Washoe County Library System

"The History of Sketch Comedy will appeal to all kinds of comedy fans as well as fans of Keegan-Michael Key. With epic personal tangents and hilarious asides, their story takes you on an illuminating look at all facets of comedy from the stock charactersof commedia del arte in the 16th century, to the rise of vaudeville and burlesque, the golden age of television comedy, the influence of the most well-known comedy schools, and ascension of comedy...

“An extended spa treatment that stretches tired brains and unkinks the usual habitual responses where Hitchens is concerned.” —James Wolcott in his introduction An outstanding new collection, A HITCH IN TIME is a must have for Hitchens completists and the perfect starting point for understanding one of the most brilliant essayists of all time. Anthologized here for the first time, A HITCH IN TIME is a choice selection of Christopher Hitchens’s...

"Plants, borders, and various horticultural paraphernalia make surprisingly frequent appearances in mystery plots. In this wide-ranging survey of classic and contemporary murder fiction, Marta looks at the detectives, motives, methods, opportunities, andwriters that have used the garden as their point of departure. The result is a diverting and eye-opening study that deepens our appreciation of the great crime fiction writers while illuminating the...

"A playful, highly visual exploration of novelistic structure and how novels are created, How to Draw a Novel is a meditation on literary craft that muses on how and why novels communicate with readers. In this witty and finely wrought collection of essays, Martain Solares opens the hood of how fiction operates, exploring the conventions of form, the novel as a house that one must build brick by brick, and the objects and characters that build out...

"Surely You Can't Be Serious is an in-depth and hysterical look at the making of 1980's comedy classic Airplane! by the legendary writers and directors of the hit film. Airplane! premiered on July 2nd, 1980. With a budget of $3.5 million it went on to make nearly $200 million in sales and has influenced a multitude of comedians on both sides of the camera. Surely You Can't Be Serious is the first-ever oral history of the making of Airplane! by the...

"In Here's to the Ladies, theater journalist Eddie Shapiro opens a jewelry box full of glittering surprises, through in-depth conversations with twenty leading women of Broadway. The women he interviewed spent endless hours with him, discussing their careers, offering insights into the iconic shows, changes on Broadway over the last century, and the art (and thrill) of taking the stage night after night. Each of these conversations is guided by Shapiro's...

"Definitive and deeply researched, Curepedia will surprise and inform fans everywhere as they await The Cure's highly anticipated next album release. The Cure remain, 40 plus years into their career, one of the biggest rock bands in the world. With 12 studio albums, tours that pack stadiums all over the world—including their recent sold out series across North America in Spring/Summer 2023—they were the first alternative band to be inducted into...

"A fascinating history of the art form that has transformed the cultural landscape, by one of its influential practitioners, an award-winning poet, professor, and slam champion In 2009, when he was twenty years old, Joshua Bennett was invited to perform aspoken word poem for Barack and Michelle Obama, at the same White House "Poetry Jam" where Lin Manuel-Miranda declaimed the opening bars of a work-in-progress that would soon revolutionize American...

The Chief Creative Officer of Sony Music presents a candid assessment of his life and the past half-century of popular music from an insider's perspective, tracing the difficulties he faced as an orphaned teen, the controversies that challenged his ambitions and his work with a wide array of stars and personalities.

Describes how Top 40 radio in the mid-1980s was both the cutting edge of pop culture and a battleground for morals that saw huge, and eternally popular releases and hits from Michael Jackson, Prince, Madonna, and Bruce Springsteen. "A Rolling Stone-Kirkus Best Music Book of 2020 The definitive account of pop music in the mid-eighties, from Prince and Madonna to the underground hip-hop, indie rock, and club scenes Everybody knows the hits of...