Random House New Releases - Music - Performing Arts - Music Biographies - Entertainment Biographies - Between May 18, 2012 and June 17, 2013.

Queen of the Air by Dean N. Jensen

2013-06-11T00:30:00-05:00

Queen of the Air A True Story of Love and Tragedy at the Circus
Written by Dean N. Jensen

A true life Water for Elephants, Queen of the Air brings the circus world to life through the gorgeously written, true story of renowned trapeze artist and circus performer Leitzel, Queen of the Air, the most famous woman in the world at the turn of the 20th century, and her star-crossed love affair with Alfredo Codona, of the famous Flying Codona Brothers.

Like today's Beyonce, Madonna, and Cher, she was known to her vast public by just one name, Leitzel. There may have been some regions on earth where her name was not a household expression, but if so, they were likely on polar ice caps or in the darkest, deepest jungles.
Leitzel was born into Dickensian circumstances, and became a princess and then a queen. She was not much bigger than a good size fairy, just four-foot-ten and less than 100 pounds. In the first part of the 20th century, she presided over a sawdust fiefdom of never-ending magic. She was the biggest star ever of the biggest circus ever, the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, The Greatest Show on Earth.
In her life, Leitzel had many suitors (and three husbands), but only one man ever fully captured her heart. He was the handsome Alfredo Codona, the greatest trapeze flyer that had ever lived, the only one in his time who, night after night, executed the deadliest of all big-top feats, The Triple--three somersaults in midair while traveling at 60 m.p.h. The Triple, the salto mortale, as the Italians called it, took the lives of more daredevils than any other circus stunt.

Queen of the Air by Dean N. Jensen

2013-06-11T00:30:00-05:00

Queen of the Air A True Story of Love and Tragedy at the Circus
Written by Dean N. Jensen

Queen of the Air by Emma Bering

2013-06-11T00:30:00-05:00

Queen of the Air A True Story of Love and Tragedy at the Circus
Written by Dean N. Jensen
Read by Emma Bering

Unabridged Audiobook Download | Random House Audio | Biography & Autobiography - Historical; Biography & Autobiography - Entertainment & Performing Arts; History - United States - 20th Century | $22.50 | June 11, 2013 | 978-0-385-36252-8 (0-385-36252-8)

Gods Like Us by Ty Burr

2013-06-04T00:30:00-05:00

Gods Like Us On Movie Stardom and Modern Fame
Written by Ty Burr

With 8 Pages of Black-and-White Photographs

In this captivating history of stardom, Boston Globe film critic Ty Burr traces our obsession with fame from the dawn of cinema through the age of the Internet. Why do we obsess over the individuals we come to call stars? How has both the image of stardom and our stars' images changed over the past hundred years? What does celebrity mean if people can now become famous simply for being famous? With brilliant insight and entertaining examples, Burr reveals the blessings and the curses of celebrity for the star and the stargazer alike. From Mary Pickford and Charlie Chaplin, to Archie Leach (a.k.a. Cary Grant), Tom Cruise, and Julia Roberts, to such no-cal stars of today as the Kardashians and the new online celebrity, Gods Like Us is a journey through the fame game at its flashiest, most indulgent, occasionally most tragic, and ultimately it's most culturally revealing.

My Life with Cleopatra by Joe Hyams

2013-06-04T00:30:00-05:00

My Life with Cleopatra The Making of a Hollywood Classic
Written by Walter Wanger and Joe Hyams
Afterword by Kenneth Turan

Cleopatra faced countless problems during its filming and production: passionate casting disputes, broken contracts, a costly re-location from London to Rome, an emergency tracheotomy for its star, Elizabeth Taylor, scandal-ridden gossip surrounding relationships on set, and a budget of $2 million that ballooned to final costs of $44 million. Legendary producer Walter Wanger recalls the drama that occurred both on and off the set, including the incredible obstacles he had to overcome and the exhilaration of producing a cinematic triumph. A revealing story about Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton’s tempestuous romance and an insightful filmmaker’s journal, now back in print for the 50th anniversary of Cleopatra’s release, My Life with Cleopatra shares the true story of the relationship and film that enthralled the world.

My Life with Cleopatra by Joe Hyams

2013-06-04T00:30:00-05:00

My Life with Cleopatra The Making of a Hollywood Classic
Written by Walter Wanger and Joe Hyams
Afterword by Kenneth Turan

A Curious Man by Neal Thompson

2013-05-07T00:30:00-05:00

A Curious Man The Strange and Brilliant Life of Robert "Believe It or Not!" Ripley
Written by Neal Thompson

Hardcover, 432 pages | Crown Archetype | Biography & Autobiography - Historical; Biography & Autobiography - Entertainment & Performing Arts; Reference - Trivia | $26.00 | May 7, 2013 | 978-0-7704-3620-9 (0-7704-3620-X)

A Curious Man is the marvelously compelling biography of Robert “Believe It or Not” Ripley, the enigmatic cartoonist turned globetrotting millionaire who won international fame by celebrating the world's strangest oddities, and whose outrageous showmanship taught us to believe in the unbelievable.

As portrayed by acclaimed biographer Neal Thompson, Ripley’s life is the stuff of a classic American fairy tale. Buck-toothed and cursed by shyness, Ripley turned his sense of being an outsider into an appreciation for the strangeness of the world. After selling his first cartoon to Time magazine at age eighteen, more cartooning triumphs followed, but it was his “Believe It or Not” conceit and the wildly popular radio shows it birthed that would make him one of the most successful entertainment figures of his time and spur him to search the globe’s farthest corners for bizarre facts, exotic human curiosities, and shocking phenomena.

Ripley delighted in making outrageous declarations that somehow always turned out to be true—such as that Charles Lindbergh was only the sixty-seventh man to fly across the Atlantic or that “The Star Spangled Banner” was not the national anthem. Assisted by an exotic harem of female admirers and by ex-banker Norbert Pearlroth, a devoted researcher who spoke eleven languages, Ripley simultaneously embodied the spirit of Peter Pan, the fearlessness of Marco Polo and the marketing savvy of P. T. Barnum.

In a very real sense, Ripley sought to remake the world’s aesthetic. He demanded respect for those who were labeled “eccentrics” or “freaks”—whether it be E. L. Blystone, who wrote 1,615 alphabet letters on a grain of rice, or the man who could swallow his own nose.

By the 1930s Ripley possessed a vast fortune, a private yacht, and a twenty-eight room mansion stocked with such “oddities” as shrunken heads and medieval torture devices, and his pioneering firsts in print, radio, and television were tapping into something deep in the American consciousness—a taste for the titillating and exotic, and a fascination with the fastest, biggest, dumbest and most weird. Today, that legacy continues and can be seen in reality TV, YouTube, America’s Funniest Home Videos, Jackass, MythBusters and a host of other pop-culture phenomena.

In the end Robert L. Ripley changed everything. The supreme irony of his life, which was dedicated to exalting the strange and unusual, is that he may have been the most amazing oddity of all.

A Curious Man by Neal Thompson

2013-05-07T00:30:00-05:00

A Curious Man The Strange and Brilliant Life of Robert "Believe It or Not!" Ripley
Written by Neal Thompson

eBook, 432 pages | Crown Archetype | Biography & Autobiography - Historical; Biography & Autobiography - Entertainment & Performing Arts; Reference - Trivia | $12.99 | May 7, 2013 | 978-0-7704-3621-6 (0-7704-3621-8)

From the Hardcover edition.

A Curious Man by Marc Cashman

2013-05-07T00:30:00-05:00

A Curious Man The Strange and Brilliant Life of Robert "Believe It or Not!" Ripley
Written by Neal Thompson
Read by Marc Cashman

Unabridged Audiobook Download | Random House Audio | Biography & Autobiography - Historical; Biography & Autobiography - Entertainment & Performing Arts; Reference - Trivia | $25.00 | May 7, 2013 | 978-0-385-36636-6 (0-385-36636-1)

From the Hardcover edition.

Rod by Rod Stewart

2013-05-07T00:30:00-05:00

Rod The Autobiography
Written by Rod Stewart

Trade Paperback, 400 pages | Three Rivers Press | Biography & Autobiography - Composers & Musicians; Biography & Autobiography - Rich & Famous; Music - Rock | $16.00 | May 7, 2013 | 978-0-307-98732-7 (0-307-98732-9)

The extraordinary life and career of music legend Rod Stewart, in his own words for the first time.

With his soulful and singular voice, narrative songwriting, and passionate live performances Rod Stewart has paved one of the most iconic and successful music careers of all time. He was the charismatic lead singer for the trailblazing rock and roll bands The Jeff Beck Group and The Faces, and as a solo artist, the author of such beloved songs as "Maggie May," "Tonight’s the Night," "Hot Legs," "Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?," "Young Turks," "Forever Young," and "You Wear It Well." Now after more than five decades in the spotlight, he is finally ready to take a candid and romping look back at his life both on and off the stage. From his humble British roots to his hell-raising years on tour with his bandmates, not forgetting his great loves (including three marriages and eight children) and decades touring the world, Rod delivers a riveting ride through one of rock's most remarkable lives.

From the Hardcover edition.

THE BASS SAXOPHONE by Josef Skvorecky

2013-05-01T00:30:00-05:00

THE BASS SAXOPHONE
Written by Josef Skvorecky

eBook | Knopf | Music - Jazz; Literary Criticism & Collections - Eastern European; Fiction - Literary | $14.99 | May 1, 2013 | 978-0-307-83212-2 (0-307-83212-0)

The two haunting, poetic novellas that comprise The Bass Saxophonebrilliantly evoke the comedy and sadness of life under the Nazi and Soviet dictatorships. They are prefaced by a remarkable memoir of Skvorecky's jazz-obsessed youth. Jazz is a symbol of freedom in both these novellas.

In Emoke, which is set in the shadow of the Communist regime, jazz becomes the means by which a jaded young man plots the seduction of a mysterious girl enmeshed in superstition and the occult. Spurned, but fascinated, he is drawn into her tortured existence until catapulted into the final bitter comedy.

In The Bass Saxophone a young Czechoslovakian student living under the rule of the Nazis is lured by his love of jazz - the "forbidden music" - into secretly and dangerously playing in a German band, with bizarre and unexpected results.

Written with the lyrical intensity of a great jazz performance, these two extraordinary novellas are among Skvorecky's finest works.

Cagney by John McCabe

2013-05-01T00:30:00-05:00

Cagney
Written by John McCabe

eBook | Knopf | Biography & Autobiography - Entertainment & Performing Arts | $16.99 | May 1, 2013 | 978-0-307-83099-9 (0-307-83099-3)

John McCabe's participation in the writing of James Cagney's autobiography, the many years of friendship that followed, and an intense period of interview and discussion in preparation for a musical comedy based on Cagney's life--a show that never saw the light of day--make him Cagney's ideal biographer. And, indeed, he has written a searching chronicle of this major actor's life and career, packed with history and anecdote, and profusely illustrated.

Cagney came from a poor Irish-American New York family but once he found his métier as an actor, it was not long before he was recognized as a brilliantly energetic and powerful phenomenon. After the tremendous impact of Public Enemy--in which he notoriously pushed half a grapefruit into Mae Clarke's face--he was typecast as a gangster because of the terrifying violence that seemed to be pent up within him. Years of pitched battle with Warner Brothers finally liberated him from those roles, and he went on to star in such triumphs as the musicals Yankee Doodle Dandy (winning the 1942 Oscar for best actor) and Love Me or Leave Me. Even so, one of his greatest later roles involved a return to crime--as the psychopathic killer in the terrifying White Heat. He retired from films in 1961 after making Billy Wilder's One, Two, Three, only to return twenty years later for Ragtime.

But however much Cagney personified violence and explosive energy on the screen, in life he was a quiet, introspective, and deeply private man, a poet, painter, and environmentalist, whose marriage to his early vaudeville partner was famously loyal and happy. His story is one of the few Hollywood biographies that reflect a fulfilled life as well as a spectacular career.

Seventeen Famous Operas by Ernest Newman

2013-05-01T00:30:00-05:00

Seventeen Famous Operas
Written by Ernest Newman

eBook | Knopf | Music - Opera; Music - Reference; Biography & Autobiography - Composers & Musicians | $18.99 | May 1, 2013 | 978-0-307-83083-8 (0-307-83083-7)

Tragic Muse by Rachel Brownstein

2013-05-01T00:30:00-05:00

Tragic Muse Rachel of the Comedie-Francaise
Written by Rachel Brownstein

eBook | Knopf | Biography & Autobiography - Entertainment & Performing Arts; History - France; Performing Arts - Theater - History & Criticism | $19.99 | May 1, 2013 | 978-0-307-83182-8 (0-307-83182-5)

Rachel Felix (1821-58), the homely daughter of poor Jewish peddlers, was the first stage actress to achieve international stardom - and the last person one would have expected to resurrect the cultural patrimony of France. Yet her passionate, startling performances of the works of Racine and Corneille saved them from almost certain obsolescence after the fall of Napoleon (who had relished classical French tragedy) and the emergence of Romanticism. Audiences in Paris, London, Boston, and Moscow thrilled to her voice, and devoured the rumors of her offstage promiscuity and extravagance. Her fame - equal parts popularity and notoriety - was so great that she could nonchalantly dispose of her last name. La grande Rachel virtually invented the role of the superstar, while remaining a symbol of the highest art and most serious cultural pursuits. Indeed, her identity was fraught with such contradictions - which intrigued the public all the more. From the moment she was discovered playing the guitar on the streets of Lyons, to her debut on the Parisian stage at the age of fifteen, to her critical and commercial triumphs as Camille, Phedre, and other tormented women, Rachel's career was exhaustively "managed." A series of theater gurus, influential reviewers, and impresarios - including her brash and opportunistic father - claimed the credit for her astonishing success. What this abundance of male managers has always obscured is Rachel's own decisiveness and control over her time and money - not only did she play her various champions (and high-profile lovers) against one another, she openly defied them. Some called her stubborn, even perverse; in these pages, we come to recognize her as a woman ahead of her time, a charismatic individual very much in charge of her own destiny. As her fascination with all things Napoleonic suggests, Rachel liked power - both personal and professional - and had the talent to command it.

Attempting Normal by Marc Maron

2013-04-30T00:30:00-05:00

Attempting Normal
Written by Marc Maron

NATIONAL BESTSELLER

People make a mess.

Marc Maron was a parent-scarred, angst-filled, drug-dabbling, love-starved comedian who dreamed of a simple life: a wife, a home, a sitcom to call his own. But instead he woke up one day to find himself fired from his radio job, surrounded by feral cats, and emotionally and financially annihilated by a divorce from a woman he thought he loved. He tried to heal his broken heart through whatever means he could find—minor-league hoarding, Viagra addiction, accidental racial profiling, cat fancying, flying airplanes with his mind—but nothing seemed to work. It was only when he was stripped down to nothing that he found his way back.

Attempting Normal is Marc Maron’s journey through the wilderness of his own mind, a collection of explosively, painfully, addictively funny stories that add up to a moving tale of hope and hopelessness, of failing, flailing, and finding a way. From standup to television to his outrageously popular podcast, WTF with Marc Maron, Marc has always been a genuine original, a disarmingly honest, intensely smart, brutally open comic who finds wisdom in the strangest places. This is his story of the winding, potholed road from madness and obsession and failure to something like normal, the thrillingly comic journey of a sympathetic f***up who’s trying really hard to do better without making a bigger mess. Most of us will relate.

Praise for Marc Maron and WTF

“The stuff of comedy legend.”—Rolling Stone

“Marc Maron is a startlingly honest, compelling, and hilarious comedian-poet. Truly one of the greatest of all time.”—Louis C.K.

“I’ve known Marc for years and I can tell you first hand that he’s passionate, fearless, honest, self-absorbed, neurotic, and screamingly funny.”—David Cross

“Revered among his peers . . . raw and unflinchingly honest.”—Entertainment Weekly

“Devastatingly funny.”—Los Angeles Times

“For a comedy nerd, this show is nirvana.”—Judd Apatow

Random House New Releases - Music - Performing Arts - Music Biographies - Entertainment Biographies - Between May 18, 2012 and June 17, 2013.

Queen of the Air by Dean N. Jensen

Queen of the Air A True Story of Love and Tragedy at the CircusWritten by Dean N. Jensen

Queen of the Air by Dean N. Jensen

Queen of the Air A True Story of Love and Tragedy at the CircusWritten by Dean N. Jensen

Queen of the Air by Emma Bering

Queen of the Air A True Story of Love and Tragedy at the CircusWritten by Dean N. Jensen Read by Emma Bering

Gods Like Us by Ty Burr

Gods Like Us On Movie Stardom and Modern FameWritten by Ty Burr

My Life with Cleopatra by Joe Hyams

My Life with Cleopatra The Making of a Hollywood ClassicWritten by Walter Wanger and Joe Hyams Afterword by Kenneth Turan

My Life with Cleopatra by Joe Hyams

My Life with Cleopatra The Making of a Hollywood ClassicWritten by Walter Wanger and Joe Hyams Afterword by Kenneth Turan

A Curious Man by Neal Thompson

A Curious Man The Strange and Brilliant Life of Robert "Believe It or Not!" RipleyWritten by Neal Thompson

A Curious Man by Neal Thompson

A Curious Man The Strange and Brilliant Life of Robert "Believe It or Not!" RipleyWritten by Neal Thompson

A Curious Man by Marc Cashman

A Curious Man The Strange and Brilliant Life of Robert "Believe It or Not!" RipleyWritten by Neal Thompson Read by Marc Cashman

Rod by Rod Stewart

Rod The AutobiographyWritten by Rod Stewart

THE BASS SAXOPHONE by Josef Skvorecky

THE BASS SAXOPHONE Written by Josef Skvorecky

Cagney by John McCabe

Cagney Written by John McCabe

Seventeen Famous Operas by Ernest Newman

Seventeen Famous Operas Written by Ernest Newman

Tragic Muse by Rachel Brownstein

Tragic Muse Rachel of the Comedie-FrancaiseWritten by Rachel Brownstein

Attempting Normal by Marc Maron

Attempting Normal Written by Marc Maron

Queen of the Air A True Story of Love and Tragedy at the Circus
Written by Dean N. Jensen

Queen of the Air A True Story of Love and Tragedy at the Circus
Written by Dean N. Jensen

Queen of the Air A True Story of Love and Tragedy at the Circus
Written by Dean N. Jensen
Read by Emma Bering

Gods Like Us On Movie Stardom and Modern Fame
Written by Ty Burr

My Life with Cleopatra The Making of a Hollywood Classic
Written by Walter Wanger and Joe Hyams
Afterword by Kenneth Turan

My Life with Cleopatra The Making of a Hollywood Classic
Written by Walter Wanger and Joe Hyams
Afterword by Kenneth Turan

A Curious Man The Strange and Brilliant Life of Robert "Believe It or Not!" Ripley
Written by Neal Thompson

A Curious Man The Strange and Brilliant Life of Robert "Believe It or Not!" Ripley
Written by Neal Thompson

A Curious Man The Strange and Brilliant Life of Robert "Believe It or Not!" Ripley
Written by Neal Thompson
Read by Marc Cashman

Rod The Autobiography
Written by Rod Stewart

THE BASS SAXOPHONE
Written by Josef Skvorecky

Cagney
Written by John McCabe

Seventeen Famous Operas
Written by Ernest Newman

Tragic Muse Rachel of the Comedie-Francaise
Written by Rachel Brownstein

Attempting Normal
Written by Marc Maron