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From here to eternity: traveling the world to find the good death
By Caitlin Doughty. 2017
Fascinated by our pervasive terror of dead bodies, mortician Caitlin Doughty set out to discover how other cultures care for…
their dead. In rural Indonesia, she observes a man clean and dress his grandfather's mummified body. Grandpa's mummy has lived in the family home for two years, where the family has maintained a warm and respectful relationship. She meets Bolivian natitas (cigarette-smoking, wish-granting human skulls), and introduces us to a Japanese kotsuage, in which relatives use chopsticks to pluck their loved-ones' bones from cremation ashes. With curiosity and morbid humour, Doughty encounters vividly decomposed bodies and participates in compelling, powerful death practices almost entirely unknown in America. Introduces death-care innovators researching green burial and body composting, explores new spaces for mourning--including a glowing Buddha columbarium in Japan and America's only open-air pyre--and reveals unexpected new possibilities for our own death rituals. Bestseller. 2017.American rhapsody: writers, musicians, millionaires, movie stars, and one great building
By Claudia Roth Pierpont. 2016
Portraits of American artists and innovators who have helped to shape the country in the modern age. It isn't far…
from Wharton's brave new women to F. Scott Fitzgerald's giddy flappers, and on to the big-screen command of Katharine Hepburn and the dangerous dames of Dashiell Hammett's hard-boiled world. The improvisatory jazziness of George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue has its counterpart in the great jazz baby of the New York skyline, the Chrysler Building. Questions of an American acting style are traced from Orson Welles to Marlon Brando, while the new American painting emerges in the gallery of Peggy Guggenheim. And we trace the arc of racial progress from Bert Williams's blackface performances to James Baldwin's warning of the fire next time, however slow and bitter and anguished this progress may be. 2016. Uniform title: New Yorker.George Lucas: a life
By Brian Jay Jones. 2016
On May 25, 1977, a problem-plagued, budget-straining, independent science-fiction film opened in a mere thirty-two American movie theaters. Conceived, written,…
and directed by a little-known filmmaker named George Lucas, Star Wars reinvented the cinematic landscape, ushering in a new way for movies to be made, marketed, and merchandised. And if that wasn't game-changing enough, Lucas went on to create another blockbuster series with Indiana Jones, and completely revolutionized the world of special effects, not to mention sound systems. His work and legacy have led to a rash of innovation and democratization in film and television. 2016.Hollywood: a third memoir
By Larry McMurtry. 2011
In this sequel to “Literary Life”, McMurtry reminisces about his decades as a screenwriter, highlighted by winning an Academy Award…
in 2006. He also discusses his relationships with movie personalities and the role of agents in the film industry. 2011.Ghost light: a memoir
By Frank Rich. 2000
Former theatre critic of the New York Times reminisces about his childhood in the Washington, D.C., area in the 1950s…
and 1960s. Recalls how his love for the stage developed and how he coped with family problems by taking refuge in theatre productions. Includes violence and strong language. c2000.Goldwyn: a biography
By A. Scott Berg. 1989
At the age of 16, Schmuel Gelbfisz left his native town and made his way to New York. Here, as…
Samuel Goldfish, he worked as a glove salesman until a Bronco Billy western inspired him to enter the film business. In 1916 he formed the Goldwyn Picture Corporation and changed his name again to Samuel Goldwyn. 1989.Frida: a biography of Frida Kahlo
By Hayden Herrera. 1998
Frida is the story of one of the twentieth-century's most extraordinary women, the painter Frida Kahlo. Born near Mexico City,…
she grew up during the turbulent days of the Mexican Revolution and, at eighteen, was the victim of an accident that left her crippled and unable to bear children. To salvage what she could from her unhappy situation, Kahlo had to learn to keep still - so she began to paint. 1998.Chinese New Year: a celebration for everyone (Orca origins.)
By Jen Sookfong Lee. 2017
From its beginnings as a farming celebration marking the end of winter to its current role as a global party…
featuring good food, lots of gifts and public parades, 'Chinese New Year' is a snapshot of Chinese culture. Award-winning author and broadcaster Jen Sookfong Lee recalls her childhood in Vancouver, British Columbia, and weaves family stories into the history, traditions and evolution of Chinese New Year. Grades 3-6. 2017.Emily Carr (The Canadians)
By Rosemary Neering. 1975
Fire in the bones: Bill Mason and the Canadian canoeing tradition (Phyllis Bruce Bk.)
By James Raffan. 1996
This biography gives the reader insight into the motivations of this filmmaker, writer, photographer, canoeist and consummate nature-lover. Mason's love…
of the wilderness in general and canoeing in particular led to a prolific body of work including "Cry of the wild" and "Paddle to the sea." 1996.Everybody was so young: Gerald and Sara Murphy, a lost generation love story
By Amanda Vaill. 1998
The saga of a New York society couple, Gerald and Sara Murphy, who moved to France in the 1920s. Gerald's…
interest in painting brought them into contact with artists and writers of the time, including F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and Pablo Picasso. In later years, personal tragedy and financial setbacks struck the Murphys, but their love endured. Bestseller. 1998.Emily Carr: Emily Carr (Extraordinary Canadians)
By Lewis DeSoto. 2008
Mad, bad, and dangerous to know is how Victorian society dismissed Emily Carr, but the author sees her as a…
woman in search of God, freedom, and the essence of art. Her quest to be an independent woman and artist took her from the studios of Paris to deep inside the remote Native villages of the West Coast forests. Carr is revealed as one of those unique individuals who articulate the symbols and images by which Canada identifies itself. 2008.Encounters: a memoir (A helen And Kurt Wolff Bk.)
By Dorothy Norman. 1987
Emily Carr, a biography: A Biography
By Maria Tippett. 1979
De Kooning: an American master
By Mark Stevens, Annalyn Swan, Willem De Kooning. 2004
Biography of Dutch-born artist Willem de Kooning (1904-1997), who became a major figure in the mid-twentieth-century New York abstract expressionism…
scene. Explores de Kooning's bohemian habits, friendship with Gorky, financial backing from Hirshhorn and Fourcade, only marriage, and passion for painting. Some descriptions of sex. Pulitzer Prize. 2004.Dreaming with his eyes open: a life of Diego Rivera
By Patrick Marnham, Diego Rivera. 1998
Vast in scope, this biography details the life of the late Mexican painter, best known for his complex, highly symbolic…
and politically charged murals. Descriptions of his early life, participation in the Communist party of the 1920s and his marriage to artistic giant, Frida Kahlo help to bring understanding to this complex man. 1998.Caravaggio: a passionate life
By Desmond Seward. 1998
Biography of the Italian painter Michelangelo da Caravaggio, born in 1571. Explores what is known about his life; investigates his…
world, his acclaim as an artist, the fatal duel that made him an outlaw, and his untimely death in 1610. Presents a portrait of a tortured soul. c1998.Bill Reid: the making of an Indian
By Maria Tippett. 2003
Bill Reid was at the forefront of the modern-day renaissance of Northwest Coast Native art, but his art, and his…
life, was not without controversy. Born to a partly Haida mother and a father of German and Scottish descent, his public persona as a Haida Indian seems to have been as much a product of journalists, art patrons, museum curators, and others in the non-Native establishment as of Bill Reid himself. Reid's art also arose from the tension that existed between his Native and white artistic perceptions. 2003.Beaverbrook: a shattered legacy
By Jacques Poitras. 2007
From humble beginnings, Max Aitken, later Lord Beaverbrook, rose to the heights of politics and business, as well as philanthropy.…
In the late 1950s, he built the Beaverbrook Art Gallery as a gift to the people of New Brunswick, stocking it with a large collection of masterworks that form the core of the Gallery's prestigious collection. Today, the paintings are at the centre of a bitter battle between the Gallery and the two charitable Beaverbrook foundations - a battle that has rocked the art world on both sides of the Atlantic. Some strong language. c2007.Apron strings: navigating food and family in France, Italy, and China
By Jan Wong. 2017
Jan Wong knows food is better when shared, so when she set out to write a book about home cooking…
in France, Italy, and China, she asked her 22-year-old son, Sam, to join her. While he wasn't keen on spending excessive time with his mom, he dreamed of becoming a chef. Ultimately, it was an opportunity he couldn't pass up. On their journey, Jan and Sam live and cook with locals, seeing how globalization is changing food, families, and cultures. In southeast France, they move in with a family sheltering undocumented migrants. From Bernadette, the housekeeper, they learn classic French family fare such as blanquette de veau. In a hamlet in the heart of Italy's Slow Food country, the locals teach them how to make authentic spaghetti alle vongole and a proper risotto with leeks. In Shanghai, they cook firecracker chicken and scallion pancakes with the nouveaux riches and their migrant maids, who are part of the biggest demographic shift in world history. Along the way, mother and son explore their sometimes-fraught relationship, uniting--and occasionally clashing--over their mutual love of cooking. 2017.