of the period, but are timeless in their effectiveness. The book is most interesting in describing the realities of theatrical performances, whether the particulars are staging details, audience characteristics, or financial exigencies. But this is a political biography of a character whose political accomplishments and enlightened ideals outshine his well known literary works.

Many of Sheridan's Irish contacts and English partisans in the intrigues within England in the years after 1789 were openly sympathetic to, or even allied with the French revolutionaries. Yet Sheridan was during this time a prominent member of the House of Commons and close to the Prince of Wales, later George IV. Some of his personal and political friends were tried as traitors during the peak of Sheridan's political prominence; he survived primarily because of his political acumen, eloquence, and insight.

To the general reader, not well acquainted with the intricacies of English history, the work will nevertheless be interesting and convincing in portraying Sheridan as a politically adroit and ingenious man, even an Enlightenment figure. Sheridan's speeches and writings were well known to the American revolutionaries, and remained popular even after his death. He eloquently advocated religious toleration, freedom from colonial oppression, even feminism, and opposed slavery so effectively as to influence the young Frederick Douglass.

Sheridan's personal flaws (he was a drunk and an adulterer), theatre life in London, political intrigues, the struggle for religious and political freedom in Ireland, and the impeachment trial of Warren Hastings for mismanagement of affairs in British colonial India, all well explained, make this book accessible and interesting. I offer three points of criticism.

First, and most importantly, characters, terms, or events not known to the general reader or history reader, should be explained briefly. The English reader may know what a "rotten" borough was, and what a "pocket" borough was, in the days before parliamentary reform, but a sentence or two would explain this and give the reader a better understanding of the electoral politics involved.

Second, an attempt at a definitive biography, published by a prestigious house such as Farar, should include illustrations. It is frustrating to read descriptions of presumably extant political cartoons of the day, some involving Sheridan's Drury Lane theatre, or major political figures, and not be able to see reproductions-surely the private collection or library would give permission. (In fact, the New York Review of Books included one cartoon in its review of this book.)

Finally, O'Toole's prose is afflicted with some of the unfortunate mannerisms of academic style. He repeatedly uses the awkward, almost always disruptive "former...latter" construction, and equally often uses the term "context" when referring to real relationships or circumstances-the term should be reserved for relationships between words. These usages may be epidemic in doctoral dissertations or in the "scholarly" journals no one reads, but that does not excuse their appearance in a work like this-the author is the drama critic of the New York Daily News. In the age of word processing, surely an editor at Farar should have caught these irritating errors of style, possibly in preparation of the American edition. Then again, a careful editor might have noticed that at the end of the "Preface to the American Edition" the date is incorrectly listed as May 1988.

If this clever and talented author had made his entertaining book more accessible, he would be open to the charge of "popularizing", anathema in academic and some literary circles. But it is a measure of his success in eliciting the nature of Sheridan that one wishes he had done so. After all, the political and religious difficulties in Ireland persist, and one could as well look beyond the Emerald Isle and argue that we too live in an age of comparably flawed, but ultimately noble political actors and causes, in need of better understanding of their human qualities.

I was familiar with Sheridan from his theatrical comedies, plays that have become standard in the repertoire. I was dimly aware of his service in Parliament. I wasn't aware of his extensive involvement in the great political questions of the day, particularly the Irish questions, nor of his centrality in the great debates of the late 18th century--the American war for independence, the expanding power of the East India Company, and many others.

The book covers all of this, but what elevates this bio from the typical is the author's focus on Sheridan's rhetoric--his use of language. The richness of wordplay, situation, and satire in his plays turns out to be just a special case of a characteristic lifestyle of thought and interaction. It's just splendid to read this sort of thing from an intelligent writer. The book gets you thinking, and there are points at which you may challenge the author's conclusions, but you're not going to find many biographies of this depth, thoroughness, and thoughtfulness. A great read!

I would like to recomend "Travel and Entertainment Best Practices" By Mary Schaeffer. I found the book to be very interesting and have applied the techinques when it comes to travel and entertainment concerning my business.

After getting Controller and CFO's Guide to Accounts Payable, I picked up Travel and Entertainment Best Practices. Again I have gotten what I needed. Using this book as an outline I can safely give sound advise on what and how to handle T&E. My situation is awkward as I have to fill the shoes of a much senior previous employee, I cant tell you valuable it is to have the wisdom of Mary imparted to me.

This book offers excellent tips/advice. Easy to read, you will use this advice over and over again if travel and entertainment are part of your working life.

I'm a financial professional from NY. I find that doing the paperwork after a business trip can sometimes be more trouble for me and and the Payable Department than the trip was worth.
Schaeffer's book will help you streamline the T&E process and provide you the information you need to put effective policies and procedures in place.
The information we used from this book helps our company save money on every trip our associates take.